But success is not guaranteed for the overall .Net initiative. The Web services vision, broadly, is to transform the Web from a medium mainly for viewing and downloading into a genuine computing platform. That is, a "programmable" medium, in which more data that can be manipulated and programmed is transported across the Internet to do all kinds of useful things.
The problem for Microsoft is that making the Web programmable is precisely why Java, the Internet programming language created by Sun Microsystems, was developed in 1995. Today most of the software developers writing Web applications that run on networks use Java. The Java camp includes IBM, Sun, Oracle, BEA and others in the race to develop Web services technology.
Microsoft's answer to Java is a new programming language. The company says that the new language, combined with other tools, should make it easier for the mainstream of programmers to create Web services. Turning over a new leaf for a new environment, Microsoft insists its new development platform is based on open, industry standards - -- not Windows or other proprietary Microsoft technology.
Many developers are skeptical. And the long-running antitrust case against Microsoft certainly did not help the company's image with developers, because it showed, and the courts ruled, that Microsoft did not deal fairly with Netscape, a smaller software developer.
"Microsoft's pitch to developers is greatly weakened because of that," said Dave Winer, co-author of SOAP and chief executive of UserLand, a developer of Web tools. "Microsoft's only vision is lock-in."
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