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| Sample chapther from Introducing .Net |
.NET Overview
In July 2000, Microsoft held the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Orlando, Florida, where they revealed many details to the public about their next generation platform for Windows and Internet software development – .NET.
Microsoft's .NET initiative is broad-based and very ambitious. It revolves around the .NET Framework, which encompasses the actual language and execution platform, plus extensive class libraries providing rich built-in functionality. At its core, the .NET framework embraces XML and SOAP to provide a new level of integration of software over the Internet. There is also a family of server-based products called .NET Enterprise Servers that are to be the next generation of Microsoft's BackOffice.
The .NET Framework introduces a completely new model for the programming and deployment of applications. In his PDC keynote speech, Bill Gates stated that a transition of this magnitude only comes along once every five to six years. The last comparable shifts were the switch from DOS to Windows in 1990 and the migration from 16-bit to 32-bit development (Windows 3.x to Windows 95/NT) in the mid-nineties.
Developers at PDC were excited by the prospect of a dramatically better architecture for software development within the .NET Framework, even though Microsoft made it clear that released products based on .NET are still well into the future. The first release will probably be Visual Studio.NET, the beta-one of which became available in November 2000. No firm dates are available for the full commercial release but general expectation is for fall 2001 at the earliest.
How important is this to Microsoft? Well, their executives have publicly stated that 80% of R&D resources in 2001 are being spent on .NET and the expectation is that most Microsoft products will be ported onto the .NET platform. Also C# (pronounced C-sharp), a new language specifically created for .NET, looks set to become the standard language for internal development within Microsoft.
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