Microsoft has taken care to ensure that the press and the public understand that this is no minor announcement. Here is a ZDNet article in which Steve Ballmer explains that Microsoft will grow future revenues by selling subscriptions to software services. The back story here is that Microsoft has been frustrated in its attempts to morph Sun's Java into a language it can configure to work better on Microsoft platforms. Here is a CNet report about the new language. Here is what Computer Reseller News has to say.
Gates talks up net appliances.
Microsoft will spend three times more on NGWS than the U.S. spent putting a man on the moon. Microsoft's brave new dot-net world. Microsoft reveals plans for Web-based software services. Long-awaited vision for future of computing includes strategy for enabling Windows software for the Web. Gates christens e-bet Microsoft.