Although Windows Sockets is a new technology, much evolution has already taken place in the TCP/IP community. Microsoft's new 32-bit operating system, Windows NT, will offer Windows Sockets support for both 16- and 32-bit Windows applications. Microsoft is encouraging third-parties and corporate developers to use Windows Sockets as the client-server and distributed application API by including the Windows Sockets API as part of WOSA, the Windows Open Services Architecture.
Several PC-based TCP/IP implementations are offering Windows Sockets support, and over two dozen application vendors are shipping Windows Sockets-compatible applications. Moreover, many corporations are standardizing on Windows Sockets as the API of choice for client-server networking application development.
The Windows Sockets waters may remain calm for a short while, probably only long enough to allow application vendors and TCP/IP implementors to produce 1.1-compatible offerings. There are already some ideas of what features future revisions of the specification may incorporate: transparent transport independence, access to raw sockets for lower-level network functions, and the ability to share a connected socket between different applications to name a few.
The success of the Windows Sockets 1.1 effort has spawned significant interest in the next version, called Windows Sockets 2.0. This new standard will remain backward-compatible with Windows Sockets 1.1 while solving several of the key problems application and service writers face today in using Windows Sockets 1.1: transport independence, Win32 integration, and service registration and name resolution.
If Windows Sockets is a sign of things to come in Windows networking, application development under Microsoft Windows will continue to become easier, more flexible, and more powerful.