Microsoft is making the right move with the re-branding, said Chris Howard, an analyst at Burton Group. "I think it's a good idea because .Net has good traction in the developer community," he said.

"In the past, Microsoft had problems [similar to]other companies with lots of branding. They need to consolidate those brandings under larger umbrellas," Howard said.

.Net Framework 3.0 technologies have been available in early, pre-release versions. "I would say the big advantage of the WinFX stuff is that it raises the level of abstraction for programmers and makes it easier to do complex things," such as Web services and building of UIs, Howard said.

Separately, Microsoft this week released a beta (http://msdnwiki.microsoft.com/en-us/mtpswiki/default.aspx) version of MSDN Wiki, described as the company's "first step towards allowing customers to contribute to Microsoft's developer documentation," Somasegar said in his blog.

With the Wiki beta, developers can code samples and content alongside Visual Studio 2005 and the .Net Framework documentation in a Community Content section.