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.
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