Microsoft Casts Its .NET

This column appeared in the August 2000 edition of EXE, my last printed article before the magazine folded. I felt it was fortunate that my final piece was something that looked to the future, namely the recently announced strategy for Microsoft technology as a whole.

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This month I’m moving away from any purely Visual Basic content to review the recent series of presentations given by Bill Gates and co concerning the forthcoming Microsoft .NET (pronounced “dot-net”) initiative. Previously referred to as the Next-Generation Windows Services (NGWS), this new statement will, in the words of Microsoft, “provide easier, more personalised and more productive Internet experiences by harnessing constellations of smart devices and Web sites with advanced software through Internet protocols and formats”. Because Microsoft is now planning a change of direction it is perhaps useful to start disseminating details of this strategy to give developers and companies the opportunity to start preparing for it.

Like it or loathe it there’s no denying that Microsoft is a fantastically successful company, and part of the reason for this is that it recognises the need to reinvent itself every few years. It originally moved its initial product range from DOS over to Windows, and then a few years later it turned the company around on a sixpence to incorporate the Internet into virtually everything that it produced. This latest change, every bit as important as the previous ones, is the formal adoption of a strategy that it hopes will position itself as a major platform of choice in the emerging Application Service Provider (ASP) marketplace.

Several other big players, such as Oracle, Hewlett–Packard, Sybase, and IBM have already started to make their presence felt in this area. In the case of Microsoft, of course, it has effectively been trying to forge ahead with one leg tied behind its back because of the ongoing monopoly court case. Indeed, because of the legal action the actual technology announcement was delayed by a few weeks to allow time for Judge Jackson to present his verdict. Originally slated for April 1st of this year, it was initially postponed until June 1st but didn’t finally happen until June 22nd. Despite the fact that Microsoft has now made a public statement regarding their future intentions, the fact remains that again they have to play catch up to the current Internet trends. In true Microsoft fashion the announcement may be late, but it’s big.

So what is it?

The .NET programme is fundamentally concerned with the sharing and moving of data over Internet architecture, with improved security services as appropriate. The key to virtually all of this is XML because it provides the basis for a universally recognizable format to facilitate the transfer of data and any associated schemas. XML is a means of defining data, and the means by which XML is passed around from one device to another is the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP).

The future for the web user is to extend the original concept of Information At Your Fingertips; a slogan that is now ten years old! This is turning the concept into more of a far-reaching endeavour however because you will be able to share data and information in a much more global fashion. Of course the accompanying technology that will facilitate all of this is the emerging rise in wireless technologies, coupled with the eventual availability of higher–bandwidth, “always on” telecommunications links such as ADSL or better. Combining these two together means that your data should always be up to date and available wherever it is needed. Users should be able to control how, when, and what information is delivered to them.

How Will It Be Delivered?

Forthcoming versions of most of Microsoft’s core products will be geared towards this new direction, and at the time of writing some of the products names are actually appended with the .NET suffix. Overall this statement reveals that the existing products that are affected by the new direction will be oriented towards Web–based services that are accessible from either a conventional PC–based browser, or newer technologies such as cellular phones and handheld devices.

The product at the very core of this is of course Windows itself; the full .NET successor to Windows 2000 is currently codenamed “Blackcomb” and is intended for launch within the 2002 timeframe. Within this product will be a set of .NET building block services (see Figure 1) that will form the basis for applications and components. Bill did say that this would offer a full new user experience, which translates into something along the lines of “another user interface change is coming along”. In the shorter term (i.e. 2001) there will be an immediate successor to Windows 2000, currently codenamed “Whistler”, that will offer the beginnings of the .NET services. As you can see this is all something that will be emerging over time; Microsoft were very much referring to the “2002+” timeframe for things to start coming to fruition.

Building Block	Description
Identity	Based around current Microsoft Passport and Windows authentication technology, this is a mechanism for providing user authentication using techniques such as passwords, smart cards, and biometric devices. This will be released with “Whistler”.
Notification and messaging	Integrates messaging, email, fax, voice mail, and so on into a unified notification.
Personalisation	Allows the user to specify rules governing how, where, and when messages will be handled and how data will be shared. Also handles the synchronisation of a user’s data among multiple devices.
XML store	Describes and contains the data held by the user using XML and SOAP definitions. This XML store can either be on a user’s own computer, or can be leased from a service provider
Calendar	Based on the Outlook messaging service, this securely integrates work, social, and home calendars so that they are available to all of a user’s devices and, optionally, whether they are available to the outside world (and how).
Directory and search	The .NET concept will allow for the maintenance of central directories of services and people, allowing for schema–based search operations to take place.
Dynamic delivery	Allows for automatic upgrading of a service without user installation or configuration.

Figure 1: Microsoft.NET building block services

Office.NET will provide what Bill Gates describes as a Universal Canvas Technology which “is the idea that you no longer leave the browser”. This will see the fruits of a project that’s been on the go at Redmond for some time now, namely the renting of software. In this case you will run a copy of Office that exists on a web server rather than your own local hard disk. The benefits put forward here are that you never need to worry about having to apply service packs or tweak the configuration in order to get it to run properly because Microsoft will take care of all that (hmmm!). Seriously though, the concept is that the collaboration services introduced with Office 2000 will really come into their own because you can make your project or calendar information (for example) as publicly available – or not – as you choose. To alleviate any concerns that might arise at this stage I will point out that Microsoft have stated that a non .NET-based version of this product will still be offered and supported.

Visual Studio.NET is the product that will follow the eagerly awaited Visual Studio 7. I already devoted a column to this subject in the May 2000 edition of EXE, but as far as Windows.NET is concerned the key features will be Web Forms and Web Services. While Visual Basic is due for a major revamp, a whole new branding of C++ is also in the works: C# – pronounced “C sharp” – is being provided to deliver “the computing power of the C++ language and the ease of use of its own Visual Basic language”. VS7 is already in a limited beta, and could possibly be in a more publicly available form of pre-release by the time you read this.

bCentral for .NET, another part of this vision, will be a series of subscription-based services and tools “for small and growing businesses”. It will offer Web Services such as commerce services, hosted messaging and email, and a customer relationship management function which will offer companies the facility to track interactions with customers.

As a means to the storage of user data Microsoft are also busy enhancing their MSN service into MSN.NET. This will enable customers to create a “single digital personality” and will provide email, calendaring, instant messages, Web site publishing, and document authoring. The technology behind this new premium subscription service is also still under development and is likely to go into beta later in the year.

Finally, the Information Agent service will manage a user’s identity and data. It is a service that will be responsible for making user data available to that user – or whoever else has permission to access it – from a range of devices, including desktop PCs, tablet PCs, and smart phone that support the .NET technology. Greater control is maintained over how web sites and services interact with the user, based upon the stored profile of preferences and history. To all Star Trek fans out there, I can’t help but see the similarity to the various devices the crew of the Enterprise carry around such as tricorders and PADDs, all of which hook up to each other via wireless communication.

Web Services

If the 1990’s were about the rise of the Internet, then this new decade will be about the provision of services and components available on the net. I would certainly expect to see a lot of success stories based around companies that lease their components for usage on the net. The principle here is that an application developer can hook into existing code components that are available “out there” at some URL. Each time the component is used a nominal charge can be applied, allowing the service providers to generate revenue from the usage. The company developing the application, on the other hand, saves the cost and time of developing a particular piece of software because it’s already out there for rent. This concept will be empowered by a feature that is currently known as Web Service “Discovery”. The aim of this is to provide the programmatic tracking down of the service locations and service descriptions for all the available Web Service providers in the world. This will fit within Visual Studio as a pane that will allow you to drill down some form of object hierarchy to find the service that you want, and then drag it onto your project.

So Microsoft are steaming ahead ever more deeply into Internet territory, and are also apparently looking to set themselves up as an Internet services company. This .NET strategy will take two to three years to start coming to fruition so there will be plenty of time for further legal obstacles to be raised. Microsoft’s rough ride is by no means over yet.