Microsoft's new vision is coming at us under the moniker "Microsoft.Net," or just ".NET." Supposedly this new age of computing transcends the present-day terminal/mainframe, character-based personal computing, graphical interface, Web-browsing business as usual. The idea is that the .NET platform will establish standards to make gathering, sharing, and accessing data easier and more compatible with the different devices and methods used to access the Internet. Bill Gates is predicting that Web sites will be highly personalized and configurable and will incorporate data from many different sources. Said data will be accessible from multiple sources -- PCs, PDAs, cell phones, or in-vehicle computers. The new interface will smoothly integrate keyboard, mouse, speech, and handwriting input. All of this is based on XML (Extensible Markup Language), which is an open-standard metalanguage configured for easy and sophisticated exchange of data over the Internet. Gates says that while today, the computing device is central, in .NET world, the user is central. While Microsoft's .NET is growing out of the Win 2K operating system, several new devices operating under the new rubric include the Universal Canvas, a user interface allowing users to create documents, surf the Web, and exchange data with each other; and the Tablet PC, a notebook-sized slate that looks and works somewhat like an e-book, except that it runs on Win 2K and features wireless Internet access. One of the big thrusts of .NET is the steady moving away from user-owned applications; in the .NET world, you wouldn't have a word processor or spreadsheet app installed on your computer, you'd access what you need over the Net. Microsoft intends to release Windows.NET 1.0 sometime in 2001, but no one's holding their breath on Microsoft meeting that release date, and Gates has already said that the first iteration won't contain all of the features planned for the platform. Definitely there's more to come in this area. For more information on Windows XP, Microsoft's first operating system designed to be compatible with .NET, check out my page on Win 98, Millennium, and XP/Whistler. For more serious .NET info, trundle over to msdn.microsoft.com/net/ and prepare to be amazed, or at least confused. For a slicker presentation, check out Microsoft's Net Show at msdn.microsoft.com/theshow/Episode011/. For more objective information, go to GotDotNet at www.gotdotnet.com/. Another way to look at it is to think of .NET as Microsoft's version of Java, since the .NET initiative is purported to make it easier to write applications that will run on multiple platforms, possibly including Linux and Macs. Hmmmm. Watch for news of the J#Beta if this interests you.

The first major appearance of the .NET initiative is Microsoft's .NET My Services, which stores and accesses a centralized database of info about end users (that's us) through its Passport authentication and sign-up system. Users can create a user profile, an online "wallet" for payment information, and a calendar, all usable with a plethora of commercial sites.

On a more personal level, Microsoft's .NET Passport is being used as a part of Windows XP's setup procedure. Passport is described by the company as a suite of ebusiness services that make using the Web and completing online transactions easier, faster, and more secure. Personal users can store credit card, contact information, Web passwords and sign-in procedures, and businesses have more options. SitePoint claims that as of the end of 2001, over 165 million of us have Passport accounts. The XP setup procedure falsely claims to require a Passport account to complete its Internet configuration, and worse, the system has already proven woefully easy to hack. I wouldn't come near it with a ten-foot pole in its present condition, but look for Microsoft to attempt to shore it up in the near future.

Microsoft is now making online versions of its Office applications available at the easyEverything chain of Internet cafes. Another part of the .NET advance, as is the new release of VisualStudio.Net and the Net Framework (a library of runtime and component files). Neither of these last two are of use to anyone except Web developers (that leaves out the majority of us Great Unwashed), but it gives us an idea of where Microsoft is going with .Net technology. A scaled-down version of Net Framework for Win CE is also coming online.

The next step in the .NET initiative was announced at the end of July 2002. Microsoft claims that security and identity protection will be a large part of the next .NET step. A new .NET server has been released, which natively supports the .NET Framework and is designed to support XML-based Web services. Additionally, the new "Palladium" initiative, a set of security protocols for both hard- and software products, is out: according to ZDNet, "[Palladium is] designed to protect networked trust and privacy purportedly. But critics have said that it could give Microsoft and consortium partners too much control over the platform decisions and personal information." Other new .NET products include a new version of SQL Server, code-named "Yukon," which is a step toward what Microsoft is calling "unified data." Yukon will include a brand-new database engine rather than a retooled one with the goal of giving IT managers and developers a centralized way to analyze and visualize data. Also, a new product called Windows XP Media Center Edition was announced. This utility specializes in handling and organizing digital media files, such as music files and digital photographs. Interestingly enough, the new server was released without the .NET moniker: instead of being called "Windows .NET Server 2003," it was called simply "Windows Server 2003." The decision grew out of a mass confusion and ignorance over what exactly .NET is.

Also, look for a new protocol called "Trustbridge" to facilitate trusted communications between systems. Other ideas are "My Services," which are some sort of end-user services as detailed above, and "Yukon," which is some kind of cross-platform, cross-service storage facility. All of this may coalesce around the new version of Windows, currently dubbed "Longhorn" and set to debut in 2005 (now 2006, and maybe never). We'll know more later.

Want a more technically-minded explanation? Here's a runthrough adapted from a June 2004 newsletter from Karen Kenworthy.

In a nutshell, the .NET Framework is the next generation of Windows. As its name suggests, this it supports the entire .NET initiative. the framework consists of two parts: the ".NET Class Libraries" and the "Common Language Runtime." The NET Class Libraries are the replacement for the Windows API (Application Program Interface). In other words, it's the new way that programs and Windows "talk" to each other. The .NET Class Libraries are really amazing. They provide the services of older versions of Windows. They can draw text and images on the screen, send data to printers and modems, read and write disks, and more. But they can do a lot more. One library can perform elaborate cryptography functions. Access to all sorts of data bases is provided by another (ADO.NET, or Active Data Objects .NET). Folks that host web sites can take advantage of the new ASP.NET library, which enhances the older ASP (Active Server Pages) functions found in some older versions of Windows. One library lets programs manipulate a new type of data file called XML (eXtended Markup Language). These files store and transmit data in a way that doesn't depend on the computer or program that originally created the data. Another library enables programs to securely send data across the Internet. There must be hundreds of new libraries, each containing several new services Windows can perform on behalf of other programs. It would take days to go through it all. But one thing's clear -- these .NET Class Libraries are really powerful. And it looks like Microsoft can easily expand them as needs and technologies change. The second part of the .NET framework is the Common Language Runtime, or CLR. The CLR changes the way programs "talk" to our hardware. Programs think the Common Language Runtime IS the computer. They order it to add, subtract, multiply and divide. They ask the CLR to store data in memory, and perform all the other tasks normally handled by a computer's CPU (Central Processing Unit) and other circuits. But it's all an illusion. The Common Language Runtime pretends to be a new, idealized computer. It behaves like a computer custom-designed just to run the new .NET programs. Its features, its "way of thinking" exactly match those of the new .NET software. Here's how the programs are fooled: After a program gives the CLR an order, the CLR carries out the request by issuing orders of its own to the computer's real hardware. In effect, it translates the binary language spoken by the imaginary CLR computer into the instructions understood by our actual computer. At first the CLR sounds like a colossal waste of time. After all, today's programs don't need this translation. They already contain instructions understood by today's CPUs. Why add an additional, time-consuming step? But it's really one of the beauties of the .NET Initiative and the .NET Framework. Thanks to the CLR, computer hardware will be free to evolve, no longer required to emulate designs developed 25 years ago. With the right CLR, .NET programs will run on any computer we buy today. Or the computer we'll buy tomorrow -- or five or ten years from tomorrow. In fact, programs written for the .NET Framework can run on any computer, past, present or future, that has a suitable set of .NET Class Libraries and a Common Language Runtime adapted to its CPU. Today, only the current crop Windows-compatible computers meet these requirements. That's because Microsoft's current .NET Framework can only be added to computer running Windows 98 or later (it's built into Windows Server 2003, and all future versions of Windows). But Microsoft has disclosed the source code of the Common Language Runtime software to many universities and other organizations. And they're encouraged to adapt the CLR to new platforms. Already, CLRs have been created for several non-Windows computers. Among them you'll find Apple Macs using the PowerPC chip, SPARC workstations running Solaris, ordinary PCs running Linux, even IBM's S390 computers that run Linux! Of course, adapting the CLR to a new computer is only one step. The .NET Class Libraries must be "ported" too. Microsoft will no doubt do that job for CPUs and computer designs that become popular. After all, having this flexibility is one big reason for the .NET Initiative. But what about other computers, those Microsoft doesn't consider important? For them, the answer may be the "Mono Project." According to their web site: "The Mono project is an open source effort sponsored by Novell to create a free implementation of the .NET Development Framework. Mono includes a compiler for the C# language, a Common Language Runtime (CLR)...and a set of class libraries. ...It implements both ADO.NET and ASP.NET." Elsewhere they reveal a version of the Visual Basic .NET compiler is in the works too.

If the .NET framework interests you, check out Project Mono, an open-source alternative to .NET referenced above, at www.go-mono.com/. So far they've released the Beta 2 version of their project.