Microsoft Extends .Net Framework For Its Business Apps, Plus Oracle, Apache

Microsoft Oracle Covalent

This week, the software giant unveiled the Microsoft Business Framework, a set of development tools, classes and runtime files that sit on top of the .Net Framework and let developers extend solutions built on the company's Great Plains and Navision applications.

The Microsoft Business Framework was unveiled at Tech 2002 earlier this week at the Fargo, N.D., headquarters of Great Plains, which is now the Microsoft Business Solutions Division.

As it prepares next-generation technologies for .Net, including future plans for its .Net Framework and new .Net forms technology, Microsoft is also working to make applications built on key .Net Framework technologies run on competitors' databases and Web servers.

On Tuesday, for example, Microsoft said the .Net Framework Data Provider for Oracle will enable enterprise developers to more easily integrate applications built on the Microsoft .Net Framework with Oracle databases. The technology will allow users of ADO.Net--a core data access technology in the Microsoft .Net Framework--to achieve high-performance access to Oracle data, Microsoft said.

The Oracle integration tool offers a programming model similar to Microsoft's SQL Server Managed Provider so that developers can access data from multiple sources without having to learn new skills, Microsoft said.

Microsoft also confirmed it has supplied a sample implementation of its application programming interfaces for ASP.Net--another Web application development technology in the .Net Framework--to open-source Web server developer Covalent. The code will permit .Net applications to run seamlessly on the Apache 2.0 Web server, which competes with Microsoft's own Internet Information Server.

Covalent further modified the ASP.Net APIs to optimize performance on its commercial Apache 2.0 server known as the Covalent Enterprise Ready Server, officials from that company said.

"Covalent made a module so ASP.Net applications can run on Apache as well as IIS," said Shawn Nandi, product manager for Microsoft's ASP.Net, acknowledging that Microsoft provided code to Covalent to ease the process for its competitor.

Covalent plans to officially announce the ASP.Net compatibility and downloadable module for the Covalent Enterprise Ready Server at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention on Wednesday.

Microsoft has incorporated the .Net Framework into its forthcoming Windows.Net server, which integrates an upgraded 6.0 version of IIS. The .Net Framework will also be integrated directly into Microsoft's full line of enterprise servers through 2003, officials have said.