.Net steps into the spotlight

The event is the company`s showcase for its newest developments and an opportunity for users to connect with the "the source". Last year`s conference, at the height of the dot-com boom, attracted a "mere" 750 or so delegates. A year later, and a year in which Microsoft has been embroiled in legal wrangling and its software has been home to ever more virulent viruses, the company looks to be all the stronger, attracting more than 1 300 delegates.

Clearly Microsoft is still very big business in SA and shows very little indication of slowing down.

Alastair Otter, Journalist, ITWeb

Clearly Microsoft is still very big business in SA and shows very little indication of slowing down. And it is not only the South African Microsoft developers that were out in strength but a number of international delegates made the trip from as far as the Far East.

So what keeps them rolling in? Apart from the obvious attraction of a relatively expensive three-day getaway crammed with beer, loud music and tons of food, it is no doubt the many technical sessions that users are most interested in, and with Microsoft on the brink of a completely new strategy, information is what developers most need.

The topic for this year`s TechEd was .Net. We`ve all heard about it. And we`ve all no doubt read hundreds of articles on the topic, but like many things connected to the software world, and in no way particular to Microsoft although the company does lead the way in late software releases, the hype often doesn`t live up to reality. And in the case of .Net it seems to have been coming for a long time but the specifics have been wrapped up for far too long in the marketing hype.

Cutting through the hype, .Net is about Web services; information and applications that are housed in repositories on the Internet that can be "consumed" by users of .Net clients. Interestingly, speakers were eager to point out that .Net services are not limited to Windows products and can be utilised, with the aid of the common runtime environment, by users of any device.

But more than just being a set of applications that are available over the Net, .Net would seem to be part of Microsoft`s move away from selling "hard" copies of software to a subscription-based model that ties in very neatly with the company`s new licensing regime due to be launched next month. In terms of the new licensing scheme, users are expected to license a "technology" rather than a specific boxed-product. Based on regular subscription fees, users will then be entitled to regular updates and the newest releases.

For users and companies who regularly update their applications, the new regime could well prove to be a more economical method of keeping up with the latest releases. Those that are most likely to be disadvantaged by the new scheme are those less interested in keeping up with the cutting-edge.

But while the marketing hype around .Net still rolls on, the practicalities of creating these Web services are starting to take shape. Beta versions of Visual Studio .Net are starting to do the rounds and the most useful sessions at TechEd were focused on creating Web services using this new development environment.

The language-agnostic .Net development environment is a significant development that allows developers to use their existing skills to create these new services. But what really intrigues me is the fact that Microsoft is so eager to stress that the .Net services are available to all users. The open source developer community has already responded with a number of compatible products.

This is a magnanimous gesture from a company that spends most of its time tracking down pirates and protecting its "turf". But .Net is not the end point. .Net is in truth just a wrapper for a range of other services including the Hailstorm and Passport services, the information and authentication services that Microsoft is very clearly eager to own.

But the company seems hesitant to talk about the specifics of either of these services and mostly it is just marketing rhetoric that is trotted out when the topic comes up. What we do know for sure, however, is that it is yet another shift in focus away from specific applications to owning the information that makes up the Internet.