The .NET Framework was developed by Microsoft in response to Java and J2EE gaining popularity in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It took over three years to develop .NET and the first version, called .NET Framework 1.0, was released in 2002 alongside Visual Studio .NET. The .NET Framework provides a development platform and runtime environment for building and running applications and is made up of the Common Language Runtime and Framework Class Library.