Don't forget .NET, which simultaneously referred to an abstract machine runtime, an SOA strategy involving SOAP and XML, rebranded versions of Microsoft services intended to align with this strategy, and even Microsoft's centralized authentication service (called .NET Passport at first). It wasn't until later years that Microsoft associated the brand more or less strictly with the runtime.

Not to pick too much on Microsoft, Sun had previously done the same thing with Java, sticking Java stickers on anything and everything they could get away with. Arguably, it worked: Java was the buzz of the industry in the late nineties and table stakes for greenfield enterprise development in the early 2000s -- unless you were using .NET.