What is the history of .NET?

.NET started as a classic Microsoft FUD operation. In the late 1990s, Microsoft had just successfully fought off a frontal assault on its market dominance by killing the Netscape Web browser with its free Internet Explorer. But Microsoft was facing a host of new challenges, including serious problems with COM, C++, DLL hell, the Web as a platform, security, and strong competition from Java, which was emerging as the go-to language for Web development.

Microsoft started building .NET in the late 90s under the name “Next Generation Windows Services” (NGWS). Bill Gates described .NET as Microsoft’s answer to the “Phase 3 Internet environment, where the Internet becomes a platform in its own right, much like the PC has traditionally been… Instead of a world where Internet users are limited to reading information, largely one screen at a time, the Phase 3 Internet will unite multiple Web sites running on any device, and allow users to read, write and annotate them via speech, handwriting recognition and the like,” Gates said. We are certainly approaching that vision.

Microsoft announced .NET to the world in June 2000 and released version 1.0 of the .NET framework in January 2002. Microsoft also labeled everything .NET including briefly Office to demonstrate its commitment and dominance on this new thing called the Web. But out of that grand FUD campaign emerged the very capable and useful .NET development environment and framework for both the Web and Windows desktop.