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Microsoft announced a set of new technologies -- code-named HailStorm -- to advance its .NET strategy.

HailStorm is a set of user-centric XML Web services that enable developers to build solutions that work with one another over the Internet to deliver a personalized and consistent user experience.

In addition, five industry partners -- American Express, Click Commerce, eBay, Expedia.com and Groove Networks showed prototypes and conceptual demos illustrating HailStorm-based scenarios. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates led the first public demonstration of the new technologies.

"HailStorm is a key .NET milestone to deliver on the Microsoft mission to empower people through great software, any time, any place and on any device," said Gates. "We believe this innovation will take individual empowerment to a new level, create unprecedented opportunity for the industry and trigger a renewed wave of excitement about the Internet."

The HailStorm technology marks a fundamental change in the way individuals will be able to use the Internet. Instead of the user catering to the software, the software is designed around the needs and usage patterns of the individual user. Microsoft foresees a time when Internet use is more secure and less scattered than the experience of the user today. Instead of the user integrating all the disparate technologies and services, the .NET-based system will do that for the user.

According to Michael Ferro, founder and CEO of Click Commerce, "Microsoft's .NET is a compelling vision for the next generation of the Internet, allowing for open collaboration across the enterprise. Click Commerce will embrace HailStorm technology to enable our Global 1000 clients to gain competitive advantage through seamless collaboration with all their distribution partners by providing real-time information any time, any place and on any device."