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Hi all,
Firstly wishing you all Happy Diwali and a prosperous new year (a hindu festival and tradition).
So wots up within Microsoft, Well PDC is the answer. Today is the forth and last day of PDC 2008 which is happening at Los Angeles. PDC has be a ground for Microsoft where it showcases the upcoming technologies and releases to the developers/industry/press. The Professional Developers Conference (PDC) consists of several hands-on/labs and sessions for these releases.
Major attractions at PDC 2008:
1. Windows Azure:
With all the buzz around Software + Service (S+S or better known as SaaS) increasing, more no. of companies are trying to get on the Service wagon to gain the most of it. Cloud computing, cloud OS and Cloud applications are now a reality with many new companies showing the power of SaaS. Microsoft is here with an OS in the cloud. Windows Azure is the base of the Windows Azure Services platform which is basically a set of developer services that extends the windows programming model to the cloud. Windows Azure offers a platform to support scalable applications – support for languages and frameworks like ASP.NET, AJAX, LINQ, WCF and WF. Also Windows Azure provides scalable storage with support for simple blobs, tables, queues etc.
Live Meeting and Live Mesh are already using Windows Azure. While Sharepoint and Dynamics are already been offered as a service. Windows Azure assures 0% down time for the applications hosted on its platform, unless developers host a broken piece of code. It was nearly impossible since OSes need to be patched and may require a downtime for the app. But Windows Azure achieves 0% downtime by moving the app to a different server while patching a particular server and moving it back. Azure also has plans for support for Java and PHP (as in its bound by Azure services).
2. Windows 7
Its the product that most awaited by customers (who disowned Vista for their stable Xp OS). Well before I make a statement here, I’ll like to try Windows 7 all by myself. Basically Windows 7 is Vista code with lot of improvements in the areas where people have complaints about Vista. A lot of improvement to some of the age old screens (dated Win 95 times) have changed here including the Calculator, Paint and Wordpad. UAC can be now controlled. Its about – compatibility, performance and UAC. A lot of screenshots are available on ZDNet. A Windows 7 Developers Guide is available on Codeplex which explains all the new features with screenshot.
3. Visual Studio 10 and .NET Framework 4.0 with C# 4.0
The next in line is Visual Studio. Its CTP is available for download here. The Download is quite bloated since it has all the bits. Here’s a post on how to download it with ease. Havent been able to use it till now. This Version adds GUI driven programming for Silverlight. Its also gearling up for the new release of .NET - 4.0.
4. Live Application Suite and Live Mesh
Live Mesh - This has been the most written about application. Its the envision of Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's Chief Software Architect to provide cloud computing to all. Live Mesh is a framework in which you can sync content between various devices - PC, Mac and Windows Mobile Phones. It comes with 5GB storage space that can store your media - photos, movies, albums and even your personal files. There can be shared applications too. A demo of - To Do List and a TV Program Channel guide was done in PDC this year.
5. Office Web Application
The online version for Office is out ! Its a free product by Microsoft that enters the league of other Online Office products. Not much info known by me as yet.
Disclaimer: All the information here is based on the info found on different blogs/sources and not necessarily the internal sources. This does not represent any confidential information for my company. Also the views shown here are solely mine and in now way represent my employers views. Also I cannot vouch for the features mentioned here, since I haven’t tested them and also that it may change in the release versions.
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