Guest Editorial

By Hans-Jürgen Hoffmann, Guest editor

In June 22, 2000 .NET was announced by Bill Gates, Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect, in “Remarks” to Forum 2000, the kick-off of this far-reaching new software strategy – see http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/speeches/2000/06-22f2k.asp.

About two years later, July 24, 2002, in a .NET Briefing Day, he again took the floor for “Remarks” – see http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/speeches/2002/07-24netstrategy.asp.

“Remarks” that were/are intended to change the IT world with challenging statements like:

• “... an opportunity to take this vision of a digital world and apply the magic of software to make this a reality” (2000)
• “... this idea that we need a new platform, a platform that takes at its center the Internet and the user ..., that idea´s being emerging for a long time. And the question is what can be done to get enough of those pieces together to really get that to critical mass” (2000)
• “... a very clear message that the direction we announced two years ago is 100 percent the direction that we´re driving towards with all of our increased R&D in the years ahead” (2002)
• “It´s going to have to really put the user back in control” (2002)
• “And to be clear, this is 100 percent a software challenge. Whether it´s the elements of security, the breakthrough development tools, the automatic data exchange, the designing of the schemas, the end user tools that are involved here, this is a software problem, one of the toughest software problems ever tackled, easily greater than tough engineering problems like getting to the moon or designing the 747, but it´s one that we and our partners have enough energy behind and there´s enough importance for solving this, we have no doubt that the pieces come together” (2002)

Big words!

In a workshop of ECOOP 2003 .NET was considered from a programmer’s perspective. You find some views about it in the special JOT issue at hand.

Hans-Jürgen Hoffmann
Workshop chair

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