Michael: You maybe right, I just found some new info:
activex.developer.com
Update: Microsoft splices ActiveX into DNA
by Kieron Murphy
As part of its efforts to clarify its development platform, Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday folded its Active Platform site on the Web into its new Windows DNA section.
Users visiting the ActiveX page will now find a message that states:"Sorry! The Active Platform site is no longer available. Please visit the Microsoft Windows DNA site for information about Microsoft's new framework for building distributed computing solutions that integrate the Web with client/server models of application development."
"The ActiveX name has not been retired," said Cornelius Willis, director of platform marketing at Microsoft. "We just changed the entry point [on the Web] to the highest level of architecture. DNA is a superset of basically everything we do in our platform. It's the embodiment of all the services you need to build distributed, Internet-ready applications."
Information on ActiveX can now be found by accessing the new DNA (Distributed interNet Applications architecture) site's Technologies section and navigating through appropriate links listed in "Learn More About Windows DNA Technologies." A section called Active Platform Tools, for example, still offers information on ActiveX development tools. But there is no longer a single section devoted exclusively to ActiveX.
Willis said that Microsoft expects the use of ActiveX in current projects to continue unchanged in the developer community.
Developers had mixed reactions to the new strategy.
"It would be too simple to bash Microsoft for yet another re-bundling of their technology under yet another name," said J. P. Morgenthal, a Web technology analyst at NC.Focus, in Hewlett, N.Y., upon hearing the news.
"Looking past the surface, it seems like Microsoft has truly entered the age of biological software, in which things grow and evolve," Morgenthal added. "This is just Microsoft's way of identifying that the technology has entered a new stage of life. And all developers can appreciate that, with each iteration, code and technology becomes cleaner and stronger. Therefore, DNA could very well be to distributed computing what Windows was to desktop computing."
Other Web technology experts were skeptical, however.
"It appears at this time that DNA is really not new technology but a marketing umbrella for existing Microsoft strategies: DHTML, scripting on client and server and COM," said David Fisco, an editor at Distributed Object Computing magazine.
"The [DNA] technology looks like a repackaged version of ActiveX/COM," said Madhu Siddalingaiah, a principal at PraxisNet, in Arlington, Va. "It appears that instead of developing a Java lookalike, Microsoft has decided to just reposition some of their existing technologies."
But Willis said the move was intended to give Microsoft's customers a single "way to describe our development platform."
"We've done a lousy job of that over the years," Willis admitted. "DNA is an effort to give them a roadmap to show them where we're investing and where we're building out our architecture, so they can invest likewise."
On a side note, content on the DNA site was initially disabled for Netscape Navigator users as late as last night due to a minor HTML tagging error. Microsoft has now fixed the site. |
