News
Gates Unveils More of Next Generation Windows Services
Microsoft's chairman explains how Microsoft plans to make Internet the platform for information delivery, during TechEd keynote.
Orlando, Florida -- At Microsoft TechEd yesterday, Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates gave attendees a closer look at the company's sweeping Internet strategy, which is key to its much ballyhooed Next Generation Windows Services (NGWS) architecture.
"We're moving away from the personal computer being the platform to the Internet being the platform," says Gates, referring to a concept of information being generated and delivered independent of the device upon which it originated, whether it's a PC, PDA, writing tablet, or Web-enabled cellular phone. That strategy, however, depends heavily on the company's ability to implement XML, or Extensible Markup Language. XML will be integrated into new tools that the company hopes to introduce later this year, including BizTalk Server 2000, Commerce Server 2000, Host Integration Server 2000, Application Center 2000, Visual Studio development tools, and a major rev of SQL Server.
For the strategy to pay off, Gates says that it's important for developers to start working with Windows DNA 2000, Microsoft's platform for Web Services. With that in mind, Microsoft will introduce a slew of new tools and technologies in the coming months, including:
- SOAP Toolkit for Visual Studio 7.0--Lets Visual Studio developers build Web Services with Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), an open standards-based interoperability protocol that has been submitted to the W3C.
- BizTalk Orchestration--A new Microsoft technology that works in tandem with BizTalk Server 2000 (with a new Microsoft buzzword that has a good chance of leaping into the technology lexicon) for creating, managing business processes that span multiple applications, platforms, Web Services, and organizations inside and outside a firewall.
- RAD for server tools in the next generation of Visual Studio--Rapid application development tools for accelerating yet simplifying the creation of server-side applications and Web Services.
- Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2000--A new enterprise-grade firewall and Web content caching server.
Gates also announced that the company will be investing $2 billion in developer support and training over the next three years, with much of it focusing on helping developers familiar with Visual Studio and Visual Basic to understand and implement XML and Windows DNA 2000.
Manuel Rodriguez, Product Editor, contributed to this report from Orlando, Florida.
Find out more: