Writing for CTOs and CIOs, Guest (Microsoft) makes the case for developing applications that will not only work on the .NET framework but also interoperate with existing J2EE-base applications. He outlines architectures for using .NET remoting to achieve point-to-point connectivity and the role of MSMQ and WebSphere MQ in asynchronous interoperability, then explores the possibilities offered by XML web services specifications to bridge the gap between .NET and Java platforms. The CD-ROM contains GLUE web services and Ja.NET bridging software.