Microsoft Challenged To Fulfill Promise Of .Net StrategyMicrosoft Challenged To Fulfill Promise Of .Net Strategy

IT buyers heading to Microsoft's biggest technical conference of the year this week are wondering when the vendor's .Net strategy will yield software they can use. Microsoft executives are preparing some answers.

Also, Microsoft hasn't yet explained how .Net services will help in B-to-B interaction. Says CEO Steve Ballmer, "We've got a lot of bright guys thinking about how to steer that."

At Tech Ed 2001 in Atlanta, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates will unveil the second beta release of Visual Studio.Net, a suite of development tools and run-time software for building services that systems can address using Web protocols. Senior VP Paul Flessner will chart a technology road map for the SQL Server database, which the vendor says surpassed $1 billion in sales for the fiscal year that ends June 30. Microsoft also will ship its new Mobile Information 2001 Server, for publishing Outlook and other apps' data on mobile phones.

It's a good start, users say. "Microsoft is suggesting you'll Webize any component using XML and Soap [Simple Object Access Protocol]," says Paul Heller, chief technology officer for Internet operations at BankOne Corp. in Columbus, Ohio. "That's the nut they're trying to crack."

Companies have spent the past five years assembling middleware that transforms data about their businesses for broadcast over the Web. But programming standards such as Microsoft's DCOM and the Java RMI were designed to work inside firewalls. The promise of Internet-based trading and collaboration means companies must forge a new software vocabulary, based on standards such as Soap. "Customers have to be ready for a new challenge," Flessner says.

The movement is just finding its legs. In a Morgan Stanley Dean Witter survey of 225 CIOs in April, 41% say less than 10% of customers interact with their companies online. Two-thirds conduct E-business with less than 10% of their suppliers. Says Wadeea Qutub, chief technology officer at Parsons Corp., a Pasadena, Calif., engineering and construction company: "Everyone is talking about XML, but we haven't seen much of it yet."