Previews of new products and tools supporting the Microsoft .NET platform
were offered Tuesday during the eighth Microsoft Professional Developers
Conference (PDC) in Orlando, Fla.
The .NET platform, which was announced in late June, is the company’s
initiative for creating next-generation software to meld computing and
communications.
“Microsoft has spent the last 18 months making XML an integral
communications fabric of our enterprise server infrastructure to provide
developers with the vital foundation for next-generation Web solutions,”
said Paul Flessner, vice president of Microsoft .NET enterprise servers. “By
delivering the first set of fully Web-enabled servers in the industry,
Microsoft is ensuring that developers will be able to rapidly build
solutions for the next wave of the digital economy.”
During the conference, Microsoft
outlined how developers can now begin to build, deploy, manage and
orchestrate Web services and enterprise Web solutions on the .NET Platform
by taking advantage of the .NET enterprise servers — Microsoft SQL Server
2000, BizTalk Server 2000, Commerce Server 2000, Application Center 2000,
Host Integration Server 2000, Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2000
and Exchange 2000 Server
Microsoft also detailed how, with the introduction of
the .NET Framework and Visual Studio.NET, developers will have new tools and
infrastructure for quickly building Web services on the .NET enterprise
servers with industry-leading scalability, availability and flexibility.
Visual Studio.NET is designed to provide an easy-to-use, extensible
integrated
development environment (IDE) for the .NET Framework.
Together, the new technologies are expected to enable developers
worldwide to quickly build and
consume scalable, reliable and manageable Web services.
The .NET Framework is open and designed for any programming language, and
Microsoft has been working with tools vendors to ensure that developers are
successful in targeting the .NET Platform with their current languages and
skills.
Languages supported include:
- COBOL, Fujitsu Software Corp.
- Eiffel, Interactive Software Engineering
- Haskell Utrecht Univ/Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and
Technology - Mercury, University of Melbourne
- ML, Microsoft Research
- Oberon, ETH Zentrum
- Perl, ActiveState
- Profiling Tools, NuMega Lab-Compuware Corp.
- Python, Skippi-net
- SmallTalk, QKS
- Rational
- Scheme, Norwestern University
Independent software vendors announcing support for the .NET Platform
include:
- APEX
- Bunka Orient Corp.
- Centura Software Corp.
- ComponentSource
- FarPoint Technologies
- GreatPlains
- InterAccess Co.
- InVerge
- Seagate Software
- Sheridan Software Systems Inc.
- Software Artisans
- Stingray Software
- WebGecko Software
- WindwardStar
During his keynote address, Paul Maritz, group vice president of the
Platforms Group at Microsoft
Corp., said, “Delivering this software to developers is an important
milestone in
helping developers build next-generation Internet software and services.
“By creating a
unified platform where devices and
services cooperate with each other, Microsoft is unleashing a new wave of
developer opportunity and creativity
that will help developers reach a new level of power and simplicity,” he
said.
In related news, the company has published preliminary versions of two
core specifications for creating and using Web services, adding to the SOAP
group of XML interoperability technologies. The two specifications,
published on the MSDN developer program
Web site, are the SOAP Contract Language (SCL), which describes the
capabilities of Web services, and SOAP Discovery, which provides rules for
locating
Web services.
Together, these additions aim to strengthen the interoperability
capabilities defined in the SOAP specification and provide the
standards-based foundation underlying the entire Microsoft .NET Platform.
