Microsoft .NET in plain English, A Windows 2000 technology showcase

On Thursday, June 22, 2000, executives from Microsoft Corporation finally unveiled the company's plans for the future, which revolve around a set of technologies called Microsoft .NET ("Microsoft Dot Net"). And while news of this magnitude tends to make even the mainstream press, one thing was probably lost on most people that heard about the new strategy. Microsoft .NET represents a complete and utter change in the way that Microsoft does business, and it will gradually transform the company from one that supplies shrink-wrapped software to one that supplies subscription-based services to its customers over the Internet.

Because of its complexity, Microsoft .NET is a confusing concept that is lost on most people. It's "a next-generation programming model that lets people take advantage of the wonders of XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and provides the next-generation user experience," says Microsoft president Steve Ballmer. "It involves the user interface [now dubbed the user experience], new back-end services, and gives the user control over a variety of Web sites. What are the bits? Its set of middleware and end-user interfaces that go into devices, servers and the Internet cloud."

Dot NET behind the scenes
We might break down Microsoft Dot NET into the following components:

Dot NET road map
For this strategy to come together, a number of things need to happen. First of all, Microsoft needs to partner with third parties that can supply the infrastructure for a subscription-based service. The company already has good relationships with Conxion and other application hosting services that would be up to the task, and we can assume that these companies will be vying for Microsoft's business. Microsoft's products will need to be upgraded first, and then totally overhauled, to become compatible with Dot NET services. At a very low level, this means that Microsoft's products will have to be XML-enabled, and this is something that they are working on right now. All of the company's products that ship in 2000 and beyond will be XML-enabled to varying degrees, from server products such as SQL Server 2000 and Exchange Server 2000 to client applications like Internet Explorer and Microsoft Outlook. In some cases, this will require two generations of upgrades. For example, Microsoft will begin beta testing Office 10 this summer, but Office 10 isn't the first version of Office.NET. Instead, Office 10 will offer a few Dot Net services, such as Smart Links, while the company prepares a future release that will completely exist in the Dot NET world. In some cases--such as Windows--the company will probably have to create versions of the product that are Dot NET enabled and versions that are not. This is because it will take at least two years (though I'd guess four) for the Dot NET strategy to unfold.

As this is written in mid-2000, Microsoft's Dot NET roadmap is already starting to unfold. The first Dot NET technology release is MSN 6, which will feature the new user experience. An alpha version of Visual Studio 7, which will be given to developers in mid-July 2000, will usher in the first Dot NET technologies for programmers, so that these people can begin working on applications that will run as Web services. And Office 10 and Whistler will also enter beta this month. Office 10, as previously mentioned, isn't a Dot NET technology per se, but Whistler is. Whistler represents the 1.0 version of Windows.NET, a new kind of Windows that will offer an infrastructure and base for Dot NET services. A future version of Windows (such as Windows.NET 2.0, code-named "Blackcomb") will complete the Dot NET picture when it is released in 2-3 years.

Conclusion
If you think about Microsoft .NET as "software as a service," then you've got the right idea. In many cases, this software will actually be a subscription service, of course, which means that you will have to pay some ongoing fee for its use. While this pay model isn't yet common in the software industry, it's certainly common enough elsewhere. And it's likely that the world will embrace software subscriptions once the original confusion wears off. Microsoft's biggest problem is going to be educating users about the change, to be honest, as the technology is already in place to make this happen. A pervasive use of XML now will ensure that the foundation for Microsoft .NET is in place by the time Whistler ships next year.