For Microsoft, .Net is the vision to convert all applications to Web services. The company is now pushing its .Net products and development tools among the developer and user communities. Gaurav Patra reports on the software giant’s plans of building a brand among the user community

daniel Ingitaraj says India’s vast developer community will play a key role in .Net deployments

“.Net is not a product. It is our clear-cut vision for the future of computing that offers a technology roadmap for businesses all over the world to leverage the power of the Internet,” says Daniel Ingitaraj, senior marketing manager, Microsoft India. Microsoft is now pushing its .Net products and development tools among the developer and user communities. The software giant is also in the process of building a brand among the user community. “We do this by providing a platform for building, hosting and deploying XML Web Services, which is emerging as a critical tool,” he adds.

For Microsoft, .Net is the vision to convert all applications to Web services. Earlier, Microsoft had launched Visual Studio.Net, a tool for converting applications to Web services. After equipping the developers with the tool and architecture, Microsoft has been engaged in refurbishing the products and application that are likely to be built in the .Net Enterprise Servers.

Approximately five years ago, Microsoft started contributing to the open, standards-based process of specifications submissions around XML, SOAP, UDDI and WSDL. They made a bet, very much like they did for PCs, around 25 years ago that XML Web services would be built the way that applications are built. “We started our .Net strategy by infusing XML and Web services into our products. We have a 3-5 years head start over every other vendor,” say Ingitaraj. “Our tools, platform and applications can go head-to-head and win against any other vendor’s offering when it comes to building, running, scaling, and securing Web services. We have customers today whose businesses run on .Net,” he further said.

.Net & Web services
In cooperation with the World Wide Web Consortium and other technology vendors like IBM and Ariba, Microsoft has supported the development of Internet standards such as SOAP and UDDI. XML is the de-facto standard for Internet-based computing of the future and is a key enabler for the fulfilment of Microsoft’s .Net vision. Microsoft is one of the few companies to integrate XML ground up in all products and to offer a complete end-to-end solution.

For more than a year now, Microsoft has been working with the Indian developer communities exposing them to the opportunities around .Net. The first range of Web services using .Net-building blocks were developed as early as May 2001. Companies, the world over as well as in India, have realised the great opportunity that Web services offers in moving up the value chain and are adopting technologies that will enable them to do so rapidly. Microsoft saw this with their .Net Servers offering. Recently, with Visual Studio .Net, which is their offering for the developer community to build Web Services they disseminated more than 1,10,000 beta versions of the product during the last year, and today they have 18 partners that have solutions ready for deployment. That’s a phenomenal response, and a great indication of the Web Services potential.

India strategy
In India, the company has been working towards building awareness about how the industry is experiencing a technology paradigm shift to XML Web services. “It’s all about Web services, an open standards-based way for applications to communicate with each other, regardless of platforms or development languages,” explains Ingitaraj. “It provides a consistent way to address the biggest problem being faced by CIOs today, Integration getting applications to talk to one another,” he adds. Just as it was important to understand the shift to PCs, Windows and the Internet (from both a technology as well as business perspective), the software giant is educating customers about the shift to XML Web services and its impact.

The true value of the Internet has not yet been realised. “XML Web services will be the catalyst for leveraging incredible, distributed computing power, from the device to the server, and the connectivity of the Internet,” he says. He further adds that XML Web services would also help in reducing the cost of integration, enabling the user to connect out to any number of endpoints. Additionally, as companies make their core capabilities available to others via XML Web services, they can increase their revenue opportunities. With the Visual Studio.Net launch in February 2002, Microsoft had 18 companies demonstrating applications that they had built on .Net. It has also recently set up a .Net technology centre in Bangalore. The centre is the first of its kind in the country, and Microsoft aims to use it to help Indian developers, independent software vendors and system integrators to take advantage of XML and .Net. Backed by an initial investment of Rs 20 crore, the centre aims to complete 50 .Net projects by the end of next year. The centre will also be used to train more than 1,000 IT professionals on architecting and developing solutions on .Net and XML in one year. Unisys and EMC are the infrastructure partners for the initiative; IISc’s Supercomputing Education & Research Centre will help in imparting training and education. Later this year, the company will be launching Windows.Net, the next version of the Windows 2000 Server range. Windows .Net will provide a foundation for developers to build, run and manage Web Services, in addition to allowing businesses to develop and deploy enterprise-scale applications.

The year that was:
As far as .Net is concerned, the year has been very promising for all Microsoft customers. “.Net is the clear cut vision for the future of computing and offers the most technologically sound roadmap for businesses all over the world that are looking to leverage the power of the Internet,” says Ingitaraj.

The Windows 2000 Server range will provide a foundation for developers to build, run and manage Web services, in addition to allowing businesses to develop and deploy enterprise-scale applications. By offering increased productivity, end-to-end Web development capabilities, and scalable, reusable components, .Net will help businesses address the needs of a rapidly changing and competitive market place more effectively. “Both are very important releases, and are key for us to deliver on our .Net offering. India’s vast pool of skilled developers plays a key role in making .NET a reality for the entire industry,” says Ingitaraj.

There will also be some interesting releases in areas that have not been traditionally associated with Microsoft, like the Tablet PC, smart devices and technologies for voice and handwriting recognition. Then there’s Stinger. Stinger is the codename for a next generation operating system for cell phones, currently under development at Microsoft in conjunction with leaders in the cell phone industry. “Closely tying hardware advancements with software that takes advantage of the .Net platform, Stinger combines many personal information management services normally associated with PDAs, with voice recognition technology to provide users with an intelligent communication experience,” he adds. Talking about the future he says, “The coming years will see several new or enhanced products that will be built on .Net allowing a wide range of customers to better realise the potential in their business, in the office as well as at home.”