[toyg]

.Net is "Microsoft Java". Like Java it was designed to do everything, but as desktop development died (and mobile development was locked down by Apple and Google, limiting it to their corporate languages), it pivoted towards networked applications.

[chgs]

Visual J++ was Microsoft’s Java

[toyg]

They were legally forbidden from going the Embrace-Extend-Extinguish route there, so they had to build their own version from scratch. C# exists because J++ couldn't.