Why was .NET called .NET?

Microsoft was desperate for relevance in late 1999 at the height of the dot com mania. There were about a dozen technical committees that were supposed to be figuring out the future (the company leaked that Bill was personally chairing the user experience committee) which would be laid out at a press event with the grandiose name of Forum 2000. The committees were pretty much a bust in terms of delivering anything but the company still felt it had to demonstrate it had a future, so there was some furious sausage-making.