title: Why was .NET called .NET?
body: <p>I always wondered why Microsoft chose such a strange, search-engine-unfriendly name for such a great platform. Couldn't they have come up with something better?</p>
  
  <p>Apparently the codename was NGWS:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Microsoft started development on the
    .NET Framework in the late 1990s
    originally under the name of Next
    Generation Windows Services (NGWS). <sup><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.NET_Framework#Versions" rel="nofollow noreferrer">[Wikipedia]</a></sup></p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Does anyone know why they chose the name .NET?</p>