.NET
Dot NET, or simply .NET, is a new concept from Microsoft... what Bill Gates has described as a "bet the company" strategy for:
- Making software easier to develop
- Making software safer to use (more trustworthy in "micro-speak") by dramatically reducing common programming mistakes that lead to hacker exploits and by eliminating many administration problems with programs interfering with one another
- Making systems easier to integrate together (so the customer list you have in your accounting program is the same as the customer list you have in your email program and is the same as the one in all your other software)
- Making software scale well, from a single user's PC application to multi-million user web sites, without requiring different development skills/technologies/approaches
Unfortunately, in a classic example of overly zealous marketing Microsoft started applying the .NET name to everything that had any of the qualities above--
instead of reserving it for software that had all these qualities. Microsoft themselves now
admit they overused the .NET name,
confusing the marketplace. They've since backed off using .NET for everything, for example, removing the ".NET" name from their new Windows 2003 Server.
Despite the marketing issues surrounding .NET, Vanishing Clouds is a huge believer in the concept and are actively helping our clients leverage the parts of .NET that are shipping today... as well as looking forward to the new releases to come. Today you can utilize .NET in the following ways:
- Custom software we develop today is generally based on the .NET framework, the only fully qualifying .NET software. This framework lets us quickly develop custom applications for your business.
- Web services are a great way to "expose" your current databases, customer lists, schedules, etc. safely and securely. These services can then be used by other systems much more cheaply that traditional integration approaches.