| The Internet revolution of the late 1990s represented a dramatic shift in the way
individuals and organizations communicate with each other. Traditional applications,
such as word processors and accounting packages, are modeled as stand-alone
applications: they offer users the capability to perform tasks using data stored on the
system the application resides and executes on. Most new software, in contrast, is
modeled based on a distributed computing model where applications collaborate to
provide services and expose functionality to each other. As a result, the primary role of
most new software is changing into supporting information exchange (through Web
servers and browsers), collaboration (through e-mail and instant messaging), and
individual expression (through Web logs, also known as Blogs, and e-zines — Web
based magazines). Essentially, the basic role of software is changing from providing
discrete functionality to providing services.
The .NET Framework represents a unified, object-oriented set of services and libraries
that embrace the changing role of new network-centric and network-aware software. In
fact, the .NET Framework is the first platform designed from the ground up with the
Internet in mind.
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