Microsoft Celebrates 20 Years of .NET
- Paul Thurrott
- Feb 14, 2022
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20 years ago today, Microsoft launched the first version of .NET alongside Visual Studio .NET, kicking off the .NET era.
“Today, over five million developers use .NET and this is a celebration of all of you,” .NET marketing director Beth Massi writes. “It’s amazing that a 20-year-old platform has been the most loved framework by developers for three years in a row now – 2019, 2020, 2021, according to Stack Overflow’s developer survey.”
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.NET was born as a proprietary, Windows-only software platform, but its current success can be tied to a decision a decade ago to reverse course and make it open-source and cross-platform. Today, .NET 6 is available across multiple platforms and it supports numerous frameworks for creating apps and services of all kinds.
Tied to the anniversary, Microsoft also revealed that .NET 7 Preview 1 will be released this week, with .NET MAUI, a cross-platform framework, expected by mid-year.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of .NET, Microsoft is hosting a variety of online events, starting with a celebration broadcast featuring Scott Hunter, Scott Hanselman, and others. You can learn more at the .NET website.
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blue77star
<p>.NET Core 5, 6 -> they make no sense on Windows platform and IIS. Completely useless. I am working in .NET for 20 years now.</p>