> Perhaps they just have no one thinking about networked applications besides the Web at the moment. Sadly lack of forward thinking is something that bugs the W

> Perhaps they just have no one thinking about networked applications besides the Web at the moment. Sadly lack of forward thinking is something that bugs the Windows team a lot I feel. If you found out about the wide range of networking protocols and services they provide in Windows, you wouldn't feel that way. For example, P2P. A few years ago, while working on P2P applications, we discovered Microsoft has a lot of technologies in that area. Things like Teredo (IPv6 transition and NAT traversal) and a complete P2P networking API -- which gives you encryption, self-organizing overlays and DHTs out of the box -- have been around since around 2001, and have been built into Windows since Vista. They also had lower level protocols for things like link-layer topology discovery and automated device (printers, etc) configuration. Almost all proprietary stuff, of course - except Teredo, which has an RFC and an open source implementation - but quite interesting nonetheless. We talked to the team working on this, and they claimed it was even being used by some customers in 1000+ machine deployments. For some reason, these things are not widely marketed. Maybe because it's a niche market. However, I wouldn't say they're not forward-thinking, at least when it comes to networking.