The most interesting story from Microsoft's recent Professional Developers Conference wasn't the vendor's future Longhorn operating system, but rather, Microsoft's shift away from two preoccupations of its recent past: .Net and web services.
Microsoft isn't abandoning the .Net Framework or web services standards in its development, hosting and interoperability environments. The .Net Common Language Runtime (CLR), .Net class libraries and growing WS-* standard suite are still expected to be core features of the future Longhorn client and server releases.
But the vendor has distanced itself from the terms .Net and web services and has incorporated these frameworks in a broader-umbrella architecture associated with Longhorn. This uber-framework, called WinFX, refers to the new APIs and component model underlying the new operating system. WinFX, like .Net, will be supported on prior Windows operating systems through downloadable components.
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