At the VSLive! event in San Francisco, Microsoft Chairman and
Chief Software Architect Bill Gates officially launched Visual
Studio .NET, Microsoft's long-awaited software-development suite
of tools, and the emerging development platform's foundation—the
Microsoft .NET Framework. People are calling Gates's keynote
address one of the best in the company's history because of its
excitement and entertainment value. If you missed the
conference, you can still watch the streaming Webcast of the
keynote address.  Gates called the new Visual Studio .NET tool
set the "most comprehensive development tool of all time."
Developers have waited 3 years for this release of Visual Studio
(VS), and the product appears to be worth the wait. Visual
Studio .NET enables "the next big wave of developer
opportunity," said Gates, "creating XML Web services that will
soon become the basis for all major new software development."
Those statements are bold predictions; the company has stated in
no uncertain terms that XML Web services