MS Admits Wrongdoing
January 9, 2003 6:28 PM   Subscribe

Microsoft altering its ".NET" strategy Microsoft has announced that it's changing its overall use of .NET on its products, as it seems they've figured out that it's confusing to most users or potential customers, and flat out that "many people were unable to figure out just what it was." says the AP Wire. Now they're coming up with a nifty new logo to go with it, and perhaps they'll end up actually competing with IBM in the backend business. For some background on what .NET does, check here.
posted by djspicerack (13 comments total)
 
Until I tried it today, I could not get monster.com to recognize my Passport account, which is part of the .net brand. However, while I can now sign into monster automatically, I still cannot sign into either hotmail or msn itself automatically in spite of checking the box and following the directions numerous times. Needless to say, I have never provided Passport with anything but the most basic information about myself.
posted by mischief at 8:52 PM on January 9, 2003


mmm, natch. This is a soft way of deflecting the fact that they would have been in for a world of trouble by trying to control that kind of information. They've already had enough breaches as it is... I am sick of MS trying to be the End-All-Be-All for Whichever Market They So Choose. *steam*

I think they ended up light on the Antitrust suit because the US Government can't call the kettle black.

Isn't it odd how they bully around in similar manners?
posted by shadow45 at 9:08 PM on January 9, 2003


.NET is hilarious. It's the one time Microsoft has seen fit to adopt an industry standard (XML), and they marketed it like it was the cure for AIDS. It's no wonder users can't figure out what it is. It's a technical initiative disguised as a marketing initiative.

This whole "integrated network services suite" jargon just flies right over users' heads. They should offer something more like "the internet without the hassle" and maybe they'd turn a few heads. As it is, people are like "Did they change their website address to www.microsoft.net or something?"

They should have rolled the technical benefits into their release of MSN8 (their consumer internet product suite - DUH) and marketed it to the moon. If they actually convinced you that they were finally embracing interoperability with industry standards, I have a nice Unix-based OS I'd like to sell you.

.NET is a red herring. We've all known it from the beginning.

Horse. Shit.

It's nice to see M$ lose a few ad dollars, though. New logo, indeed... now THERE'S a creative challenge. 'Make .NET understandable...'
posted by scarabic at 10:22 PM on January 9, 2003


I've always thought the worst aspect was the co-opting of the .net Top Level Domain name as a brand. It would be like starting a brand of film called "100 ASA" or a brand of gasoline called "82 octane" when the film brand comes in all standard speeds and the gasoline is available in regular, plus, and premium. 2% brand whole milk anyone?
posted by 4easypayments at 11:28 PM on January 9, 2003


Hell, I still don't know what it is and I've been developing in it exclusively for the past 6 months. However, I think it's a case of, "I may not know art but I know what I like," and I do find it fun and easy to work with -- to accomplish the same old crap I've been doing for years, anyway. I've yet to come up with a reason to develop a web service. But I don't think I'm working in that market.
posted by rocketpup at 12:47 AM on January 10, 2003


scarabic - what about the .net framework? You know, CLI, C#, windows.forms, managed code, etc.? The whole Java rip-off? Is that a red herring, too?

Regardless of what the MS marketing drones have plastered onto the term, the actual framework is very much a technical solution, and a nice one at that.

The funny thing is, even when confined to the framework, it's not really clear what .net means.
posted by azazello at 3:01 PM on January 10, 2003


i'd like to have the chance to work with .net, but people here seem to be very wary of microsoft. my boss described it the other day as being perceived as "another ibm" by people that are finally freeing themselves from mainframes (this is financial services in chile - everyone and their dog has a spare chunk of ibm iron kicking around at the moment).

anyway, the forms interface to html on the server side looks great - the java equivalent is still in development and weblogic uses an old jvm anyway. ho hum. still, i have an inteview for hardware control in c++ next week, which would be a refreshing change!
posted by andrew cooke at 3:11 PM on January 10, 2003




No offense scarabic, but everytime I see the world "M$" in a post I can't help but shake my head. Why do people think that using the terms "Microshaft" and "M$" make them sound clever?
posted by mckayc at 3:40 PM on January 10, 2003


Why do people think that using the terms "Microshaft" and "M$" make them sound clever?

It's less a question of 'sounding clever' (which it is obviously neither big nor), and more one of venting frustration. At least it is for me (and yes, I do feel kinda puerile on the odd occasion I do it).

Hmm, maybe I should invest in a Bill Gates halloween mask and punch-bag.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 5:01 PM on January 10, 2003


It's amazing that Microsoft are making such basic mistakes after so long. Take .NET Messenger, Windows Messenger (which apparently "must" be running while Outlook Express is running, although does not have to be connected) and MSN Messenger (which is the same as but doesn't install itself over Windows Messenger) as an example. Morons.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 5:25 PM on January 10, 2003


As it's been mentioned the web forms (ASP.NET) part of .NET is flawed in non IE browsers. For those who don't know, ASP.NET uses highlevel tags such as <asp:treeview/> and converts them low-level HTML at run-time to suit your browser. The story is that if your browser can do DHTML it will get the DHTML version. If your browser can only follow links then it will get a version that gets the server to redraw the page.

Of course, you're trusting ASP.NET to produce cross-browser code, and it's in Microsoft's best interest to produce HTML that works poorly in non-IE browsers. Their radio button list uses <label> tags just around the text, and not around the radio button itself, so when you apply some CSS it breaks in N4. Their <asp:panel>s are converted at runtime to DIVs for IE4+ but to TABLEs for Mozilla. The form validation javascript uses MSDOM, and creates its' own tags. Although you can't bypass form validation in IE, you can form validation in Konqueror.

Joel had this to say,
In teaching someone about ASP.NET programming, it would be nice if I could just teach them that they can double-click on things and then write code that runs on the server when the user clicks on those things. Indeed ASP.NET abstracts away the difference between writing the HTML code to handle clicking on a hyperlink (<a>) and the code to handle clicking on a button. Problem: the ASP.NET designers needed to hide the fact that in HTML, there's no way to submit a form from a hyperlink. They do this by generating a few lines of JavaScript and attaching an onclick handler to the hyperlink. The abstraction leaks, though. If the end-user has JavaScript disabled, the ASP.NET application doesn't work correctly, and if the programmer doesn't understand what ASP.NET was abstracting away, they simply won't have any clue what is wrong.
posted by holloway at 5:38 PM on January 10, 2003


thanks - very useful info. i need to be more cynical next time i watch a presentation...
posted by andrew cooke at 6:19 PM on January 10, 2003


« Older Mark Fiore   |   Oak Island Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments