MS gets ISO standardisation for .Net

By Alun Williams

Posted on 3 Apr 2003 at 17:30

Microsoft's C# and the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) have been officially certified by the ISO (International Standards Organisation).

C# is Microsoft's version of C++ that is specifically designed to work within .Net, which is Microsoft's platform for Web services. The CLI provides the framework upon which .Net-based services can be built.

The official standard for the C# programming language is now ISO270. It covers such things as the syntax and constraints of the C# language and the semantic rules for interpreting programs. The standards ISO 23271 and 23272 cover the CLI. You can read about these standards on the ISO Web site.

Microsoft's General Manager for Platform Strategy, Charles Fitzgerald welcomed the ISO standardisation. He believes it will particularly help open the doors of government bodies to .Net.

Short of galactic standards, you can't get higher than ISO quipped Fitzgerald. He said ISO certification had been the goal all along for Microsoft. 'It was something we committed to do a couple of years ago and we've seen it through'.

C# and CLI were already ECMA standards - Microsoft standardises .NET. The new ISO standardisation (actually achieved on Tuesday) was an automatic promotion of the ECMA standards to an ISO level. Microsoft did not have to work to achieve the certification.

Java, which is the main rival to Microsoft's vision of Web services, remains proprietarily in the control of Sun Microsystems.

This latest development throws into relief the decision not to standardise Java back in the late nineties. Sun Microsystems put its language forward for independent standardisation with ECMA - but after more than a year of work, and to the frustration of the language experts involved, Sun changed its mind and pulled out of the process, not wishing to relinquish full control.

Hal Jespersen, a Distinguished Engineer at Sun, recently told us that Java was sufficiently governed by the Java Community Process. He voiced concerns that officially standardising Java would leave it vulnerable to unsatisfactory implementations. He felt that Microsoft's market control of C# was sufficient to avoid similar concerns for the rival language.