In the week that saw the headlines declare Microsoft's perceived intention to directly challenge Java on it's own turf through open-sourcing the core server side components of the .NET stack, we take an ever so slightly nostalgic look back on Communicraft's pioneering work with the .NET platform, through the eyes of Microsoft themselves, from the Microsoft.com website.

Back in 2003 .NET was very much the new kid on the block, with a mission to tackle the dominance of Java as the dev platform of choise for sophisticated web application development.

In one of our early forays in to the world of online travel application development more than ten years ago, we were dying to try out in real life the platform which we had been experimenting with in our new, and, shall we say "cosy" (if draughty!) development studio on Pembroke Road in Dublin.

David, Colm, Rory and Conor dived right in, fusing XML with the new C# and ASP.net languages to create the Travelfat application.

Ours was one of only a handful of successfully completed .NET projects back then.

Read Microsoft's perspective on our efforts, from 2003, here..

https://www.microsoft.com/ireland/casestudies/communicraft.mspx