ZDNet: Story: .Net demystified: What you must know about MS's software scheme. This is “Hailstorm” he's talking about.
Suppose, for a moment, that everything could talk to everything else. Your calendar could get information from and supply data to your documents, or your cell phone, or someone else's calendar and cell phone. Your computer's desktop could tell you that your dry cleaning is ready or your bank account is overdrawn.
Those notifications could be sent to your pager or the computer where you happened to be sitting today–based on where the network knew you to be at the time. That's the basic premise of .Net, Microsoft's new software-as-a-service strategy.
To do this, Microsoft wants to know everything: the information in your user profile, address, and application settings; what devices you use; what's in all your documents; your favorite Web sites; where you are at any given moment; your credit card numbers and payment information; the contents of your personal calendar, contact list, and e-mail inbox; and probably a few things I've left out.
BUT NOT TO WORRY: Microsoft promises all your information will be perfectly safe from hackers and only given out with your express permission.
Of course, this is the same company that keeps sending me “critical updates” to fix security holes and couldn't protect its own data center during a denial-of-service attack.