>Although never too publicly Microsoft announced its plans for creating what they called .Net Business Framework. Something ...m-m-m... very similar to what Java people know as J2EE - platform on which to build real world enterprise size applications.
>It sounded very promising: good idea (and tested too), participants (e.g. Great Plains), and .Net as basis. But even people inside Microsoft had trouble answering questions like is it for real?, what is the schedule?, etc.
>It was about year ago....
>My search on WEB yielded this also 18 months old article:
>http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,8991,00.asp
>
>Has anybody heard anything about it since?
>Or maybe somebody outside MS has done anything like that?

Perhaps you are thinking of the Microsoft Solutions Framework????

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/itsolutions/tandp/innsol/default.asp