"To put PDC in perspective, previous years saw Bill Gates unveil .NET and Windows Vista. And we all know how they went"

As I recall Vista subsequently went tits-up.

.NET? It's there on most Windoze platforms but so is the start button. No big deal there then.

More importantly, is that the long-awaited return of the Flying Toasters? After dark Screensavers FTW.

Thing is weve all buggered off to run linux for free on our old 486s and so on or got Apple macs and found that you dont need Microsoft Orifice to open a word document.

& even if it really was as good as they think it is and rid the world of all diseases, prevented economic meltdown & global nuclear war, we probably wouldnt risk it after the gigantic vista cock up, would we?

However, I guess there will still be a few lemmings, yet to jump off the cliff!

@MS What about the fish tank screen saver, that you could select your fish & change the weed & gravel which interfered with Novell 3.11 like a poltergeist, I bet Microsoft 'borrowed' the code for Vista!

Vista, yes I can understand the sarcasm over that one, MS flat out failed. But .NET is a steady, widely-used programming platform that has not failed.

The introduction of .NET into the programming world has seen Java take on new features to compete and vice versa. Like any language framework it has it's flaws but to keep putting it up along side Vista is just wrong.

Perhaps people fear that which they do not understand since 90% of windows users will never know when a program they are running is actually using .NET.

I think the Register's player need's a snappy name too. Since it's the Register's player, how about "The R's Player"?