Internet Newsletter for Lawyers |
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I was only able to find space in the printed newsletter for 6 entries, but here is the complete set. I have put the shorter ones first, with a few of the slightly longer contributions at the end.
Apart from that, the entries are not in any particular order.
.NET belongs to Microsoft, who define it as a "strategy to connect information, systems, people and devices through software". The idea is to avoid duplication of effort by providing information through "web services" over the internet. A web service is a piece of computer software which provides information or functions to other computer software. An example could be a list of Land Registries with their full contact details, ideally maintained by the Land Registry itself and available to people through any computer software which can connect to their web service using XML, the standard for this kind of communication.
There would then be no need for any solicitor in the UK to keep and maintain their own list of Land Registries. Extend this idea to Local Authority information, Court information, all kinds of legal information and the amount of work that could be saved across the UK is enormous, as well as giving a much reduced probability of error.
It is an all embracing technology that will harness the power of the web to allow facilities to be shared. This will avoid the duplication of common functions and services. As well as avoiding unnecessary work it will invoke standardisation as a natural by-product. People developing in .NET are joining a global "club" that will allow the members to share their features and functions. Any organisation not belonging to that club will lose out in the long term.
The benefits will be open standards-based business solutions, which can be developed more quickly, can be easily reusable, should scale better and should be more secure and maintainable. So, for example, it should be much easier to link your MS Office systems to, say, your customer database. This is according to Microsoft.
From a software developers point of view, it could be argued that this is a Microsoft attempt to drive out other software tool vendors from the market and to stop the incursions of other languages such as Java. And, of course, everyone must go out and re-buy all the Microsoft software development tools. So far, the biggest result of this initiative has been the spawning of a large industry solely for the retraining of software programmers.
It offers numerous advantages to software developers as well as end users as it will save duplication of entry across different programs. For example a firm's accounts package from 'provider A' would communicate and share information with a case management program from 'provider B'. Over the next 2 - 3 years if you do not have a .NET offering you will not have a marketable product.
.NET technology will offer end users a greater level of product flexibility and stability, greater compatibility between 'competitor' programs and integration with other standard business products which contain business critical tools.
Web Services allow the Internet to host both data and applications. Users can have access to their information through the Internet from any device, any time, anywhere. In summary .NET is a virtual passport to data - it saves the need for multiple entry visas, reduces the need and cost of learning multiple languages, opens new vistas for revenue, and guarantees a secure, speedy journey.
This new technology will have a major impact on solicitors and their use of IT in the coming years. For example, whilst away from the office, a Fee Earner will be able to post time spent on a case directly into the firm's practice management software using a handheld computer. Another example would be when a firm instructs counsel, the solicitors practice would be able to send case information directly from the practice management software into the barristers chambers management software, and vice versa.
Many new devices, from PDAs to Smart Phones, are .NET ready and provide easy access to data from remote locations. For solicitors who are predominantly away from the office, .NET will provide a level of access to their information that has, until now, been very difficult.
Combining .NET with Windows 2000 and above will also make well written applications more stable and the fact that it will not run on Windows 95 will remove older machines from the equation. This might qualify me personally as a geek but I for one am quite excited by .net and its longer term implications.
Although much emphasis has been given to the Internet communication capabilities of .NET it is also relevant to smaller, more localised IT systems such as those used in small to medium sized solicitors practices. These computers also need to communicate to provide the more traditional applications such as case management, accounting, etc. .NET standardises this communication removing the need for multiple and disparate communications systems and gives a platform which can be expanded to link to other systems outside the practices walls.
.NET is not there yet and there are things that the .NET system and its development tools cannot do as well as more traditional systems. Microsoft is working on these problems and the new 2005 release of its Visual Studio development system should address many of them. Expect to see more and more .NET based systems over the next couple of years but do not discount others just because they are not based on .NET as it may be that .NET cannot achieve the necessary end results - yet.
In 2005 the most common form of sharing is by way of an office based networked series of computers linked to a server. The server is the hub on which information is stored and the networked PCs allow access to the server and the information/data stored there.
An alternative means of storing and sharing data is by way of the internet. To that end a computer programme is stored on a web site and access to that web site is controlled and protected, usually by way of user name and password. .NET is one of several computer programming languages which allows for traditional "Networked" computer programs to become "Web Enabled", i.e. stored on a web site and accessible to those who have such rights.
.Net is essentially an upgraded version of Visual Basic which allows for the building of standalone or data bases based applications, be they for an intranet application or an internet application. That an application is written in .Net as against PHP or any other web enabling software should not be of any great interest to the profession. .Net is simply one of several programming language available for such a purpose.
The likely development in the IT world is that web enabled systems will become the norm. However it is unlikely that legal practitioners will adopt such practices until all the issues with security are resolved.
Web enabled software is available now. However conservative solicitors are unlikely to adopt such practices for the next two to three years until all fears about security and dependability are resolved.
It is important to realise from the outset that .NET isn't a piece of software that you can pull from a shelf or download from the internet. Essentially .NET is both a Microsoft developed business strategy and a collection of programming support for what are known as Web services, the ability to use the Web rather than your own computer for various services.
.NET is best viewed as the building blocks that will shape the future of your computing infrastructure and the way you do business allowing you to have relevant and up to date information made available to you securely, whenever you need it, wherever you need it, be it a PC, Laptop, PDA or even Smart Phone.
Internally within your practice .NET enabled applications will help you move away from cumbersome manual processes to more streamlined automated workflow procedures while viewing it from the flip side, the framework offered by the strategy will allow software developers to create more innovative products faster to market allowing your practice to become more agile as new .NET – connected applications are launched.
.NET will become a "must have" for legal technology solutions over the next few years rather like MS SQL Server is now. Always remember though; you should select an application based on what it does rather than the platform on which it runs. There will be just as many bad .NET applications as good ones.
Then, .NET probably meant Not Extensively Tested. By 2005, it may fairly be described as Now Extensively Tested and, moving from acronyms to slogans, .NET is ready to deliver Anytime Anyplace Anywhere.
The main potential benefits for lawyers (in likely order of take-up) are:
1. Getting the most out of existing technology through additional .NET modules
e.g. reporting tools in PM applications;
2. Software hosted over the Internet;
3. Information accessed from any device e.g. CM/PM information on PDAs;
4. Easier interaction with data, e.g. speech and handwriting recognition.
Of course, items 2 and 3 will have to contend with lawyers' natural need to maintain security and confidentiality and items 2 and 4 with the natural conservatism of the profession and the circumstances in which it works.
Every platform, framework, and architecture has its own strengths and weaknesses, .NET is no exception. There are a lot of factors to consider when choosing a technology and different projects may appeal to a different technology.
Comparisons (not definitive) need to be viewed in terms of price, speed and efficiency, security, cross-platform support, and the advantages of an open source solution versus proprietary.
.NET may promise the full al fresco experience but, working mainly in offices or at home/hotel/client premises (and with heavy data entry needs), most lawyers won't need or want to go the whole .NET hog. They may prefer to pick and mix the best technology for the job in hand.
The incorporation of better (or at least more consistent) standards, and the opening up of applications to more flexible models of customization and extensibility enabled through these standards, will empower firms to more readily enhance their packaged systems for competitive advantage. It must be understood that this will not come for free, but requires a commitment from the package vendors to expose their models for such manipulation – and ideally do it in such a way that not all work requires expensive consultants or .NET software developers.
This environment will drive companies (especially in the service oriented industries) to become increasingly competitive in their technology based service offerings as their competitors take advantage of improved development and integration productivity.
We recommend that you commit early to vendors that have embraced .NET as their business application backbone which will in turn accelerate your firm's realization on the benefits of distributed systems and service-oriented architectures.
When people consider what .Net actually is, and if an application is .Net there is a simple method to ensure that the wool is not being pulled over a consumers eyes. The information regarding this consumer protection against every supplier jumping on the .Net bandwagon with little or no substance to their .Net capability is located here: www.microsoft.com/net/logo
The introduction to the site summarises the situation well...
"The Microsoft .NET Connected Logo provides a quick means of identifying products and solutions that connect through the power of Web services and are built on the Microsoft platform. Systems, applications, and services that display the .NET Connected Logo have been tested to support Web service capabilities and are optimized for the next generation of Internet-enabled computing."
Why look for the .NET Connected Logo?
Solutions branded with the .NET Connected logo enable customers to more quickly and easily integrate with their business partners, connect with their own customers, and provide the right information to their employees — saving precious time and conserving capital. The logo identifies a product or service that they can trust.
From a user's (e.g. Lawyers) perspective you will see higher levels of performance, richer functionality and faster integration of applications. For example, in the past it may have taken months or years to integrate data or applications, but now, using .NET, this can be achieved in weeks, or even days. Therefore reducing disruption and increasing the returns that users and the business gain from existing and future applications.
.NET allows various applications to share information over the Internet, regardless of the operating system or back-end software that the application is using. It enables users to interact with a broad range of smart devices through the Web while ensuring that the user, not the application, controls the interaction. Remote working becomes a more efficient process, something which is becoming more of a key issue in the Legal sector.
Generally end-users of existing Windows applications will only benefit when existing systems are rewritten or extended using .NET, something that would take considerable time to effect given existing customer support considerations, coupled with planning suitable upgrade paths.
The immediate benefits are for the developers, as .NET provides a coherent programming environment, with a choice of a number of different programming languages, to develop applications specifically for Microsoft Operating Systems. .NET applications can integrate fairly easily with other Microsoft tools and products, and are well supported by Microsoft.
The immediate benefit to the user is the possibility of a rich application interface that should be quicker, more flexible and more intuitive than a web browser for example - subject of course to the developers own creative and design ability - and one that will evolve with future updates from Microsoft.
Much of the perceived longer term benefit to a user is the potential to run applications more effectively over WANs, when connected either directly or via the Internet. This requires specific structuring of the application, to separate the user interface from the bulk of the data processing, which should be server-based. This becomes particularly powerful if the server based processes are created as Web Services, because they then present a standard interface to the outside world, and may be used by all sorts of user interfaces - not just .NET ones.
It is important to realise though that this is a question of architecture, and is neither exclusive to .NET nor to Microsoft. The fact that an application has been developed using .NET does not in itself provide this facility - it may well be just as much of a standard Client-Server design as a pre .NET application.
.NET can certainly be used to develop web services, but is not the only means of doing so, and probably not the best, as the user then loses the option of installing UNIX or LINUX servers.
Microsoft .NET is a strategy, rather than a product. Microsoft views the future
of business software in the following terms:
.NET is the collection of components, operating systems, services, standards and development tools that Microsoft sells as the rapid delivery mechanism for this strategy.
We believe that Microsoft's .NET strategy will succeed and that its goals:
Here is Microsoft's definition from www.microsoft.com/net/basics:
"Microsoft .NET is a set of software technologies for connecting information, people, systems, and devices. This new generation of technology is based on Web services - small building-block applications that can connect to each other as well as to other, larger applications over the Internet."
So what does that mean, and what is the problem with it.
Well the problem with (pre .Net) Windows based applications was that all the programs lived on the PC so when you want to upgrade 200 PCs you have to go to them all and upgrade them.
We all hoped that .Net would be a true web based architecture that would enable developers to create browser based software such that all the business rules ran on a server and we could reduce the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) by being able to upgrade all the software in one place - the server.
Now the Web Services architecture means that you can now do that with .Net, but you can also recompile all your old software so that it still runs on the PC but is now .Net software. Essentially the same old stuff with a new lick of paint.
So the question the user selecting the next generation software has to ask is not whether software is .Net or not, but whether it is server based or not. If the supplier can answer yes to that question, then you should look at the functionality of the software, which as you know, is much more important than the technology it runs on.
An Example:
If you were writing an accounting application you would need to create a posting program. Using .Net you would first write a program to validate the transaction and update the required database fields. You would also describe an interface by which other programs could call it. This program would reside on an application server.
The user interface would be described by a second program, which resides on the client PC, and calls the posting program on the application server. You could also write further posting interfaces to that program, e.g. for use within a portal or from a PDA.
Publishing interfaces to such modules allows other suppliers (from case management authors to photocopier manufacturers) to call those modules and integrate that functionality.
The problem with .NET
Writing .NET applications is very difficult, it requires developers not only to learn new languages and syntax but adopt an entirely new and complex architecture (for example, the above posting module would require a very sophisticated security model).
This difficulty is evidenced by the fact that there are very few true .NET applications available. Even Microsoft has yet to move many of their most widely used applications to .NET.
Later this year, Microsoft will release 'Whidbey' which will become .NET version 2 and incorporate many of the lessons learned by early .NET developers. This should make the process of developing .NET applications a little easier and will introduce technologies such as 'click once' software download to make the implementation and management of .NET applications much easier.
So should law firms adopt .NET?
.NET will become the standard software development environment in the same way that Microsoft Windows and Office have become the standard business environment. However as there is so little true .NET software currently available, it would be premature to adopt a .NET only strategy as the proven business benefits of older applications currently hold sway.
For further info go to www.microsoft.com/net.
.NET is the environment or framework which Microsoft has created to allow software developers to build applications. If we consider software development in terms of building a house then .NET provides the foundations, tools, building blocks and pre-fabricated units to build the house.
It provides the foundations on which the house is built, at this foundation level
it also provides support for the services which the house requires such as water,
drainage, gas etc and the standards by which these services need to be
connected to the outside world. In .NET terms support for these services covers
the provision by Microsoft of a range of software products and standards which
allow developers easily to connect applications to:
Microsoft refers to this foundation layer as the Common Language Run-time (CLR) and this foundation layer needs to be in place on each computer before it can run any .NET applications. In the early days of .NET this layer needed to be installed on each PC, but it now comes as part of the latest versions of Windows.
As well as providing the foundations for building applications .NET also provides:
So .NET is much more than just a programming language such as Visual Basic, COBOL or C. It is a complete software development environment which Microsoft is trying to ensure is the preferred base on which software applications are developed in the future (and succeeding).
Microsoft became a huge corporation in the 80s by providing the basic operating environment which most computers needed to run (MS-DOS) and further built on this in the 90s with Windows. In the 90s, it provided the basic tools needed to run an office (Microsoft Office). To continue to grow, Microsoft must expand its influence into other areas of software and .NET, along with Microsoft SQL Server as the preferred database for .NET applications, is fundamental to it taking control of the software development environment.
In the future this could also include software used in many consumer products such as televisions, Hi-Fi systems, mobile devices, cars, etc. However it will face a major struggle in some of these areas and is already losing the battle with Apple for control of the media delivery market.
If you want the official Microsoft answer to the question "What is .NET" see: www.microsoft.com/Net/Basics.aspx.
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