.NET was Microsoft's response to Enterprise Java, then Indigo is Microsoft's answer to service-oriented architecture (SOA). As Microsoft incubates the Indigo platform, analysts predict that it will position the company as a strong competitor against application platform vendors.

Microsoft never had a strong presence in the enterprise asynchronous messaging market and its .NET technology did not position the company to really boast about SOA, according to a recent report from Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research Inc.

But Indigo, a set of .NET technologies for building and running connected systems using a Web services architecture and a service-oriented programming model, will change all that, according to the report.

The report said the combination of Microsoft's current position in the enterprise platform market with the new capabilities of Indigo will inevitably lead to increased market share. Top that off with Microsoft's strength in product marketing, and competitors have a formidable rival in the SOA space.