Should I use LAMP, .Net, or any other platform? I have access to resources with LAMP, .Net, ROR and Java experience. Thanks.
Sorry for being vague. Could you give me a few pluses and minuses of each like Paul? Thanks for your time and effort.
If you're planning to host the system, then you are best to work in a language that you are comfortable with and can hire people to help you. That means you want something reasonably popular, but also oriented towards the type of functionality you are implementing. Presumably you are writing some form of web application.
Personally, my favorite web app language was Perl, but it took a huge amount of self-discipline to keep from making it a mess. It's probably not great for big teams, and it's hard to hire people with experience.
PHP is great for pounding out web apps, and it has a big following. Unless I haven't been keeping up on it LAMP, .Net, ROR and PHP are all bounded by web 1.0 technologies, which means augmenting them with a JavaScript library like Dojo if you want to use AJAX (which is all the rage these days).
If the software is enterprise, then Java or C# are more sellable, but since you're running it yourself that doesn't matter. Personally I'd stay far away from J2EE, it's just too much complexity for too little functionality.
My latest combo is Java, GWT and hibernate, but I find they are very difficult technologies to master. Good if you have the time for long term development, but not so great if you're in a hurry.
So, if you're in a rush, prototyping in LAMP, with a very simple 1.0 front-end is probably best, then later once you've crystallized the concept, redoing the system in some stronger technology will help you get to the next level of performance.
Paul.