Microsoft issues report card on 2-year-old .Net initiative

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July 25, 2002 (Computerworld) -- REDMOND, Wash. -- Microsoft Corp. yesterday proclaimed that its 2-year-old .Net initiative has entered Phase 2, but progress has been mixed so far, and its ultimate vision isn't on the verge of being realized anytime soon.
During a .Net briefing day on the software maker's campus here, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer took great pains to manage expectations, describing the company's vision for "connecting information, people, disparate systems and devices" through XML-based Web services as a "long-term journey."
Anyone who may have forgotten that Microsoft originally made that claim two years ago got a reminder yesterday via video excerpts from the Forum 2000 launch event, showing executives a long-term road map that would roll out over "a many-year period," as Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates put it then.
Yesterday, Gates issued a report card rating his company's progress on its .Net initiative. He gave his company an A for rallying the industry around XML and Web services protocols such as the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), which are key to exchanging data between disparate systems that store information in differing formats. Gates also gave his company a top grade for its Visual Studio .Net tools and runtime infrastructure, which support the building and deployment of Web services.
"Less rosy" has been the progress in "building-block services" that would enable a company to "call out" storage capabilities or access a common schedule, Gates said. He issued a C grade on that subject, as well as on .Net's progress in promoting the idea of software as a service, "paid for on a yearly basis and being automatically updated and improved across all your different devices."
Gates said progress has been incomplete on federation -- the idea that disparate systems such as authentication services can connect in trusted fashion between consenting companies or groups of organizations. Also getting an I for incomplete was Microsoft's work on "transformative user experiences" that happen as a result of "rich XML coming down to your system -- XML that helps you in your workflow, in your prioritizations, your visualizations."
"That's still not there," Gates said, "but it is coming."
The biggest hurdle Microsoft faces now that the foundation pieces have been laid is tackling the security issues that must be addressed in order for the .Net vision to gain traction, analysts said.
Although the uptake of .Net has been slow, "the uptake of all technology has been slowed by the economy," said Chris Shilakes, a San Francisco-based financial analyst at Merrill Lynch & Co.
Shilakes said the economic slowdown in the tech sector has actually worked to Microsoft's advantage because it's giving the company a chance "to tighten up their technology from a server standpoint to leverage Web services."
"When it's 'game on' again for corporations in terms of deploying their technology, I think Microsoft will have closed the gap somewhat," he said.

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