Microsoft's .Net is for Palm, Too

In a keynote speech at Microsoft's recent Fusion conference, Microsoft CEO and president Steve Ballmer told partners that under its future ASP-oriented .Net architecture, Microsoft will extend wireless access to non-Microsoft mobile operating environments that include the archrival Palm OS.

While he didn't say this directly, Ballmer's statement certainly seems to imply that, over the next several years, Microsoft will be creating a suite of applications for the Palm for e-mail, word processing, and spreadsheets so they can take full advantage of .Net.

Over the past month or so, Microsoft has been talking up its "software as a service" plan, which it calls .Net. This will involve removing many Microsoft applications from desktop hard drives and instead have them served by an Application Service Provider (ASP), either over a company's internal network or over the Internet.

Thanks to ZDNet's Sm@rt Reseller.