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To: Thure Meyer who wrote (23019)	3/22/1999 11:49:00 AM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

Thure, mercifully ZD has better index/search than SI. Here's a couple articles, I'm not sure which I mentioned, maybe both, or maybe something else. They're both amusing, in a geek/ilk kind of way. Microsoft Pushes The DNA Envelope zdnet.com Microsoft's main goal with its Platform Architecture is to bring order to the current chaos caused by the fact that the company is currently managing and maintaining more than 8,500 application programming interfaces across its Windows family of products. "That's the main reason they're going to this model," said one Solution Provider attending Summit 98, who requested anonymity. I ought to request anonymity too, but it's way too late for that. 8900 was a bit high, but then this article is 7 months old. I can't figure out if API means system call, which would be bad enough, or if things are incomprehensibly worse. I assume the former, but who can say? Another wry take, from a bit earlier: DNA: Now I Get It (I Think) zdnet.com Windows Distributed interNet Architecture—more fondly known as Windows DNA—is the successor to the Win32 application programming interface set. That's it. Plain and simple. Why Microsoft couldn't just come out and say this months ago is beyond me. Instead, resellers, customers, ISVs and the press have spent months dazed and confused about DNA and its relationship to another mysterious Microsoft acronym, DNS, Digital Nervous System. Microsoft has tried to sugar-coat DNA because they worried that folks didn't understand what Win32 is/was. (At least that's the explanation they gave me when asked.) I don't think the Win32 APIs were the problem. Rather, I'd argue that Microsoft's ongoing, ill-advised attempts to define an object programming model are the problem. OLE evolved into COM, which morphed into DCOM, which transformed into ActiveX. Add the object file system at the heart of Cairo, Microsoft Transaction Server services, Active Server Pages and, most recently WebClasses, into the mix. Who could keep track? I tried to figure out ActiveX when that was the word, but I had the same experience you're having, I'd search microsoft.com and come up with endless Microsoftese and very limited technical information. As far as people actually using "DNA", I'm sure they are, just because it seems it's all a neologistical operation on the existing code base, but I really don't have any inside information. Cheers, Dan. P.S. One more article, while I have it around, a few months later: Microsoft's Goal: DNA Everywhere zdnet.com Jeez, given it's just the Windows APIs with some neologistic massaging, that's an easy goal to reach. Microsoft Corp.'s announcement today of Windows Distributed interNet Applications for Financial Services (DNA FS) sheds some light on Microsoft's previously murky plans for its overreaching Windows APIs, services and specifications. In short: Microsoft wants DNA to be all things to all people Expect to see versions of DNA tailored for nearly all the vertical market segments which Microsoft is targeting, such as health care, retail, insurance, and the like. At the same time, look for Microsoft to claim that DNA is the heart and soul of all products and technologies going forward. DNA is the name of the Windows-centric framework of services, interfaces and gateways that Microsoft introduced at its Professional Developers Conference in September. At the core of DNA is Microsoft's Component Object Model (COM). DNA is the underpinning for DNS, the Distributed Nervous System, which is Microsoft's metaphor for Internet/intranet/Extranet-enabled computing. DNA FS is DNA with certain standards and extensins added that are of interest to the financial community, such as OFX (Open Financial Exchange) gateways. And so on.