The Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (http://msdn.microsoft.com/events/pdc) is a "must-attend" for anyone interested in the future of software development! It showcases the future of the greatest development platform on Earth - .NET!

For the 7000+ of you who are reading this magazine for the first time as a result of having gotten it in your bag at the PDC - welcome! You have now discovered the only monthly print publication in the world to focus 100% on anything and everything related to .NET development. We don't specialize on a single, narrow area of .NET - and we aren't even remotely interested in marketing hype or "what the suits think." We're only interested in serving you - the .NET developer.

Why We Feel So Secure This Month
Besides being our PDC special issue, our focus this month is on .NET security. Toward this end, we have assembled some of the absolute best content available on the subject - starting with Microsoft's own Chris Mayo and Clarity's Jon Rauschenberger teaching us the proper way to secure SQL Server for Windows CE. Following this, Dan Appleman has contributed an outstanding piece on Code Access Security. Finally, mobility editor Jon Box and his fellow Quilogy consultant, Dan Fox, have prepared a special piece for this issue that focuses on securing applications written for the .NET Compact Framework.

For those of you more interested in the human face of .NET, we have a real treat in store for you. In an extensive interview with Juval Löwy, founder and chief architect of IDesign Inc., you will learn what one of the people at the very forefront of .NET technology thinks about the state of our platform. Juval Löwy is an absolute genius who can always be counted on to tell it like it is - so this is one interview that you definitely won't want to miss!

Explosive Growth: A SYS-CON Tradition
In addition to my duties as editor-in-chief of .NET Developer's Journal and chief technology evangelist for Expand Beyond (www.XB.com) - the worldwide leader in software for mobile IT management - I also have the honor and privilege to serve as .NET Track Chair for SYS-CON's Web Services Edge (www.sys-con.com/webservicesedge2003west) conferences series. In this capacity, I am often amazed by the ability of a single publisher to simultaneously keep its fingers on the pulses of so many diverse technologies - much less to keep advancing so successfully.

Our own success has continued over the past month, and I am pleased to announce that we have made two more additions to the .NET Developer's Journal editorial board! John Gomez, CTO of Eclipsys Corporation, a worldwide leader in hospital and physician information systems, has joined the board as our new open source editor. Also, Doug Holland, a software consultant for Precision Objects, Inc., has agreed to become. NETDJ's first official product review editor.

With the addition of these two new editors, we are firmly positioned to continue our upward progress into 2004 and beyond. Our 2004 editorial calendar is still in the process of being finalized, but you can definitely expect to see a few issues on migrating to .NET, a few issues dedicated to the new tools and servers that Microsoft will be releasing in 2004, and at least one feature so important we can't even tell you about it yet!

Until next month, feel free to share your comments, concerns, and criticisms with me at derek@sys-con.com!