Bill Gates has a reputation for picking strange dates for major Microsoft Corp. announcements.
Back on Dec. 7, 1995, Gates unveiled the company’s decision to rebuild its entire product line around the Internet by making the Microsoft Internet browser the heart of the Windows operating system.
That Pearl Harbor Day announcement brought forth angry charges that the company ruthlessly used its software monopoly to bully the competing Netscape browser into near extinction and led to the hugely damaging antitrust actions that Gates has faced since.
Now, on the eve of another holiday linked with violence in American lore, St. Valentine’s Day, Gates and Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer plan joint introductions of another huge set of plans that likewise will generate excitement.
On Valentine’s eve, in Chicago of all places, Ballmer will unveil Microsoft’s Visual Studio .NET, a scheme that few Americans have heard about, but one that will, if successful, create huge changes in the way technology is used and bought and sold. Launch details are at www.visualstudio.net.
It’s received little notice because it is mighty complicated stuff, but .NET (pronounced “dot net”) might be likened to the ultimate scheme of cartoonist Al Capp’s archvillain in the Lil’ Abner strip of long ago. Gen. Bullmoose, the richest man on the planet, schemed to buy the atmosphere and then charge people a penny for a breath, a nickel for a gasp and a dollar for a laugh.
.NET is a plan to create an entirely new subculture among Internet companies, which would enrich themselves by selling what are called Web services. These Web services then would become the underpinning of everything that now gets done when people and businesses use the World Wide Web and corporate intranets do just about anything.
The .NET plan is to use Microsoft’s software for writing programs such as Visual Basic and Visual C++, as well as just about every other flavor of programming language ever used, to change the underpinnings of the Internet. Under .NET, just about everything that gets done using networked computers is accomplished using modules of code (Web services) that can be sold or maybe rented.
These modules, written in XML, or extensible markup language, can be located within reach of any and all comers on a Web-based server computer or simply used by a company and installed on servers behind the corporate firewall.
The idea is that these modules, or Web services, will take over all of the programming that now must be done in order to create all the things we now do on the Web–for instance, visiting Amazon.com, searching through merchandise, picking something, buying it and having our credit card billed.
Now that stuff is mostly handled by Amazon’s cadre of Web programmers who write their own code to handle all of the database searching, password verification, billing and such.
The .NET model would see companies like Amazon simply use already written programming and allied services to handle all of that stuff using universal standards that would decrease their costs, improve efficiency and make the providers of Web services, like Microsoft Corp., wealthier still.
This is because it is possible to charge for each use of a Web service by using so-called micro transactions to deduct a small amount of money from each user’s account.
One of the earliest Web services was a Klingon to Romulan and Romulan to Klingon dictionary for Star Trek fanatics. To use it, a Web programmer uses XML that reaches out over the Internet, queries the dictionary (also in XML) on a server and returns to your browser the answer. Check out the XMethods.com Web site for a look at many of the Web services already available.
What Ballmer will be announcing Wednesday in Chicago is that the company’s newest product to create those Web services and to incorporate them into existing software is available for purchase.
“This is another bet-the-company event. It’s that big,” said Prashant Sridharan, product manager for Visual Studio .NET, in a phone interview preparing Ballmer’s way.
For an amateur programmer like this writer, Visual Studio .Net is a wonder to behold and a joy to use. It includes both the ability to create and use Web services with a few simple mouse clicks and three versions of Microsoft programming languages: Visual Basic, Visual C# and Visual C++.
Sridharan acknowledged that the most visible of Web services available to consumers is the so-called Microsoft .NET Passport, a method that the company uses to let computer users perform transactions and log on to Microsoft Web sites.
Because of its notoriety, Microsoft always generates dark suspicions, and there have been many who have suggested that .NET Passport is a scheme by Gates’ high command to seize control of the way major financial institutions verify user names and identities for buying things online.
We’ll see, of course. Meanwhile, it is almost blissfully obvious that Web services like Passport.net are going to be a huge part of the way the world puts together Web sites, builds e-commerce software and otherwise fleshes out the revolution in information technology that remains in its infancy despite the huge footprint it has already made.
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Binary beat readers can participate in the column at chicagotribune.com/askjim or e-mail jcoates@rcnchicago.com. Snail mail him in Room 400, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL. 60611
