This Standard is based on a submission from Microsoft. It describes a technology, called C++/CLI, which is

a binding between the Standard C++ programming language and the Common Language Infrastructure

(CLI). That submission evolved from another Microsoft project, Managed Extensions for C++, the first

widely distributed implementation of which was released by Microsoft in July 2000, as part of its .NET

Framework initiative. The first widely distributed beta implementation of C++/CLI was released by

Microsoft in July 2004.

Ecma Technical Committee 39 (TC39) Task Group 5 (TG5) was formed in October 2003, to produce a

standard for C++/CLI. (Another Task Group, TG3, was formed in September 2000 to produce a standard for

a library and execution environment called Common Language Infrastructure. The current version of that

standard is ECMA-335, 3rd edition, June 2005. CLI is based on a subset of the .NET Framework.)