Montvale, NJ, December 11, 2002 - SYS-CON Media, the world's leading i-technology publisher, announced today that it will unveil the premier issue of its latest i-technology publication, .NET Developer's Journal, on newsstands in January..

"This new magazine, with its developer focus, is yet another tangible indication of the systematic momentum among developers that the .NET Framework is gathering," said John Montgomery, group product manager of Microsoft's .NET Framework.

".NET Developer's Journal will be focusing on all aspects of the .NET infrastructure, enabling technologies, business process management, and collaborative business," said Jeremy Geelan, editorial director of SYS-CON Media. "Our goal is to provide accurate, insightful information to the information technologist working with .NET, from developer to CIO - and to be the number one source for .NET information."

"Initial market projections estimate that the number of .NET developers will reach 2.5 million by February 2003," said Derek Ferguson, renowned author, speaker, technology evangelist, and editor-in-chief of .NET Developer's Journal, "With the i-technology industry again on the cusp of a major shift in the way it operates, it has come as little surprise to developers to find that Microsoft Corporation is once again in the vanguard of change, with its comprehensive .NET initiative."

What's in the Premier Issue?
.NETDJ's premier issue features an exclusive interview by Ferguson with Microsoft Chief Architect and Distinguished Engineer Anders Hejlsberg, inventor of the C# programming language.

Other articles in this issue include: "Visual Studio.NET: Customizing the PictureBox Control" by Erik Brown; "Migration: Common Pitfalls that Foil .NET Migration," by Matthew MacDonald; "Reuse: Migrating COM Applications to .NET," by Brian Noyes; "ADO.NET: Advanced Data Retrieval with ADO.NET," by Dan Fox; "ASP.NET: Designing a Rich Text Editor .NET Server Control," by Chandu Thota; Application Mobility: Bringing .NET to Devices," by Brad McCabe; "Mobile .NET: Leveraging the List Controls in the Mobile Internet Toolkit," by Derek Ferguson; and "The Training Corner: Examining the 70-305 Exam," by Randy Cornish.

"I'm looking forward to helping launch this new publication as it secures its position as the leading .NET magazine targeted at developers," said Dean Guida, CEO of Infragistics and a member of the .NET Developer's Journal editorial board. "By taking an in-depth approach to explaining the issues related to pioneering .NET development and what it takes to develop industry-first Web services for IT management, .NETDJ is sure to provide answers to questions the development community is asking."

The magazine's editorial board includes Guida; Gary Cornell, cofounder and publisher of Apress, the leading publisher of .NET books for programming professionals; Peter Drayton, a program manager in Microsoft's CLR team and author of C# Essentials; Keith Franklin, a founding board member of the International .NET Association, a well-known speaker, and author of VB.NET for Developers; John Sharp, author of Microsoft Visual C# .NET Step By Step and Microsoft Visual J# .NET, and a principal technologist at Content Master Ltd.; and Jason Whittington, a consultant and researcher who can often be found delivering courses for DevelopMentor.

".NET Developer's Journal will establish itself as the leading advertising vehicle for companies and Microsoft partners who are committed to .NET technology," said Robyn Forma, advertising director for the magazine. ".NET Developer's Journal's integrated advertising programs provide an effective and affordable medium for companies aiming to reach an audience interested in learning about .NET - as well as the products and services that support the technology. .NETDJ's charter advertisers include: /n Software, Altova, Black Hat Software, Crystal Decisions, Data Direct, Ektron, Gartner, Infragistics, Interland, LinuxWorld Conference and Expo, Macromedia, Merant, Rational Software, Richard Hale Shaw Group, SAMS Publishing, and SoftArtisans."

".NET Developer's Journal is one of our most important media sponsors of the upcoming .NET Edge 2003 East - International .NET Developer Conference & Expo," said Grisha Davida, president of SYS-CON Events, Inc. "We are excited to bring this new .NET event to New England with Microsoft's support, on March 18-20, 2003 at Hynes Convention Center in Boston, MA."

Domestic charter subscription price for .NET Developer's Journal is $69.99 for one year, 12 issues. For subscription inquiries and to find out more about .NET Developer's Journal, please visit: www.sys-con.com/dotnet. For all advertising inquiries, please contact Robyn Forma at robyn@sys-con.com, or 201-802-3020. For all inquiries about the .NET Edge 2003 East - International .NET Developer Conference & Expo, please contact Michael Lynch at mike@sys-con.com, or 201-802-3055.

Derek Ferguson's Editorial Column
"Welcome to the premier issue of .NET Developer's Journal. This month's issue features a migration theme. In some cases, this refers to the migration from COM to .NET. In other cases, it might mean migration from completely non-Microsoft platforms, such as Java. Regardless of from which platforms people are migrating to .NET, there seem to be a few different views currently circulating in the industry about the pace at which this overall migration process is proceeding. At one end of the spectrum, of course, you have those who say that the whole world is on fire with .NET and that complete market dominance is virtually guaranteed by this time next year. At the other extreme, you have those who claim that .NET is shaping up into a complete disaster for Redmond. Personally, I believe that the truth lies somewhere between these two extremes.

As evidence that .NET is catching on at a faster-than-expected pace, advocates of the overly optimistic position tend to cite mainly anecdotal evidence. For example, the fact that a few big-name companies have built .NET-based solutions that are saving them lots of money. Similarly, the fact that some elements of .NET are now available on exactly two other operating systems - FreeBSD and Linux - is supposed to mean that .NET is in some way shaping up as a platform-independent alternative to Java.

Meanwhile, the fact that the numbers of Java developers and technologies both continue to grow rapidly serves as a central argument for those who would say that the .NET revolution has failed completely. After all, says this group, even many of Microsoft's oldest and most dedicated developers - the Visual Basic programmers - have refused to simply "go along with the program" when asked to change their entire programming approach to match the new requirements of VB.NET. These resistant VB6 developers - the ".NOT" movement, as they have come to be known - are perhaps the best examples of the Great .NET Migration stalling dead in its tracks.

While I believe it is true that the pace of developer migration to .NET has not yet become all that it could be, I also believe that there is still considerable reason for optimism going forward. For example, within just a few years, the number of .NET developers and organizations using .NET is predicted to be just about equal to that of Java. Not bad for a platform that is entering the race four to six years (depending upon whether you count from .NET's initial beta in 2000 or its final release in 2002) after its competitor!

Furthermore, I think we have to remember to take the cyclical nature of the economy into account here. Simply put: things are bad now. However, they won't stay bad forever. Companies that are too afraid to begin the kind of R&D now that would be required for a migration to .NET may well be among the first to jump on the bandwagon as soon as economic conditions improve.

Indeed, poor economic conditions often prove the greatest stimulus for bold new uses of technology. I was recently reminded of this myself when I stumbled across the RoboNerd Web site (www.robo-nerd.com). The poor economy forced these book authors' publisher into bankruptcy, so what did they do? They built a Web site that turns lemons into lemonade by allowing technology authors to publish direct to the developer market and keep an even greater share of the spoils for themselves. Just think how many more cost savings like this will become possible as organizations become more and more willing to interconnect their essential business processes with one another via .NET and XML Web services!

The final reason for optimism that I would cite should probably be the most obvious to us all - the fact that the .NET platform is just plain brilliant technology. What other platform allows you to choose the language that you want to use - so the VB developer who is fresh out of college feels just as comfortable as the COBOL guru who has been in the business for 40 years? What other platform allows you to always use exactly the same tools and skills to create an application - regardless of whether it is for the desktop, for the Web, or for a handheld device? To my mind, there are no alternatives - .NET is clearly the winner in the Great Platform Race of the early 21st century!

So, what do you think? Are people migrating to the .NET platform faster, slower, or just about at the pace you would expect, considering that Microsoft has "bet the company" on this initiative? Let me know your thoughts at derek@sys-con.com!"

About SYS-CON Media

SYS-CON Media, listed in Inc 500 three years in a row as the fastest growing, privately held publishing company in America, is the world's leading publisher exclusively serving i-technology markets. SYS-CON publications include: Wireless Business & Technology (www.WBT2.com), Java Developer's Journal (www.JavaDevelopersJournal.com), XML-Journal (www.XML-Journal.com), Web Services Journal (www.WSJ2.com), ColdFusion Developer's Journal (www.ColdFusionJournal.com), PowerBuilder Developer's Journal (www.PowerBuilderJournal.com), WebSphere Developer's Journal (www.WebSphereDevelopersJournal.com), BEA WebLogic Developer's Journal (www.WeblogicDevelopersJournal.com), and .NET Developer's Journal (www.DotNETDevelopersJournal.com).

About SYS-CON Events, Inc.

SYS-CON Events, Inc. is the world's leading producer of i-technology developer conferences and expositions. The 2003 developer conference program includes Web Services Edge 2003 East, an international Web Services, Java, XML, and .NET Conference & Expo, March 18-20, at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, MA. The SYS-CON i-Technology Education World Tour will be in a city near you starting in April 2003.

Contact: Robyn Forma (advertising)
Company: SYS-CON Media
Voice: 201 802-3022
Email: robyn@sys-con.com

Contact: Derek Ferguson (editorial)
Company: SYS-CON Media
Voice: 201 802-3011
Email: derek@sys-con.com

Contact: Grisha Davida (.NET Edge Conference & Expo)
Company: SYS-CON Events, Inc.
Voice: 201 802-3004
Email: grisha@sys-con.com