Quote Originally Posted by TheLion
OMG! I didn't know that... that's bad... :-/ You would expect that after almost 10 years of having something like Delphi they would have thought of something that compares to the Visual C++ static libraries!!!
All .NET applications produced with Visual C++.NET or Visual C#.NET require the System assembly, but since Microsoft created Visual C++.NET and Visual C#.NET, the System assembly is distributed with the .NET Framework that must be installed before any .NET application can be run. So .NET applications produced by Microsoft tools still have the requirement for at least one external assembly, but it just happens to already exist on every machine that has the .NET Framework installed.

In Borland's case, their argument is that the standard .NET assemblies did not have some the functionality that Delphi's System unit had. So, every .NET application created with a Borland tool must lug along the baggage of a Borland.System assembly with it.