.NET Framework Product Overview
What Is Microsoft .NET?
Microsoft .NET is software that connects information, people, systems, and devices. It spans
clients, servers, and developer tools, and consists of:
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The .NET Framework programming model that enables developers to build Web-based
applications, smart client applications, and XML Web services applications which expose their
functionality programmatically over a network using standard protocols such as SOAP and
HTTP.
Developer tools, such as Microsoft Visual Studio® .NET, which provide a rapid application
integrated development environment for programming with the .NET Framework.
A set of servers, including Microsoft Windows® 2000, Microsoft SQL Server™, and
Microsoft BizTalk® Server, that integrates, runs, operates, and manages XML Web services
and applications.
Client software, such as Windows XP, Windows CE, and Microsoft Office XP, that helps
developers deliver a deep and compelling user experience across a family of devices and
existing products.
What Is the .NET Framework?
The .NET Framework is the programming model of the .NET environment for building,
deploying, and running Web-based applications, smart client applications, and XML Web
services. It manages much of the plumbing, enabling developers to focus on writing the
business logic code for their applications. The .NET Framework includes the common
language runtime and class libraries.
Common Language Runtime
The common language runtime is responsible for run time services such as language
integration, security enforcement, memory, process, and thread management. In addition,
it has a role at development time when features such as life-cycle management, strong type
naming, cross-language exception handling, dynamic binding, and so on, reduce the
amount of code that a developer must write to turn business logic into a reusable
component.
Class Libraries
Base classes provide standard functionality such as input/output, string manipulation,
security management, network communications, thread management, text management,
user interface design features, and other functions. The Microsoft ADO.NET data classes
support persistent data management and include SQL classes for manipulating persistent
data stores through a standard SQL interface. XML classes enable XML data manipulation
and XML searching and translations. The Microsoft ASP.NET classes support the
development of Web-based applications and XML Web services. The Windows Forms classes
support the development of Windows-based smart client applications. Together, the class
libraries provide a common, consistent development interface across all languages
supported by the .NET Framework.
High-Level Statistics and Market Momentum
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The .NET Framework has been live since January 2002. The Beta releases reached over 4
million developers worldwide through 3.5 million CDs and 700,000 unique downloads.
Compilers for over 20 programming languages are available for use with the .NET
Framework.
Dozens of components and controls are now available from third-party vendors.
Microsoft is aggressively deploying .NET Framework–based applications today. MSN® and
the Microsoft.com Smart 404 are just a few of the many Microsoft applications already
transitioned to the .NET Framework.
Rapid Development
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The multiple-language capability of the .NET Framework enables developers to use the
programming language that is most appropriate for a given task and to combine languages
within a single application. Support for the .NET Framework has been announced for over 20
commercial and academic programming languages.
The component-based, plumbing-free design of the .NET Framework enables developers
to write less code. The sample .NET Pet Shop, the .NET-based version of Sun's best-practice
sample application, Java Pet Store, implements the same functionality as the Java 2
Enterprise Edition (J2EE) version, but it uses one-third the code of the J2EE version.
In the Industry
"Even controlling for factors such as experience and the fact that this is a
rewrite rather than an original implementation, we were twice as productive
[using the .NET Framework and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET] as we were on
the initial release of the solution." Tore Lode, Senior Developer,
CyberWatcher
Improved Operations
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In .NET Pet Shop, the .NET-based implementation of Sun's Java Pet Store, performance
exceeds that of the J2EE version by 28 times while serving six times the concurrent users and
requiring one-sixth the CPU utilization.
The .NET Framework offers significant performance and scalability benefits over the
previous Active Server Pages (ASP) technology.
All results are based on Windows 2000 Advanced Server. Microsoft ASP and Microsoft
ASP.NET are running on a database running SQL Server 2000.
In the Industry
"We get subsecond page loads while handling millions of page views a day.
We deployed on December 23, 2000 and haven't had a minute of downtime
as of October 3, 2001, and we saved $1.3 million over a Java 2 Enterprise
Edition solution." Stephen Forte, CTO, Zagat Survey
"Compared with similar projects in the past, we're measuring deployment
time in hours instead of weeks." Ferdy Khater, Director of Application
Development, Continental Airlines
Agile Architecture
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Companies around the world are using the XML Web services communication mechanism
that is native to the .NET Framework to integrate quickly and easily with suppliers and
customers.
In the Industry
"From our partners' perspective, accessing our content via XML Web services
will be far easier than what they've had to go through in the past. They will
no longer need to build the infrastructure to import, store, and manage it.
When combined with our new flexibility in licensing options, this means we'll
have a far more attractive package to offer to prospective partners."
Stephen Forte, CTO, Zagat Survey
"This makes it easier for us to inform portals and enterprises about how our
code handles user data, security concerns, and integration with existing
databases. Particularly handy are the automatically generated
documentation and test Web pages, which enable our partners to integrate
their systems with ours using minimal assistance." Tore Lode, Senior
Developer, CyberWatcher
Vibrant User Community
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Numerous user groups and discussion lists exist around the world on a variety of topics
and in a multitude of languages, including English, Japanese, German, and Spanish.
More information can be found on the MSDN® developer community pages that provide
access to newsgroups, chats, user groups, and other opportunities to interact with developers
who are interested in Microsoft products and technologies.
More than 300 publications covering the .NET Framework and programming languages
for the .NET Framework are either currently available or will soon be released. Some
highlights include:
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.NET Framework Essentials, O'Reilly Press
Professional ASP.NET, Wrox Press Ltd.
Visual Basic to Visual Basic .NET, Sams Publishing
For more books and articles, visit the MSDN Developer Bookstore, or go to the .NET Books
site.
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For training and events, visit the .NET Framework Training and Events page.
References, Links, Sources, and More Information
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To obtain the latest version of the .NET Framework, visit the Microsoft .NET Web site.
Language compilers that support the .NET Framework have been announced for the
following programming languages:
APL
C++
C#
COBOL
Component Pascal
Curriculum
Eiffel
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Fortran
Haskell
Java Language
Microsoft JScript®
Mercury Mondrian
Oberon
Oz
Pascal
Perl
Python
RPG
Scheme
SmallTalk
Standard ML
Microsoft Visual Basic®
For more information on compilers, please refer to the Partners section of the Visual
Studio Web site.
Find controls and components for use with the .NET Framework Beta 2 in the Partners
section of the Visual Studio Web site.
Find the source code and white paper for .NET Pet Shop.
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To read more about customer solutions built on the .NET Framework, visit the Case
Studies page for the full list of .NET Framework customer success stories.
For more information on XML Web services, see the Web Services area on the MSDN site.
Customer Solutions Built on the .NET Framework
For more information on the case studies below, visit the Case Studies page.
Zagat Realizes New Opportunities with Microsoft .NET
Zagat Survey needed a new content management system to accommodate its expansion
onto the Internet and into new rating categories. The new content management system was
built using the Microsoft .NET Framework and Visual Studio .NET and uses XML to collect
ratings and reviews from both the Web site and the data entry provider that converts the
existing paper-based Zagat surveys into an electronic format. Editors use an on-screen
editing environment to access this information and create "synthesized" reviews based on
survey comments. When new content is ready, the content management system again uses
XML to push the information to the company's Web site, as well as into the Adobe
FrameMaker–based applications used to publish Zagat's paper-based guides.
XML Web services enabled an entirely new business model for Zagat–providing many more
opportunities to share and aggregate content with partners without dedicating an employee
to preparing data dumps to partners. Further, XML Web services technology has enabled
Zagat to introduce a new bill-by-usage model that works better for many of its customers.
Zagat is able to do all of this with a development team of just 20.
Marks & Spencer Deploys Fraud Detection System
Credit card fraud is a significant threat to Marks & Spencer, a leading retailer of clothing,
foods, home wares, and financial services that serves 10 million customers a week in over
300 stores in the United Kingdom. The retailer was looking for a more proactive antifraud
solution to replace their current $13 billion US system.
The new transaction analysis system, based on the .NET Framework, can identify suspected
fraudulent transactions almost instantly. The multiple-platform integration capabilities of the
.NET Framework enable instant checks of each transaction against a number of criteriaincluding high-refund card accounts, statistical ranking on all transaction types, possible
collusion involving employees, and more—which often reside on different databases. If a
transaction meets any of these criteria, the system sends a cellular call to the store
manager. Often, the store manager can get to the register before the customer in question
has left.
Newport News Shipbuilding Cuts Time-to-Market by 19 Percent
Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS) is the premier shipbuilder in the United States—
designing, building, and maintaining the world's most sophisticated ships, nuclear-powered
aircraft carriers, and submarines. NNS looked to Naptheon, a wholly-owned subsidiary of
NNS that specializes in business process and technology integration solutions, to build a
project management application with the capacity and flexibility to handle multiple
subcontractors and projects on opposite coasts, as the refitting of the USS Nimitz requires.
Naptheon used the .NET Framework to create a project management application that
utilizes XML Web services for partner integration and extension to mobile wireless devices.
By using the .NET Framework, Naptheon was able to cut development time and increase
time-to-market by 19 percent. Naptheon is expecting an incremental revenue increase over
the next five years and an internal rate of return in excess of 100 percent due to the speed
of developing and launching applications built using the .NET Framework.
Buy.com: Improving Customer Experience with .NET
Buy.com has received several awards for its innovative Web site, and the company is
always looking for ways to improve the customer experience. In just two weeks, two
Buy.com developers created a personalized shopping portal on the .NET Framework that
provides customers with immediate access to account information, order status, and a
personalized selection of products based on each shopper's personal preferences.
Buy.com also was looking for a way to distribute content to affiliates quickly and reliably.
"Getting this information out to our affiliates in a timely manner required a combination of
e-mails, phone calls, and file transfers in a wide variety of formats as required by each
partner. These delays can lead to decreased customer satisfaction," says Navid Nobakht,
director of IT applications for Buy.com. By using .NET–connected technologies to expose
content for consumption by affiliate sites through XML Web services, Buy.com has gained a
reusable, standards-based way to distribute real-time content to its affiliate sites.