.Net in a tangle?

"Microsoft really blew this," so says an analyst of .Net's marketing. Blatant soundbite alert on. ;)

No matter how .Net is viewed, that's a startling admission. Confusion has beset the initiative almost since its inception, but today--after two years and billions of dollars in development--Microsoft's public handling of .Net could stand as a case study in what not to do in a high-profile marketing campaign.

The bungled marketing moves are even more egregious considering the importance Microsoft originally attached to the .Net initiative as the company's bet-the-business strategy. .Net was conceived as a way to make Microsoft software available through the Web to any device, including cell phones and handheld organizers. However, few outside the company can provide that definition--or any other--with any certainty.

We still get people saying to us, 'What is .Net?'" Gates said at a conference held two weeks ago specifically to answer that question. "It's one of those great questions that people can say, 'Yes, it's come into focus at the infrastructure level,' but a little bit where we go beyond that has been unclear to people."

News source: c|net