From the Editor
Volume 12, Number 23: November 3, 2008
Do you want to be famous in your community? I am looking for presenters,
and I am willing to help you, even train you, assuming you can meet me at the
Microsoft office in San Francisco. I can even be on stage with you and give you
the latest and greatest materials to learn from. So if you want to be famous or
if you want to become a better presenter, shoot me an e-mail.
Just make sure you are passionate and skilled at creating great software. And
who knows, maybe I can get you MVP status along the way. Let me help you become
a better communicator.
As I write this, the countdown to PDC is just days away; and by the time you
read this, PDC will be over and the world will know a lot more about the future
direction of Microsoft technologies.
We know some things for sure already. For example, it is more than a safe bet
to expect software + services to continue to grow because they are direct benefit
to consumers and businesses. At the consumer level, the goal is to enable more
effective participation in social groups (family, friends, and so on) while
protecting digital security and privacy. For businesses, the current environment
is about reducing cost by eliminating on-premises applications and services that
may be run more effectively by third parties.
Microsoft is already offering these services with Exchange Online, SharePoint
Online and Office Communications Online. Why should you care? It is about agility
and cost. Even though there is much focus on reducing costs in this crazy economy,
the true benefit is from the increased agility that results as resources are freed
from activities that maintain the business to activities that drive business
performance. You can read about software + services here.
The key challenge will be making decisions with trade-offs in process isolation,
quality-of-service protection, and security to achieve rich and personalized
experiences.
Web 2.0 is about the social and collaborative experiences made possible through
services on the Web, and how those experiences are monetized. Web 2.0 basically refers
to the transition from static HTML Web pages to a more dynamic Web that is more
organized and is based on serving Web applications to users. Over time, Web 2.0 has
been used more as a marketing term than a computer science-based term. Blogs, wikis,
and Web services are all seen as components of Web 2.0. For Microsoft, the key
challenge is aggregating third-party capabilities and services to drive Web 2.0 innovation.
A huge technological offering is .NET services workflow, code-named
"Dublin,"
which includes a new version of Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows
Workflow Foundation (WF). Expect new messaging and REST capabilities in WCF, new
workflow models, seamless integration between WF and WCF to support stateful and
conversational services, and a new visual designer.
As data centers consolidate, Microsoft is increasing Windows Server capabilities,
offering greater scalability and easier manageability, while extending Internet
Information Services (IIS) to provide a standard host for applications that use
workflow or communications.
There is an architecture event in Mountain View on November 18 covering some of these topics.
The Architect Council event, Cloud Computing and Impact on Architecture, will show
how the Microsoft platform can be leveraged to create a new class of applications that
are more connected, dynamic, and can extend existing IT investments towards cloud computing,
a major component of our technology strategy and platform, and a rich and massively scalable
cloud platform. This forum will provide first-hand experience and best practices that will
enable attendees to learn from each other and transfer knowledge.
As of October 1, anyone with Visual Studio Team System 2008 Development Edition with MSDN
Premium can download the Database Edition from their account - or vice-versa. That's right,
now you can get our most powerful tools for writing and collaborating on quality code from
the UI to the database - all at one price.
Thanks for reading,
Bruno
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