Disclaimer: I am not a .Net programmer, so these are just my thoughts and impressions as someone on the outside who followed the development from a distance.
I think a lot of the focus on .Net was driven by MS and Balmer's fear of Java. At the time, almost all desktop computers were running Windows 9x/2k. If 3rd party applications were developed with cross-platform Java, the customers would no longer be locked in to Windows.
First they tried the famous embrace/extend/extinguish approach by creating a Windows-specific version of Java. Sun fought back, and MS decided to push .Net instead.
It seemed to me that the initial strategy was to claim .Net was cross platform, but focus more on Windows and let open source projects like Mono be their cross platform "alibi". They changed strategies after a while, and now I guess the cross platform is more real.
I think a lot of the focus on .Net was driven by MS and Balmer's fear of Java. At the time, almost all desktop computers were running Windows 9x/2k. If 3rd party applications were developed with cross-platform Java, the customers would no longer be locked in to Windows.
First they tried the famous embrace/extend/extinguish approach by creating a Windows-specific version of Java. Sun fought back, and MS decided to push .Net instead.
It seemed to me that the initial strategy was to claim .Net was cross platform, but focus more on Windows and let open source projects like Mono be their cross platform "alibi". They changed strategies after a while, and now I guess the cross platform is more real.