Sorting Through the .NET Confusion

Microsoft has said that .NET is its most important initiative, a “bet-the-company” three-to-five-year plan for its own business and the Internet in general. But the company hasn’t always been clear about what “.NET” really means. Since its June 2000 announcement, the initiative has created confusion among partners, analysts, and even Microsoft employees.

Signs of trouble appeared at the initiative’s June 22 launch when Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer felt compelled to wrap up a day’s worth of presentations by saying:

For some of you, though, I’m going to suspect that you still are asking yourselves a few questions. One question might be, and I’ll be as direct as I can be about this, what is .NET?

Ballmer’s suspicions were correct; as Fortune correspondent Brent Schlender later observed:

Every executive—including Gates and Ballmer—had difficulty explaining succinctly what the new strategy really was. Give them an hour and you began to get an idea, but even then I felt like one of the blind men feeling the elephant.