Definition of .net

First of all, you should understand that .net is a new platform, Microsoft likes to combine .net with COM+, .net has excellent and powerful ability to interact with COM+, but it is even more effective and new platform. This means it has its own strengths and weaknesses. <P title="" P Server (MSMQ) alternatives, all when you go beyond simple ASP.net applications, .net just can't do it alone. < Queue Message Server (MTS) or Microsoft Transaction > The second point, because of its immaturity, is that in order to deliver a complete .net solution, at least for now you need to combine .net and COM+. For example, there are no Microsoft XMLns:fo=" platform technologies in .net right now to a degree that exceeds the extent to which you would want to start component-oriented programming without learning object-oriented concepts. < Services are tightly interconnected. You can't learn about the Web without > One last thing, .net and the Web>Javascript:openWindowRes('DotNetMagazine/2001_12/WhereItIs/Figure1.ASP');"> The .net Adoption Timeline</TABLE>What IT practitioners should know from the release side of things.

Remember, this is version 1.0, it's not Visual Studio 7.0; it's not COM++++; it's not Visual Basic 7.0. Quite literally, it's brand new. It's being introduced along with tons of new code. You'll want to think particularly carefully about how you plan for .net adoption. Especially in the next 24 months. <P title="" P XMLns:fo="Any suggestions?

It's a question of when to drag, pull, or scream them over the .net cliff, not whether they need to go over the .net cliff, whether they want to or not. However, I don't want to see many people trying to rewrite all their Visual Basic code or Visual C++ code at once. We should do it incrementally. .net will soon be referenced in new development. In the first year or two of Visual Studio .net, you'll see a mixed model where 30% of new development will be ASP.net code (and I foresee ASP.net scaling up very, very quickly), but 70% will still be COM, COM+ code. Business Applications

Javascript:openWindowRes('DotNetMagazine/2001_12/WhereItIs/BusinessCase.htm');"> Plans to move to a new technology

Because of the many advantages of .net and Microsoft's strong marketing efforts, it is almost certain that .net technology will eventually be widely adopted in application development, especially for small and medium-sized businesses ....

</TABLE> My general advice to disciplined clients is not to rely heavily on .net for applications with urgent tasks, and not to do so at least six to nine months after the release of .net, i.e., before August 2002. <P title="" P XMLns:fo="Do some small prototypes of some programs that don't have urgent task requirements. It depends on what the beta code, the first product release, or the first service pack can get you. That said, we recommend you take a conservative approach. Assume a bad scenario: 30-40% of your code will migrate and you will have to rewrite or redesign the rest. Don't expect Microsoft to provide automated tools to migrate your code. <> There are also some good reasons for early adopters. The first is to show that the company is competitive in its Web Services strategy, and that you are looking at the best platform to support Web Services in the next 12 months. <P title="" P XMLns:fo=" is another reason. Too many programmers are engaged in ASP development, and if you're struggling with ASP implementation or security, or are fed up with the whole ASP existence.ASP.net is a much more robust environment. In fact, Microsoft already has a large number of early adopters who have developed under the beta version of the ASP.net system. <><P title="" P XMLns:fo="There are some important new features just in time to help you realize that in many cases, the risky early move to .net is because it does a better job with mobile and wireless devices. <> If you don't care about Web Services, there isn't an irresistible and compelling reason here for you to go ahead and adopt it anytime soon. In fact, that's why we say most companies will adopt it using a fairly gradual curve. There are a number of factors to consider. To see how many people adopt this mainstream technology. To look at expert advice. To look at third party support, prospect market support. To look at local component providers of .net services. To see all the testing companies. To look at the offerings of source code management companies.The first year of the Visual Studio .net release, early adopters will split their code 70/30 between the old and new platforms. In about a year and a half, we expect the ratio to be 30/70. you will see 70% of your native .net code will be in Microsoft-based solutions. Traditional companies will begin migrating 24 to 36 months after the release of Visual Studio .net. Around 2005, we would expect 95 percent native .net development. Let's discuss the .net language and the parts that play a role in migrating applications to .net, starting with Visual Basic .net.

It's good news that Visual Basic turned into a mature language. It started object-oriented design, using the class framework and other bits and pieces of .net, and VB.net has turned into a much more powerful toolset. In fact, there are no business applications yet that can't be implemented in VB. <P title="" P XMLns:fo="With many new syntax and design issues. This means that for Visual>I think 60% or more of C++ developers will move to C# in the next 48 months.C++ will still be used. It will be used in the COM and COM+ domains, and it will still be used even in .net, but it will still be a system level programming language.C#'s ability to develop applications quickly and the ability to work integrally with the C# and .net component models will play a big role. This is the most common problem I hear from users. I've probably talked to eight or nine hundred people this year, and almost half of the questions are directly or indirectly about .net versus Java. I tell them that I think Microsoft and Java will dominate e-commerce application development, i.e., most new projects will be based on one of these two platforms. They will have 80% of the market by 2005. No one will. Most large companies will use both. Right now, Java still has a strong presence in large companies based on its cross-platform capabilities. Smaller companies can't afford to use both, and they will move to one or the other. Microsoft is still attractive to small and medium-sized organizations because of its low cost and large number of developers. What else needs to be done to complete the .net puzzle?

The middleware architecture should be taken away. We need an alternative to MTS. We need a messaging broker that synchronizes with native .net. more effectively, we need alternatives to COM+ as a native .net service. Of course. You already have database APIs and similar functionality. But what we need is an alternative to the Java 2 platform, J2EE on .net. Now, if you look closely at the bits and pieces of functionality, we're halfway there. There's a clear replacement for the Java 2 platform, the standards editor (J2SE), and soon we'll have a replacement for the Java 2 platform, J2ME - which is closely related to the .net Framework. However, Microsoft has yet to build a real alternative to J2EE. We need to see .net technologies injected into SQL Server, which will be seen in Yukon, the next mainstream product of SQL server. We need to see a variety of .net technologies, like BizTalk, which ironically can't do anything yet. Microsoft's portal, e-commerce software, all the bits and pieces need to be implemented on .net. They need to integrate technologies that will be obsolete. You mentioned the importance of Web Services, so what type of Web Services will we see first?

I mentioned earlier that most companies will be using both Java and Microsoft technologies, and Web Services is a great way to integrate them and make them interoperable. We see Web Services playing a pretty important role in moving ownership-based information. The issue of <P title="" P XMLns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format" Services, like other issues, is still very immature. In fact, the whole concept of XML messaging is extremely immature right now. We only have 5% or 10% of all of it right now, and we're going to need the whole XML base eventually. < >Web><P title="" P XMLns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format" Services will be a cultural issue. Organizations will have to adapt to the idea of open systems and the idea of working in real time. The good news is that there is a lot of ground to cover with B2B. Some particularly vertically joined-up businesses have already adopted this approach on a large scale. < > I think there are inhibitions to using the Web on the public **** Internet > I think there is still a lack of skill in using this technology. Many developers will implement Web Services as if it were a distributed object model. They will say, "Well, Web Services is just a wrapper around DCOM or COM components and Enterprise Java Beans components," which is not true. Web Services is a loosely coupled, asynchronous messaging protocol, not a locked-in, synchronous mechanism. People will inevitably make mistakes the first time around. <P title="" P XMLns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format" Services will not go mainstream. < Services will have a good future, it will be the ubiquitous and fairly inexpensive mechanism for communicating with services. It doesn't matter if those services are in a subsystem, a business, across within an industry, or even across different industries. You can reduce the barriers to entry into this business space. But these benefits will have to be weighed against the new problems posed by organizational structures. In this way, we see the period before 2003 as a time when the Web > you can trust the Web > which is now a big black hole for Web Services. We haven't seen any good pricing models. I think we're going to see, at some point, small payment models coming out a little bit. But there's no answer yet for examples of big payment models. You know, I see HailStorm as an example of a big, materialized Web Services. And yet right now I'm hearing a lot of opposition to it because it's owned by Microsoft. People see it as "Phase II" of Microsoft's control of the Internet. I believe that if it were not from Microsoft but from some other company, HailStorm would be directly welcomed by everyone. I would be surprised if AOL or its partners don't come up with a product that is competitive with HailStorm in the long run. I believe it will succeed. I think there is a lot of focus on e-commerce and there will be a market for the same vertical connections. Industries that have moved to e-commerce will be the first to use Web Services. It's the next logical revolution. </A>