Microsoft

Microsoft Silverlight 2.0 RC0

colinizer Microsoft, Silverlight, Web Application

So it’s getting there.

Today Scott Guthrie announced the RC0 release, along with some commentary on what’s new in that.  The bet has to be that the final release (RTW) will be on or before PDC 2008 at the end of October.  You can get the goodies on the silverlight.net site.  Note that it’s only a release for developers (using VS2008) and includes the runtime, but it’s not intended for public deployment – it’s a pre-RTW testing opportunity for developers.  There’s also a Blend 2.0 SP1 preview to target RC0.

Anyone with the 2.0 Beta 2 or 2.0 RC0 runtimes should get an auto update to 2.0 RTW when it’s available.

SQL 2008 RTM

colinizer Microsoft, Silverlight, SQL Server

As I speculated, um just yesterday, SQL 2008 is now available through some channels, according to announcements apparently made at a TechEd conference in South Africa.

I was expecting this after Silverlight 2.0 so could 8/8/8 (August 8 2008) be not only a lucky day for the Chinese (and the opening ceremony of the Olympics in China), but also be Silverlight 2.0’s official release?

I haven’t checked to see if the VS 2008 tools for SQL 2008 are also being released.

Silverlight 2.0 RTW?

colinizer Microsoft, Silverlight

No it hasn’t happened, but I’m expecting it any day now.

Why?  Because if memory serves me well, Microsoft talked about the end of the summer for release but they also said at Mix this year that they’d be using Silverlight 2.0 for the MSNBC Olympic games.  There is Silverlight video content on the site right now, but it seems unlikely that they’d settle for a Beta 2 version.

The Olympic opening ceremony is this Friday and some notable Microsoft bloggers have been extremely quiet for the last few weeks, which I believe translates into either all out deadline slog or lots of holidays.

Alongside a Silverlight 2.0 RTW, roughly at the same time, there should at least also be Blend 2.5, .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and final VS Tools.  A SQL Server 2008 RTM (currently at RC0) is also probably imminent…

A quick Google shows similar thoughts by others.

It’s about time, and given that this release is quite a while after Mix, I’d expect 2.0 to get lots of coverage at this year’s PDC.

Note that Microsoft is currently looking at starting a limited closed preview of Silverlight 2.0 for mobile.  Perhaps we’ll see 1.0 for mobile released shortly too.

Update on August 11 2008:

So no Silverlight 2.0 RTW yet, but with .NET 3.5 SP1 and VS 2008 SP1 just released today, it can’t be long now.

Update on September 28 2008:

It’s now gone to RC0, hopefully RTW by PDC at the end of October…

Windows Mobile 8 = Windows 7 Lite?

colinizer Apple, Consumer, Gadgets, Microsoft, Mobile Application, Silverlight, Windows Live, WPF

 

Mary Jo Foley’s post speculating about Windows Mobile 7 coming in Q1 2009 says:

From recent executive remarks, it sounds like Microsoft is trying to get Windows and Windows Mobile to be more in sync.  Might this mean with Windows Mobile 8 — which Microsoft has told certain folks will be built from scratch — Microsoft might make Windows Mobile a “real” version of Windows, with the same core as Windows client?

I heard from someone at Microsoft probably 5 or 6 years ago that this was the plan.

Windows Mobile currently runs on top of Windows CE which essentially supports a subset of the full Win32, etc. APIs, so doing native (C++) development for Windows Mobile is similar to desktop development (just a little more ‘cramped’).  There is also the .NET Compact Framework, similarly a subset of the full .NET Framework.  There are also Windows Mobile specific APIs at the native and .net level.  Some of the internal sub-systems, for memory, processes, etc. are quite different.

To make Windows Mobile a ‘real’ version of Windows at the core is therefore a lot about how much Windows CE is API-wise (inc. .NET) and sub-system-wise, similar to the Vista kernel.  After that, we have the shell and applications.

The shell clearly cannot be Aero, and the UI experience expectations for mobile has been clearly set by the iPhone with everyone else playing catch-up.  The mobile device really needs a bigger or paper-like-expandable screen at some point – there’s only so far you can go with zooming.

Applications can be split between Office (and other productivity or line-of-business apps) and all the other software+services things that are required activities in this era.  No doubt Windows Live pieces need to be upgraded and combined with great UI.

Why not make Windows Mobile a .NET-only platform with WPF for the shell with add-ins for all MS and 3rd-party applications?  The mobile space is not big enough that breaking compatibility is such a big deal.  It truly can’t be long before Microsoft partners with nVidia and produces a Microsoft ‘mPhone’.  An investment in small WPF mobile versions of Office would be a re-usable investment allowing for web based Office running on Silverlight!

Microsoft 2.0 – Short on Technical Tea-Leaves

colinizer Microsoft, Sheep

I’ve literally just finished reading Mary Jo Foley’s book, Microsoft 2.0 – How Microsoft Plans to Stay Relevant in the Post-Gates Era.  I picked up a copy at my local book store yesterday.

The books shows that Mary keeps on top of things and clearly edited the book right up to publication to get things in, falling just short of know the name Live Mesh to a Microsoft project she mentions.  Along with describing the Live Mesh project, she mentions cloud OS, virtual computing, Silverlight, etc., as largely separate items – the things I’ve been blogging about as converging in a ‘Live PC’ in my initial Live Mesh series.

Perhaps it’s just me – someone who drinks down Microsoft information like water in a desert – but I was gagging for some new information.  Other than a few research project names, I didn’t learn anything new from the book.  That’s not to say that other will not.  I was hoping she would give more technical predictions – some juicy possibilities to think about.  There needs to be a technical insight/predictions volume in a 2.0 edition.  It wasn’t very business-audience focused either – more of a very long blog post.

The book is good if you want to understand the current key players, organisational basics and business breakdown of Microsoft at this moment in time.  It is not a tea-leaf prediction factory at all, though it does pose questions about how things like a Yahoo acquisition and Ray Ozzie’s low-key leadership will or will not affect things.  As much as the book wants to ask what the new Microsoft will look like, it’s largely about what it’s like in 2007.  Mary wasn’t able to get official sanction or information from Microsoft for the book and perhaps that has crippled what could have been a more useful resource.

I have to say that there’s a lot of repetition in the book and various spelling/grammatical errors.  Hey, we all do those, but no-one’s paying me to do this or paying someone else to proof-read it.  I believe at one part of the book it reads that Microsoft did buy Yahoo.  Mary is also the queen of footnotes it seems.

The book does set Mary up as an information tracking authority though and she vows to keep information coming at www.microsoft2.net: it has a number of posts already.

Back to more technical reading…