The iconic software company that is based in King County Washington has been getting almost universally slammed from it's recent Los Angeles press announcement about its entry into the hardware business with the convertible laptop/tablet known as Surface.

Certainly I can see the point that it is now competing with its hardware vendors/partners. Intel has done a good job in the arena creating 'reference designs' without competing with its partners.

There is another viewpoint which seems to be ignored. The cold facts are Microsoft is a public company. This puts Microsoft in a legal position of doing the most it can to return value to its shareholders. Failure to do so means somebody is going to jail.

Microsoft has a vision, which at the end of the day is, a certain way to get enough people to see enough value to hand over their money, to fulfill their fiduciary duty.

.NET is a highly popular programming language from Microsoft that continues to rock the IT industry since its inception almost twelve years ago. Simply stated, it is a development framework comprising of multiple modules that helps in creating Web Applications, Windows Applications as well as Mobile Applications. The demand for .NET programmers saw a definite surge in the last decade - thanks to the evolution of the smart phones.

Listed below are some of the recent and prevalent aspects of .Net

ASP .NET - Web API

Microsoft considers Web AP I as the future of ASP .NET. The world of web is heading towards a simpler, lightweight, REST based services. Web API makes it possible with the ASP.NET MVC without the heavy lifting that WCF requires. jQuery could be utilized for displaying results in front end of the page as shown in the example in Microsoft site.

When businesses are trying to expand and require professionals to lead teams, terminology may get in the way of who performs what roles. When it comes to information technology (IT), new and vital professionals may seem hard to differentiate between one another. However, there are key differences between specific professionals needed with IT departments. Here are the responsibilities that differentiate between an IT manager and an IT project manager.

IT Managers

IT managers are the leaders of the entire IT infrastructure a business has to function properly. The IT manager must lead the entire IT department to regulate and maintain the IT network for the business. As a manager, this IT professional corresponds with other departments in the business about how the IT department is implementing the goals the business is aiming toward. In addition, the manager must be fiscally responsible and answer to executives and financial officers in the business the reasons behind certain costs and investments. Because of the dual computer technology and business acumen this profession requires, many IT managers have a Master of Business Administration (MBA) related to information technology.

IT Project Managers

Visual Studio .NET is one of many tools available at your disposal for web development. But where some programs may focus on HTML coding or graphics, Visual Studio .NET is a complete tool set that can be used to not only create XML web services and ASP web applications, but desktop and mobile applications as well. So what are some features that are included in the latest release?

·         Visual J#. This is most well-known by developers who are well-versed in the language of Java. It is best used when building services via the .NET framework, or when building applications.

·         Smart Device Applications. This enables you to generate, repair, and install applications that can be used on smart phones, PDAs, and other devices.

·         ASP.NET Mobile Design. Allows for building web applications for not only PDAs and mobile phones, but pagers as well. This also allows a designer to manipulate the mobile Web form of an application.