Would it be too much of a stretch to say it was the "new" MS answer to JRE (JavaVM) after they (effectively) got kicked out of that?
(Sorry if I got the wrong idea somewhere...) Rick GlazierFrom: G.Waleed Kavalec clipped: >.Net is all about the creation of a layer that holds the most common
functions and services needed by any application; the implication is that thislayer will over time/versions become part of the operating system in MS's case.