GIS Newbie Question

Hi all, I am new to GIS application development. Well, I would like to know which steps I should take to be able to develop and deploy a web-based map application for our company.

Which appication development tool is appropriate to use? Microsoft Visual Studio? or Visual studio.net? and which tool will I use? Visual basic? or visual basic.net?

Can I host my own map server? How can I do this? I have data already although I started off with mapINfo but cant seem to integrate my maps to the web without buying their MapXtreme module.

Thanks. Any replies will be appreciated :-)

MapInfo now has something called MapInfo Discovery that's supposed to be much easier than MapXtreme, and a lot cheaper as well. Microsoft's web server offering is called MapPoint .NET, contact maplic@microsoft.com for current pricing..

Eric