Cscript.exe is just the program which interprets the VBScript which you have in the file 'there.vbs' in that sample code.

The function of the line 'Echo . >>somename.bat' seems to be simply to create the file 'somename.bat'. The batch file should (as you have said) work fine without that line.

There is a VBScript Primer on Microsoft's website which offers a good introduction to VBScript. Not sure if that's what you were looking for though.

Hope that helped you out