In assessing Microsoft's progress toward its initial goals for .Net, Gates said the company has done well in rallying the industry around Web services and in delivering development tools. But he gave Microsoft a grade of "C" for developing what he termed "building-block services" and for making the software-as-a-service concept a reality. Gates said parts of the software-as-a-service concept are in place in the company's Hotmail email service. But "a lot is still to be done there," he said. Gates gave the company an "incomplete" grade for Microsoft's efforts at "federation," which is the establishing of a secure connection between two or more companies. He said it became evident that federation was important once the the company had mapped out .Net. Microsoft earlier this year announced a federation plan called TrustBridge to link companies together. The TrustBridge technology is expected to be released next year. Gates also gave Microsoft an "incomplete" for its goal of changing users' computer experience. "That's still not there, but it's coming," he said. Analysts said Microsoft seems clear on the changes needed to the .Net plan. "They were tough on themselves, but were clear on where they could have done better: security, database store and ease of access," said IDC analyst Jean Bozman. Despite the setbacks, Microsoft is "committed to the R&D necessary for this (.Net)," Gates said. "We knew when we did it, it would be a five-, six-year effort." The software maker, realisng that budget constraints mean big companies are less likely to replace existing software with a Microsoft-only setup, has begun efforts to connect .Net to other makers' software. On Wednesday, Covalent Technologies, which sells the Apache Web server, said it has worked with Microsoft to link Apache to .Net. The move could give Microsoft access to a far larger audience of software developers. Apache is used by more than half of all Internet sites, according to an ongoing survey by research firm Netcraft. On Tuesday, Microsoft said it has developed software to link .Net to Oracle's database server. News.com's Mike Ricciuti contributed to this report.
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