Microsoft .NET is one of the latest and powerful technologies introduced by Microsoft Corporation. It is comprised of several programming languages and each of these languages works under a common framework called .NET Framework. Developers had faced lot of difficulties while working with earlier languages. These difficulties were completely eliminated with the introduction of .NET. Microsoft .NET platform comprises of core components like .NET building block services such as Passport .NET, .NET device software's that will run on latest Internet devices like mobile phones, handhelds and pocket PC's. You can also integrate the .NET technology into self describing documents like XML. For example, you can manipulate XML documents using any one of languages under the .NET Framework. Passport .NET provides a single window access to all Microsoft Resources like Hotmail, Microsoft Chat, MSDN subscriber downloads and others.

Another set of core components named .NET infrastructure comprises of Common Language Runtime (CLR), .NET Framework class libraries, Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and the recently released Windows 2003 server family. You can build robust, scalable, distributed applications with the help of .NET and the part that helps us to develop these applications is called the .NET Framework. The .NET Framework contains Common Language Runtime (CLR) and the .NET Framework class libraries organized in a logical fashion. Visual Studio .NET is a development tool used to develop and deploy .NET applications. You will learn more about this tool in chapter 2. The .NET programming languages mainly comprises of C-Sharp, Visual Basic .NET, Visual C++ .NET, Visual J# .NET and ASP.NET. There are around 20 other different languages like COBOL.NET, which support .NET and in future you can expect more. All these languages have the .NET Framework class libraries built into them and hence the learning curve is simplified. Microsoft packaged all the essential tools, components and the documentations into Software Development Kit or shortly called as SDK. It comes with compilers and run time engines for C#, Visual Basic .NET and ASP.NET. With these tools you can test and run your .NET programs. The runtime which I discussed just now is also used by Visual Studio .NET. Visual Studio .NET provides us with a visual environment to design, develop and deploy .NET applications.