From http://www.w3schools.com (Copyright Refsnes Data)
.NET is a mix of technologies, standards and development tools
Today, Windows 2000 and Windows XP form the backbone of .NET.
In the future, the .NET infrastructure will be integrated into all Microsoft's operating systems, desktop and server products.
Windows.NET is the next generation Windows. It will provide support for all the .NET building blocks and .NET digital media. Windows.NET will be self-supporting with updates via Internet as users need them.
A new version of Microsoft Office - Office.NET - will have a new .NET architecture based on Internet clients and Web Services.
With Office.NET, browsing, communication, document handling and authoring will be integrated within a XML-based environment which allow users to store their documents on the Internet.
ASP.NET is the latest version of ASP. It includes Web Services to link applications, services and devices using HTTP, HTML, XML and SOAP.
New in ASP.NET:
You can read more about ASP.NET and ADO.NET in our ASP.NET Tutorial.
The latest version of Visual Studio - Visual Studio.NET - incorporates ASP.NET, ADO.NET, Web Services, Web Forms, and language innovations for Visual Basic. The development tools have deep XML support, an XML-based programming model and new object-oriented programming capabilities.
Visual Basic.NET has added language enhancements, making it a full object-oriented programming language.
SQL Server 2000 is a fully web-enabled database.
SQL Server 2000 has strong support for XML and HTTP which are two of the main infrastructure technologies for .NET.
Some of the most important new SQL Server features are direct access to the database from a browser, query of relational data with results returned as XML, as well as storage of XML in relational formats.
IIS 6.0 has strong support for more programming to take place on the server, to allow the new Web Applications to run in any browser on any platform.
From http://www.w3schools.com (Copyright Refsnes Data)