Microsoft Delivers First .

NET Platform Developer Tools for Building Web Services

PDC Attendees Receive Technology Preview of .NET Framework and Visual Studio.NET
ORLANDO, Fla., July 11, 2000 â In his keynote address at the eighth Microsoft Prof
essional Developers Conference (PDC) 2000, Paul Maritz, group vice president of
the Platforms Group at Microsoft Corp., today announced the initial developer av
ailability to PDC attendees of the Microsoft® .NET Framework and Visual Studio.
NET for building, integrating and running next-generation, XML-based Web service
s. Visual Studio.NET, the latest version of the world's most widely used develop
ment tools, provides native support for drag and drop development of Web service
s. Together, these two products provide developers with a high productivity, mul
tilanguage environment to rapidly build, deliver and integrate Web services on t
he Microsoft .NET Platform.
"Delivering this software to developers today is an important milestone in helpi
ng developers build next-generation Internet software and services," Maritz said
. "By creating a unified platform where devices and services cooperate with each
other, Microsoft is unleashing a new wave of developer opportunity and creativi
ty that will help developers reach a new level of power and simplicity."
At the heart of the .NET Platform is the .NET Framework, a high-productivity, mu
ltilanguage development and execution environment for building and running Web s
ervices with important features such as cross-language inheritance and debugging
. The .NET Framework simplifies the creation of Web services by automatically ha
ndling many common programming tasks, regardless of programming language, reduci
ng the amount of code developers must write and eliminating common sources of pr
ogramming errors. The .NET Framework is the industry's first development environ
ment to natively support Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). The .NET Framewor
k incorporates advances to two key Microsoft development technologies: the Compo
nent Object Model, the most popular reusable software model in the world, and Ac
tive Server Pages, used by nearly 1 million Web developers.
Separately, Microsoft announced that 17 third-party programming languages, such
as Perl and Python from ActiveState, will support the .NET Framework. The result
is a new model of service-based development that offers faster time to market a
nd more reliable, scalable software.
Microsoft also announced the .NET Compact Framework, which allows any device to
emit or consume XML-based Web services. The .NET Compact Framework is a small fo
otprint, CPU-independent implementation of the .NET Framework. Microsoft will pr
ovide a version for Windows® CE and other embedded operating systems, as well a
s for devices that do not require an operating system.
Visual Studio.NET is the most productive tool set for developers building Web se
rvices on the .NET Platform. Visual Studio.NET, which includes updates to the Vi
sual Basic® and Visual C++® development systems, the Visual FoxPro® database
development system, and a new language, C#, the recently announced dialect of C+
+, helps developers extend today's development skills to tomorrow's Web applicat
ions and Web services. Visual Studio.NET provides an easy-to-use, extensible int
egrated development environment (IDE) for the .NET Framework. Together, the new
technologies introduced in the .NET Framework and Visual Studio.NET will enable
millions of developers worldwide to quickly build and consume scalable, reliable
and manageable Web services.
"We're really excited about Visual Studio.NET," said Bill Shea, software develop
ment manager for Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. "Enabling our software developers to r
apidly build applications that integrate with the systems we have today, and tha
t use Internet standards to communicate with any client system or device, will h
elp us further enhance our service offerings and maintain our position as one of
the world's leading financial management and advisory companies."
About Microsoft .NET
The Microsoft .NET Platform, announced June 22 at Forum 2000, is Microsoft's ini
tiative for creating the next generation of software, which melds computing and
communications in a revolutionary way. This vision offers developers, businesses
and consumers the ability to harness technology on their terms and with the too
ls they need to create truly distributed Web Services making information availab
le any time, any place and on any device.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT" ) is the worldwide leader in software,
services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The com
pany offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people thr
ough great software -- any time, any place and on any device.
Microsoft, Visual Studio, Windows, Visual Basic, Visual C++ and Visual FoxPro ar
e either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United St
ates and/or other countries.
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademark
s of their respective owners.
Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Micr
osoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass
/ on Microsoft's corporate information pages.
Source: http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2000/jul00/pdcdeliverspr.mspx