Thanks freestyle for the info... This week, at the Professional Developers Conference, Microsoft"s Bob Muglia (Group Vice President of the Services Platform Division) presented .NET My Services (previously codenamed "Hailstorm").
According to Microsoft, .NET Web Services and .NET My Services can solve a number of the issues brought to developers in building Web applications.
.NET My Services is a platform. Other platforms include operating systems such as Windows and Linux. Within a platform you can have services. .NET My Services contains the following core services:
.NET Alerts
.NET Inbox
.NET Calendar
.NET Contacts
.NET Lists
.NET Categories
.NET FavoriteWebsites
.NET Profile
.NET Wallet
.NET Presence
.NET Location
.NET Devices
.NET Docuemnts
.NET Application Settings
These services are XML services that can be accessed using SOAP and standard XML. Using XML schemas you can access these services regardless of where they reside. These services can reside - and often will reside - on different computers. The services are set up to work with both individuals, groups, and organizations.
Developing .NET My Service applications doesn"t cost. Getting support and deploying .NET My Service applications will. Depending on the complexity, you could end up paying in one of three tiers:
Base Tier: $1000/yr and $250 per application.
Medium Tier: $10,000/yr and $1500 per application
Large Tier: Need to always be up, large reliance on the services. Possible dedicated support.