My answer: Microsoft’s latest proprietary standard comprehensive programming framework.
As Microsoft puts it, “Microsoft .NET is an XML Web services platform that will enable developers to create programs that transcend device boundaries and fully harness the connectivity of the Internet.”
Or, “After more than a year of hard work, ECMA has finished the standardization of the common language infrastructure of the .NET Framework and the C# [pronounced "see-sharp"] programming language, taking yet another step towards building an open XML Web services platform.”
If you kind of imagine all the Java-related technologies as one application development religion under not-Microsoft, .NET would be another, under Microsoft.
A good overview:
<http://www.extremetech.com/article/0,3428,a%253D1610,00.asp>
Two C#/Java comparisons:
<http://www.25hoursaday.com/CsharpVsJava.html>
<http://genamics.com/developer/csharp_comparative.htm>
(”C#” and “.NET” are both hard to search for with current search engines — was that on purpose?)