Chapter 1: Introducing .NET

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Overview

One thing can be said about Microsoft: It never stands still. The rate at which new products and technologies are churned out from the Redmond production mill never ceases to amaze.

As with all companies, Microsoft's ideas come and go in distinct waves. Client/server was done thoroughly for many years, from the early days of Microsoft LAN Manager to Windows NT. At that time I was working as a product manager at Microsoft U.K., responsible for the evolving Structured Query Language (SQL) Server RDBMS product on both Windows NT and OS/2. Innovation in those days was relatively slow as new features were added and improved, but because SQL Server was never seen as mainstream, this was a quiet backwater filled with database and developer tool enthusiasts.

The launch of Windows NT in August 1993 started to wedge open the corporate door for Microsoft as it started to transition from the desktop to the server. Gradually the snowball started to gather pace, as Windows NT encroached further and further into the traditional systems' glass house.

At about this time, the Internet was starting to evolve from the world of academia to the world of commerce. Little by little, organizations started to realize the potential of the Internet and World Wide Web for commercial purposes. But Microsoft was nowhere to be seen.

As an organization Microsoft may be seen as visionary, but the Internet passed it by until the well-documented Internet strategy day on December 7, 1995, when Bill Gates announced: We're [Microsoft] hard-core about the Internet. A whole new Microsoft era had begun.

Windows DNA was version 1 of Microsoft's Internet strategy. This cringingly awful acronym, standing for Distributed iNternet Architecture, was really no more than a rehash of multitier client/server computing, where the user interface layer was separated from the middle-tier business objects and the back-end database. Unfortunately for Microsoft, Windows DNA was a failure, since neither the marketing spin masters nor the technical developers really understood what Microsoft was trying to do with it.

In parallel with the Windows DNA effort, a group of senior Microsoft types was given the task of redefining the future of Windows on a project called Next Generation Windows Services, or NGWS. This was seen in the market as a strategic comeback following the U.S. Department of Justice investigation and court case. By moving the strategy forward into the future, the relevance of any legal findings would quickly fade into the annals of computing history, leaving Microsoft a clear direction ahead.

NGWS was finally renamed .NET (pronounced 'dot net') and launched in June 2000.

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