“Gates highlighted the importance of the XML standard as
enabling this Phase 3 vision. “In the same way in 1995 we made a
big bet on the Internet … we’re going to lead the way in these
(XML) advances,” Gates said.”
“During Gates’ keynote, Visual Studio product planner Dave
Mendlen showed off for the first time publicly some of the Web
forms and services technologies that Microsoft is building into
Visual Studio 7.0. … “This makes a Web service look like a Visual
Basic object,” Mendlen told the TechEd audience. He added, however,
that the goal of RAD for the Server will be to allow developers to
program any service in any language to run on any platform.”
“Gates said Microsoft has put together a three-year, $2
billion developer support and training campaign that it will roll
out over time to help programmers learn and use forthcoming
Microsoft products, such as Visual Studio 7.0, BizTalk Server
and other “2000 Generation” wares on tap, such as SQL Server 2000,
Exchange 2000, Application Center 2000, Commerce Server 2000 and
Host Integration Server 2000.”