What is Microsoft .Net Framework | What is .Net ?

The Microsoft .Net Framework is a platform that provides tools and technologies you need to build Networked Applications as well as Distributed Web Services and Web Applications. The .Net Framework provides the necessary compile time and run-time foundation to build and run any language that conforms to the Common Language Specification (CLS).The main two components of .Net Framework are Common Language Runtime (CLR) and .Net Framework Class Library (FCL).

The Common Language Runtime (CLR) is the runtime environment of the .Net Framework , that executes and manages all running code like a Virtual Machine. The .Net Framework Class Library (FCL) is a huge collection of language-independent and type-safe reusable classes. The .Net Framework Class Libraries (FCL) are arranged into a logical grouping according to their functionality and usability is called Namespaces. In the following sections describes how to .Net Framework manages the code in compile time and run time .

Microsoft .NET (pronounced “dot net”) is a software component that runs on the Windows operating system. .NET provides tools and libraries that enable developers to create Windows software much faster and easier. .NET benefits end-users by providing applications of higher capability, quality and security. The .NET Framework must be installed on a user’s PC to run .NET applications.

This is how Microsoft describes it: “.NET is the Microsoft Web services strategy to connect information, people, systems, and devices through software. Integrated across the Microsoft platform, .NET technology provides the ability to quickly build, deploy, manage, and use connected, security-enhanced solutions with Web services. .NET-connected solutions enable businesses to integrate their systems more rapidly and in a more agile manner and help them realize the promise of information anytime, anywhere, on any device.” See Microsoft for more information.

.NET is both a business strategy from Microsoft and its collection of programming support for what are known as Web services, the ability to use the Web rather than your own computer for various services. Microsoft's goal is to provide individual and business users with a seamlessly interoperable and Web-enabled interface for applications and computing devices and to make computing activities increasingly Web browser-oriented. The .NET platform includes servers; building-block services, such as Web-based data storage; and device software. It also includes Passport, Microsoft's fill-in-the-form-only-once identity verification service. 

The .NET platform was designed to provide:

• The ability to make the entire range of computing devices work together and to have user information automatically updated and synchronized on all of them

• Increased interactive capability for Web sites, enabled by greater use of XML (Extensible Markup Language) rather than HTML
• A premium online subscription service, that will feature customized access and delivery of products and services to the user from a central starting point for the management of various applications, such as e-mail, for example, or software, such as Office .NET
• Centralized data storage, which will increase efficiency and ease of access to information, as well as synchronization of information among users and devices
• The ability to integrate various communications media, such as e-mail, faxes, and telephones
• For developers, the ability to create reusable modules, which should increase productivity and reduce the number of programming errors

According to Bill Gates, Microsoft expects that .NET will have as significant an effect on the computing world as the introduction of Windows. One concern being voiced is that although .NET's services will be accessible through any browser, they are likely to function more fully on products designed to work with .NET code.


The full release of .NET is expected to take several years to complete, with intermittent releases of products such as a personal security service and new versions of Windows and Office that implement the .NET strategy coming on the market separately. Visual Studio .NET is a development environment that is now available. Windows XP supports certain .NET capabilities.

Posted in: Microsoft .Net,Windows