With the release of the .NET Framework, Microsoft is taking the most significant risk in its history. Microsoft has spent billions of dollars, representing over 80 percent of its R&D budget, on designing and constructing this fundamental shift in its development tools in order to build a framework for the future of application development. Microsoft has effectively realized its vision of Windows in every PC and a PC on every desktop. Its current problem is that the desktop represents only a portion of the new Internet universe. With the huge shift brought on by the Internet and its pervasiveness into everything from watches to cell phones to cars, Microsoft must now shift its view of the future from a PC-centric orientation to a service-centric orientation.
So what is the future? From Microsoft’s point of view, the future is delivering software as a service. Instead of purchasing a shrink-wrapped installable solution, you will instead rent, borrow, or purchase application logic across a distributed network. Software will of course still be sold on store shelves. However, most, if not all of the business logic and power of these applications will reside across a...