Dave asks the question What is .NET? One of the replies to which includes this opinion from Buck Flannigan:

.NET (as well as SOAP, WSDL, UDDI, etc etc.) will boil down to XML over the ubiquitous HTTP[S] infrastructure already in place. this is why these efforts will success where past distributed computing efforts (semi)failed - the underlying infrastructure to support .NET is PERVASIVE. existing web-servers can be repurposed as a "programmable web" for distributed computing.

Talking about pervasive computing reminds me that there's a new research group coalescing in my Department whose goal is to harness the potential of pervasive computers. I attended a departmental seminar last week by Prof Paddy Nixon who heads the research group.