WinFX rebranded as .NET 3.0
About: This post is about the rebranding of WinFX as .NET 3.0
Hello,
Microsoft has decided to rebrand WinFX as .NET 3.0, this is purely a branding decision with absolutely no impact on the actual framework, its components or their delivery schedule. As many of you are aware WinFX is scheduled to be released with Windows Vista and comprises of the following major components
1. Windows Communication Foundation, WCF, (project codename was Indigo)
2. Windows Presentation Foundation, WPF, (project codename was Avalon)
3. Windows Workflow Foundation, WF (no it is not WWF)
4. Windows CardSpae, WCS (previously called infocard)
5. .NET 2.0
In short, .NET 3.0 = WCF + WPF + WF + WCS + .NET 2.0, please note the .NET 3.0 is an additive release, the language compiler it uses are the same as .NET 2.0, we added WCF, WPF, WF and WCS to .NET 2.0 and are calling the superset .NET 3.0
Personally I am very excited about the name change to .NET 3.0, during my conversations with customers I frequently used .NET 3.0 as the answer to the question 'what is WinFX ?' and am very happy that we have rebranded it officially now. With over 35 million downloads the .NET brand has a very positive recognition amongst the IT community and even amongst the business users, I am hopeful that this rebranding will help in avoiding confusion about the next version of the .NET programming framework.
Best regards,
Mohammad