What exactly is .net framework for?

Sorry my background isnt so strong in Application development. What does Microsoft need this for?

What exactly is .net framework for?ie

.NET is kind of a translator - it's an effort to let people program in a variety of different languages, which then gets compiled into an intermediate language, when then gets compiled again into your machine's language. It's sort of a lingua-franca translator. Instead of having to have all these languages (VC#, VC++, VB, VJ++, etc) have to have their own compilers, they get translated by the same compiler into an intermediary language, which then gets translated again. A bit slower in the long run and not quite as flexible, but it's still kind of a cool concept.

What exactly is .net framework for?microsoft internet explorer

.NET is the new programming language interface Microsoft has introduced. It will eventually replace the COM / COM+ architecture that has been used by Microsoft in the past as a programming model.

COM was the Component Object Model, which basically said you will work with libraries and other client-based components. .NET is about distributed programming; the idea is that more programs will be network-based, so servers will provide the basic building blocks of a program, rather than individual user machines.

Someday, COM will be replaced by .NET entirely.
With .NET framework, Microsoft tries to acheive the following

1.Multiple platform support (with CLR -common language runtime and MSIL - Microsoft Intermediate Language)

2.Allow developers with differrent backgrounds to program in .NET - cobal.net, c#,j#,vb.net etc

3.Try to acheive features like garbage collection etc

and some other features