Origional Question:

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seano@a... asks:



Are you expecting to see a crop of third-party Web Services developed in



the same way that there were a crop of OCXs developed when VB was

launched?



If so how will they be licensed - per use, per month, one-off charge?  

What mechanisms are likely to be put in place to protect the vendor from



unauthorised use?





ScottGu Answered:

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Hi Sean,



We are indeed expecting to see a whole host of third-party web services

developed -- we think this will be one of the key motivators driving the

overall .NET Platform.



In terms of licensing, my guess is that we'll see a variety of schemes

adopted by third parties.  In particular, the ones you listed:

"subscription", "pay per use" and "pay the first time -- later hits

free".  My guess is that subscription will end up being the most popular

of the three.



ASP.NET actually contains all of the support necessary for ISVs to role

these types of authorization/billing services up and into their

applications.  Developers can simply take advantage of ASP.NET

HttpRuntime facility to sync appropriate application-level authorization

events.  For example: within a Global.asax file -- a developer can

simply add an "Application_AuthorizeRequest" event and write code to

allow/block the authenticated users access to a page/service (using a

database to lookup their payment history, etc).



Hope this helps,



Scott