Microsoft chairman and chief software architect, Mr Bill Gates, got back to the software giant's bread and butter business yesterday by outlining the company's new vision for its products. Enjoying a brief respite from the legal difficulties currently facing the company, he described its plan for the future as "the biggest transition for Microsoft since the transition from DOS to the Windows operating system".
Microsoft plans to incorporate its new Internet-based operating system into every electronic information device currently under development, from smart phones to personal digital assistants and electronic tablets to next generation personal computers. Central to this will be ease of communication and data transfer across all of these devices. The long-awaited details of Microsoft's codenamed Next Generation Microsoft Services platform were unveiled under the new brandname Microsoft.net, which has been abbreviated to simply ".NET". According to Mr Gates, the new .NET-based software applications will perform better on devices that are connected to the underlying Microsoft software code through the .NET infrastructure, indicating Microsoft's continuing strategy of tying its customers to the Microsoft operating system.
Moving on from the original Windows vision of a personal computer on every desktop, Microsoft has now set its sights on a "Triple A" strategy - Any time, Any place, Any device access to Microsoft software. Consumers are going to have to wait another three years before they can avail of the new platform. Mr Gates said the successful implementation of .NET relied heavily on continued improvements in communications bandwidth and advances in wireless communications for the workplace and the home. Judging by some of the early prototype product demonstrations on show at Microsoft's Redmond, Washington, headquarters yesterday, it has come up with programmes that embrace Internet potential.
These include voice recognition and handwriting recognition software, and intelligent agent processes that intuitively compile valuable personalised information for individual users. Mr Gates, who devoted his efforts to this strategy last January when he became Microsoft's chief software architect, said Microsoft and its industry partners planned to pioneer the "next generation Internet" through software that broke down today's barriers between "digital islands", or computers, devices, websites, and corporate intranets.
"Today's Internet experience can be confusing and difficult, with a jumble of applications, Web pages and devices, none of which work with one another on your behalf," Mr Gates said. "With the emergence of standards like XML, we now have the opportunity to revolutionise the way computers talk to one another on our behalf." XML (Extensible Mark-Up Language) is central to the new strategy. In the way Hypertext Mark-Up Language (HTML) provided a visual interface to the Internet, XML is an open standard language that allows powerful applications like voice and handwriting recognition to be distributed across a range of devices.
In order for Microsoft's .NET strategy to work, the entire software industry will need to embrace the XML standard, a process that is already under way. Early US media reports said Microsoft was planning to unveil a new, Java-like software programming language intended to simplify the building of Web services using its software. Understood to be an easier-to-use version of the popular C++ language, it is intended to simplify and speed up software development and promote the company's .NET initiative.
The new language, expected to be called CE (C sharp), is a hybrid of C and C++, two of the most popular programming languages used by software developers to write applications for Windows. It includes several features apparently modelled on some of the most popular features of the Java programming language, but Microsoft executives have said the language is not a Java competitor.
