All about Microsoft

In 2007, Microsoft first discussed publicly its plans for “Oslo” — an amorphous multiproduct effort that encompased future releases of .Net, Visual Studio, BizTalk and SQL Server. By the fall of 2008, Microsoft had decoupled .Net, VIsual Studio, BizTalk and SQL Server from Oslo. When officials said Oslo, they meant Microsoft’s evolving modeling strategy and technologies, specifically the M language, the Quadrant tool and the metadata repository. This past summer, as part of one of Microsoft’s countless reorgs, the Oslo team was combined with Microsoft’s Data Programmability team (which manages Astoria, Entity Data Model (EDM), Entity Framework (EF), XML, ADO.Net and tools/designers).

Going into the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2009 next week, Microsoft is planning to make available a new Community Technology Preview (CTP) test build of Oslo, which will be its first since May 2009. This new CTP will be known as the SQL Server Modeling CTP.

According to a November 10 blog posting by Product Unit Manager Doug Purdy, this new CTP “will begin to demonstrate how developers will use these (Oslo) technologies in concert with things like T-SQL, ADO.NET, ASP.NET and other parts of the .NET Framework to build database applications.”

“All of these components are now part of SQL Server and will ship with a future release of that product,” Purdy blogged this week. (Purdy doesn’t specify a ship date target, but I’m doubtful it will be in time for the next version of SQL Server, SQL Server 2008 R2, which is due out in the first half of 2010.)

As of next week, Microsoft also plans to integrate the Oslo” Developer Center and the Data Developer Center into a new site, http://msdn.microsoft.com/data.

On Twitter, the overwhelming sentiment about the latest change in Oslo’s direction are largely negative. Here are a few reactions:

Scott Banwart: With this announcement, I no longer see the point of Oslo.

Tomas Restrepo: Cynical thought of the day: Oslo == Longhorn. OK, could’ve been worse (i.e. Cairo).

James Hart: Any expectations anybody had for what Oslo might turn out to be came from their own imagination. Disappointment was inevitable.

Ryan Rinaldi: The Oslo story just got more confusing.

Steve Bohlen: good lord; Oslo follows in the footsteps of WinFS; big (if nebulous) idea degenerates into dull implementation w dubious value

Sean Munger: Friends dumbstruck at flying saucers descending over Oslo. (Oops. Maybe a different Oslo)

Any developers out there see a silver lining in the latest Oslo moves? Or is it time for the aliens to rush in and take over?

September 24th, 2009

Microsoft makes Web development tools available for free

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 6:03 am

Categories: Corporate strategy, Development tools, Expression Studio, Mix '09, Open source, Silverlight (wpf/e), Visual Studio 2008 (Orcas)

Tags: Web, Microsoft Corp., Web Development, Tool, Spark Program, Productivity, Channel Management, Marketing, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft has been on a “Spark” roll lately, rolling out discount programs for students (DreamSpark) and startups (BizSpark).

On September 24, Microsoft added another Spark program to its list: WebSite Spark. The newest Spark program is aimed at getting more Web developers to use Microsoft’s Expression and other development tools. (As Seattle Times blogger Brier Dudley noted, Microsoft hasn’t been bowled over by Expression sales/usage. So trying to seed these tools among developers makes sense for the Redmondians.)

On the same day, To emphasize the company’s not only intent on getting Web devs to use Microsoft-branded tools, the company also rolled out today Version 2.0 of its Web Platform Installer and Windows Web Application Gallery, which provide developers with a one-stop shop for third-party dev tools, including a number of free, open-source dev tools that work on/with Windows. (Microsoft announced the beta of the installer and gallery at its Mix conference this year.)

If you’re wondering how the new Spark program stacks up against the already announced ones, here’s a comparison. (Click on the image to enlarge.)

August 21st, 2009

PHP developers get a new bridge to .Net

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 11:06 am

Categories: .Net Framework, App Compatibility, Azure, Code names, Corporate strategy, Development tools, Open source, Red Dog, Utility/cloud computing, Visual Studio 10 ("Hawaii"), Visual Studio 2008 (Orcas)

Tags: Data Service, Developer, Team, Microsoft ADO.NET, PHP, Microsoft Corp., ADO.Net Data Services, PHP Toolkit, Scripting Languages, Team Management

Microsoft’s Interoperability Strategy Team released on August 21 an open-source tookit for PHP developers who want to use Microsoft’s ADO.Net Data Services (codename “Astoria”).

ADO.Net Data Services exposes data, represented as Entity Data Model (EDM) objects, via web services accessed over HTTP. The data can be addressed using a REST-like URI.

The toolkit, which is available for download from Microsoft’s CodePlex repository site, was funded by Microsoft and developed by Persistent Systems. The goal of the toolkit is to allow developers to connect to and take advantage of services built using ADO .NET Data Services, which are part of the larger .Net Framework. It is available under a BSD license.

Microsoft already suppots ADO.Net Data Services in Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 and will be supporting it next year with Visual Studio 2010, as well.

The new PHP toolkit is one of 25 or so projects being developed and/or funded by Microsoft’s Interoperability Strategy team. The team, which consists of between 100 and 130 developers, is charged with supplementing Microsoft product teams with technologies that will make Microsoft products more interoperable with those from other vendors, said Vijay Rajagopalan, Principal Architect for Interoperability Strategy.

“We are like a SWAT team,” Rajagopalan said. “We can quickly develop technology bridges. We’ve set up a heat map, based on feedback from our Customer Interoperability Council.” Once priorities are set, Microsoft often provides seed money and program managers to help build missing interoperability pieces.

Earlier this year, the team made available a PHP development kit for Windows Azure, Microsoft’s cloud-based operating system.

March 23rd, 2009

Microsoft readies its Web platform 2.0

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 5:36 am

Categories: .Net Framework, Channel, Corporate strategy, Development tools, Mix '09, Open source, PDC 2008, Silverlight (wpf/e), Visual Studio 2008 (Orcas), Web 2.0, Windows server

Tags: Web Developer, Web, PHP, Microsoft Corp., Channel Management, Scripting Languages, Microsoft Windows, Marketing, Software/Web Development, Web Development

Last fall, Microsoft rolled out version 1 of its installer for its Web-platform stack of software. At Mix ‘09 last week, the company refreshed the installer in the form of a new beta for Web Platform Installer 2.0 and introduced a new gallery of third-party Web apps.

With the introduction of the “Microsoft Web platform,” company officials were hoping to make it clearer and easier as to exactly what kinds of products and technologies might be useful to Web developers. The first iteration of that platform was aimed at Microsoft developers; the updated version, which Microsoft previewed at the Mix conference, is attempting to be more inclusive and appeal to Web developers in general.

The newly launched beta of the Web Platform Installer 2.0 alleviates the need for developers to go to a bunch of different Web sites to download and install various Web-dev products. The 2.0 release also installs the community version of PHP (Version 5.2.9-1). Why? Lauren Cooney, Group Product Manager of Microsoft’s Web Platform, explained the decision to include PHP in the Microsoft Web Platform in her latest blog post:

“Many popular applications are built using PHP, and Microsoft wants to ensure that its customers, community members, and developers are able to use these solutions on top of the Microsoft Web Platform – and including PHP inside of the Web PI simplifies this for Web developers.”

Other products and technologies included in the beta of the 2.0 Platform Installer:

Internet Information Services (IIS) 5.1 on Windows XP SP3
IIS 6.0 on Windows Server 2003 SP2
IIS 7.0 on Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008
SQL Server 2008 Express
.NET Framework 3.5 SP1
Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition
Various IIS Extensions
ASP.NET and features such as ASP.NET MVC
Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio

As part of the updated platform, Microsoft also is making available a third-party marketplace of Web apps, which includes a number of open-source offerings. Among the apps in the Windows Web Application Gallery: Acquia Drupal, DotNetNuke, WordPress, dasBlog, Gallery, SilverStripe, BlogEngine.NET, SubText, Umbraco, and ScrewTurn Wiki. Ultimately, Microsoft is hoping the Web Application Gallery becomes an app store for open-source services and support, in addition to being a distribution platform.

Web developers: What do you think of Microsoft’s updated Web stack — and especially about the company’s decision to include PHP as part of the offerings that can be downloaded by the unified installer?

March 23rd, 2009

Microsoft's 'Alexandria': RAD for RIA

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 5:35 am

Categories: .Net Framework, Azure, Code names, Corporate strategy, Database, Development tools, Mix '09, Silverlight (wpf/e), Utility/cloud computing, Visual Studio 2008 (Orcas)

Tags: Microsoft Silverlight, RAD, Rich Internet Application, Microsoft Corp., .Net Rich Internet Application Services, Pendulum, .Net, Application Servers, Middleware, Software Development

Continuing on its self-proclaimed quest to simplify the programming of Rich Internet Applications (RIAs), Microsoft has rolled out a first tech preview of its .Net RIA Services technology.

.Net RIA Services, codenamed “Alexandria,” can be described as “RAD (rapid application development) for RIA,” said .Net Developer Platform Software Architect Nikhil Kothari in a blog post on the subject. Microsoft officials took the official wraps off .Net RIA Services at the company’s Mix ‘09 Web development conference in Las Vegas last week.

.Net RIA Services is designed to bridge Microsoft’s ASP.Net platform, its Silverlight Flash competitor and (ultimately) its Azure cloud-computing infrastructure, Kothari explained. The .Net RIA Services technology will be able to take advantage of Silverlight 3’s “out of the browser” functionality, allowing users to still work in offline and intermittently connected scenarios.

The overarching goal of .Net RIA Services is to bring together the .Net programming model with Silverlight by allowing developers to write middle-tier application logic that controls access to data for queries, changes and custom operations. Kothari explained more in his March 20 blog post:

“As we looked at Silverlight planning, we realized RIA development is simply hard. There are too many moving pieces to manually stitch together between the client and the server. There are too many things that are un-natural, yet the norm, starting with the forced n-tier (many developers are used to writing 2-tier apps), async (when sync is the norm), dealing with latency (doing so incorrectly has the potential to break end-user experience), figuring out how to be less chatty, dealing with validation, conflicts, disconnected or occasionally connected scenarios, performing authentication and sharing user state across client and server, the list goes on and on…

“We wanted to simplify RIA development… and bring back productivity for mainstream development, in much the same way that ASP.NET 1.0 provided client app developers a productive platform for developing Web apps. The pendulum has swung, and it is time to simplify RIA-style client development.”

The downloadable March Community Technology Preview of .Net RIA Services is available now.

From what you’ve seen and heard so far about RIA Services for .Net, what do you think of Microsoft’s latest RIA programming concept and approach?

March 12th, 2009

New Live Framework tookit adds Win 7, IE 8 support

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 2:16 pm

Categories: Corporate strategy, Development tools, Internet Explorer, Live Mesh, Mix '09, Visual Studio 10 ("Hawaii"), Visual Studio 2008 (Orcas), Windows 7, Windows client

Tags: Developer, Microsoft Silverlight, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Corp., April Community Technology Preview, Web Browsers, Internet, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft is starting to turn the crank for the set of developer-focused announcements it is planning to make at next week’s Mix ‘09 show.

On March 12, Microsoft made available for download the April Community Technology Preview (CTP) release of its Live Framework software development kit (SDK) and Live Framework Tools for Visual Studio.

The Live Framework CTP “includes everything you need in order to quickly build rich, connected, data-sharing applications using Live Services.” The CTP is designed specifically to allow developers to “Live-Mesh-enable” their applications and services.

The April CTP adds support for Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 8 (IE 8), among other new features, according to the Live Framework blog.

Meanwhile, there’s speculation that Microsoft might offer further details at next week’s Mix show on how Mesh and Silverlight apps will be able to go offline.

At the Professional Developers Conference in October 2008, the Mesh team was talking up the idea that Web apps could “break free of the browser frame and go offline.” This is how Microsoft execs explained the concept to me at the PDC:

“Developers are going to be able to wrap a Silverlight application with an ‘invisible’ Internet Explorer wrapper and publish an application to Mesh. Through the Mesh synchronization model, developers can enable their applications to run locally on any Mesh-enabled system or device. When users reconnect and go online, these local Silverlight apps will automatically synchronize.”

Mix ‘09, which kicks off on March 18, should be interesting. Interesting enough to make me forget my distaste for casinos and all things Vegas-related? No… But still worth the trek.

November 3rd, 2008

Microsoft Big Brains: Brad Lovering

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 8:02 am

Categories: .Net Framework, Azure, Development tools, Dynamics CRM, Dynamics ERP, Microsoft Big Brains, Oslo, System Center, Utility/cloud computing, Visual Studio 10 ("Hawaii"), Visual Studio 2008 (Orcas)

Tags: Microsoft Corp., Mary Jo Foley, Team, Oslo, Modeling, Brad Lovering, Team Management, Research & Development, Management, Business Operations

In Focus » See more posts on: Microsoft Big Brains

Just before retiring from day-to-day responsibilities at Microsoft, Chairman Bill Gates said that he expected Microsoft’s 22 Technical Fellows to get a lot more publicly visible — now that they wouldn’t be living in his shadow. While some of the Microsoft fellows already have been active on the public-speaking circuit, many of them are not widely known outside the company.

I’ve launched this series — “Microsoft Big Brains” — to help remedy that shortcoming. In the coming weeks, I am hoping to profile as many of the company’s tech fellows as to whom I can get access.

Microsoft’s Technical Fellows came to the company via a variety of different routes. Some of them run divisions inside the company; some focus on particularly thorny technical issues that may span a variety of product units. Regardless of where they sit in the organization, the fellows all have been charged with helping Microsoft craft its next-gen products and strategies, much the way that Gates used his regular “Think Weeks” to prioritize what Microsoft needed to do next.

This Week’s ‘Big Brain’: Brad Lovering
Claim to Fame: As of two months ago, runs the entire Oslo team in the Connected System Division, and plans to do so through RTM of Version 1 in 2009.
How Long You’ve Been With Microsoft: 20 years
More About You: Straight out of college at the University of Washington, came to Microsoft and worked on a succession of developer-focused products, ranging from Visual Basic, to Visual J++, to Visual Studio .Net and the .Net Framework, to Windows Communication Foundation (WCF). For the past four years, been focused on Oslo tools and strategy
Your Biggest Accomplishment (So Far) at Microsoft: “I’ve been able to ship every product I’ve worked on.”
Team(s) You Also Work With: Azure cloud team, System Center unit, Team Foundation System, Visio, Dynamics CRM/ERP units
Why Stay at Microsoft? “I’ve been at Microsoft half my life. I have my family and I have software. I love making software. I want to do this another 20+ years, if I can.”

Every three to four years during his 20-year career at Microsoft, Technical Fellow Brad Lovering has had a fireside chat with Chairman Bill Gates, CEO Steve Ballmer and Senior Vice President/Chief Technology Officer David Vaskevitch.

“It’s a balance. I say what I’m interested in. They talk about getting the right teams and assembling the right pieces,” Lovering says. And then Lovering goes off and works on whatever developer-focused project that he’s interested in and needs him most.

It was four years ago when Lovering initially took on the assignment of working with Microsoft’s then-fledgling Oslo modeling tools and strategy team.

“The first year was a lot of customer stuff. Then it was a year of getting the team in place. There were various incubations in various places,” he reminisces. “It will be five years total by the time (Version 1) ships” as part of Visual Studio 2010.

It’s somewhat atypical for Lovering to be managing a team of a couple hundred people, as he is doing now.

“I spend most of my time on tech design,” he says. “Half my job is typically talking to internal (Microsoft) partners. Now (with Oslo), we’re also starting to talk to external partners” he says.

“I’m staying with the Oslo team through RTM and hopefully for another turn for Version 2. I’m excited to do a Version 2 for the first time,” says the typically on-to-the-next-thing Lovering.

What’s left to do after the first set of Oslo deliverables (a shared repository, the M modeling language and the Quadrant visual-modeling tool) are completed? Lovering says there is a never-ending laundry list, especially around the cloud. Already, the Oslo team has started working with the Azure (Red Dog) cloud OS team to build a domain-specific language (DSL) using Oslo.

“You need a model-driven approach for these big systems,” like Azure, Lovering says

There are potential synergies between Oslo and the System Center systems-management tools and technologies, the Dublin application server team, the Dynamics CRM and ERP wares, too, he says. Almost every big software-development project at Microsoft could benefit from Oslo, Lovering says. Meanwhile, don’t be surprised to see many next-gen Microsoft tools and products include Oslo integration as a feature. Visio, for example, could benefit from tighter import/export integration with Quadrant, Lovering says.

“I spend so much of Microsoft’s money doing crazy stuff,” Lovering concludes. “But they keep saying, ‘go,go, go.’”

So off goes Mr. Oslo to help build out more domains and find ways to get developers on board with Microsoft’s modeling technologies.

For all of the “Microsoft Big Brains” profiles, check out the Big Brains page.

October 20th, 2008

Microsoft Big Brains: Brian Harry

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 9:28 am

Categories: .Net Framework, Development tools, Microsoft Big Brains, Oslo, PDC 2008, Silverlight (wpf/e), Visual Studio 10 ("Hawaii"), Visual Studio 2008 (Orcas)

Tags: Mary Jo Foley, Microsoft Corp., Team Management, Management, CLR, .Net, Research & Development, Middleware, Microsoft Windows, Software Development

In Focus » See more posts on: Microsoft Big Brains

I’m launching this series — “Microsoft Big Brains” — to help remedy that shortcoming. In the coming weeks, I am hoping to profile as many of the company’s tech fellows as to whom I can get access.

This Week’s ‘Big Brain’: Brian Harry
Claim to Fame: Product Unit Manager running a 120-strong unit focused on Team Foundation Server
How Long You’ve Been With Microsoft: 14 years (since Microsoft bought his version-control-tool company One Tree Software)
More About You: Before joining Microsoft, worked on e-mail development at DaVinci Systems. Once Microsoft bought One Tree, worked on Microsoft SourceSafe and then Microsoft Repository. Wasthe Development Manager for the Common Language Runtime (CLR) and then Product Unit Manager for several years. Is based in North Carolina
Your Biggest Accomplishment (So Far) at Microsoft: Played a major role in getting the .Net Framework effort started
Team(s) You Also Work With: Developer Division, Server and Tools, Office, Windows
Why Stay at Microsoft? “I can work on pretty much whatever I want. I can pick a problem I am passionate about and get hundreds or thousands to marshall around that. It’s an adrenailne rush to do that.”

Microsoft is pushing hard to get into the application lifecycle (ALM) management space, as anyone who’s been trying to keep up with all the recent news around Microsoft’s “Oslo” modeling products and strategy is well aware.

But ALM isn’t just about modeling. In its broadest sense, it’s about collaboration, that buzzword darling of the Web 2.0 set.

“My whole career has been about developers and/or some kind of collaboration product for developers,” says Harry. “Now I get to work on a collaboration product for developers.”

Harry’s guiding principle is he works on products for which he would be a potential customer, he says. That’s why he has focused on technologies like ALM and .Net/CLR during his Microsoft tenure.

Speaking of the .Net and the CLR, there is still plenty of work to be done, Harry says.

“One problem the CLR has faced is deployment. Silverlight is obviously a big asset here, but deployment and Visual Basic integration are quite still a challenge,” Harry admits. “.Net has been wildly successful in the server space, but has been less so in the client one.”

“We still live in a dual world: CLR developers and unmanaged developers,” Harry continues. “We need to bridge the gap and to have one programming model. Right now, the (Microsoft) Developer Division still has to target two different programming models. The proof point will be when Windows and Office embrace .Net as a first-class model for their applications. Windows APIs (application programming interfaces) need to come out as .Net Framework classes.”

For all of the “Microsoft Big Brains” profiles, check out the Big Brains page.

October 13th, 2008

Silverlight 2: Google Chrome support, yes; iPhone, no

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 10:39 am

Categories: .Net Framework, Apple, Channel, Corporate strategy, Development tools, Expression Studio, Google, Linux, OEMs, PDC 2008, Resellers, Silverlight (wpf/e), System builders, Visual Studio 2008 (Orcas), Windows Mobile

Tags: Apple iPhone, Google Inc., Microsoft Silverlight, Microsoft Corp., Google Chrome, Microsoft Windows, Web Browsers, Operating Systems, Software, Internet

Microsoft announced, as expected, on Monday that the second version of its Silverlight browser plug-in is done and will be available imminently for a variety of platforms, including Windows, Mac OS X, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. An Apple iPhone port is not in the works, due to Apple restrictions, the Softies said, but the new plug-in works well now with Google’s Chrome browser, currently in beta.

Microsoft officials said Silverlight 2 will be available for download from the company’s Silverlight site starting on October 14. They also said that anyone using a beta version of Silverlight 2 or Silverlight 1 will be “automatically upgraded” via Microsoft’s various patching systems to Silverlight 2 in the coming months. (However, users will be able to block the Silverlight 2 download if they decide to do so.)

During a call with press and analysts announcing its Silverlight 2 release, Microsoft execs repeated multiple times that Silverlight has gained substantial market share — a claim that seemingly flies in the face of most market-share numbers I’ve seen over the past year or so comparing Adobe Flash share to Silverlight share.

Microsoft says that “one in four consumers worldwide has access to a computer with Silverlight already installed.” In some (unspecified) countries, Silverlight deployment is already over 50 percent, company officials said on Monday. (Remember: Just because a PC has Silverlight on it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have Flash installed, too.)

Microsoft expects Silverlight 2 to be on “hundreds of millions of machines” within a relatively short time, officials added. Hewlett-Packard signed a deal earlier this year to preload Silverlight on new machines; officials suggested more similar deals may be in the offing.

Officials said to expect more news on how Microsoft is Silverlight-enabling its own next-generation apps in the coming weeks/months. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of the new Live Mesh applications Microsoft is building — or maybe even Office 14 applications — helping to enable PowerPoint to run online/offline in the browser, for example.

One thing I was surprised about regarding today’s announcement that the Softies played up their ubiquity claims over its cross-platform messaging. The .Net Framework and Common Language Runtime are now officially cross-platform, with Windows and Mac support today and Linux (via Novell’s Moonlight work) coming some time in the future.

Microsoft is set to discuss the status of Silverlight 2 on Windows Mobile at the Professional Developers Conference in two weeks. The company is known to be working with Nokia to get Silverlight on Nokia/Symbian platforms. And there’s talk of Microsoft and RIM possibly collaborating on getting Silverlight on new RIM phones in the not-too-distant future.

During the press/analyst call, Microsoft Corporate Vice President Scott Guthrie said that if Apple decides to enable browser plug-ins from third-party vendors like Microsoft, Microsoft would be interested in adding Silverlight support for the iPhone. Guthrie also noted that the latest beta version of Google’s Chrome browser for Windows now supports Silverlight 2 and renders Silverlight content cleanly. (He said the initial Chrome beta release didn’t work right with Silverlight 2 betas.)

Guthrie said Apple’s prohibition against browser plug-ins isn’t against Microsoft only; he said Apple has decided against allowing any third-party developer to make them available for the iPhone.

“If they (Apple) will let us, we will definitely come” to the iPhone, Guthrie said.

September 17th, 2008

What's next for Microsoft's Visual Studio

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 6:50 am

Categories: Code names, Corporate strategy, Development tools, Live Mesh, Multicore/distributed computing, Oslo, PDC 2008, Visual Studio 10 ("Hawaii"), Visual Studio 2008 (Orcas)

Tags: Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation, Microsoft Corp., VS10, Microsoft Development Tools, Development Tools, Software Development, Software/Web Development, Mary Jo Foley

The next version of Microsoft’s Visual Studio development environment, known for now by its “Visual Studio (VS) 10″ codename, is beginning to take shape.

Microsoft employee Jeffrey Schlimmer blogged about some of the changes on tap for VS10, as outlined by Microsoft officials during this week’s VSX developer conference in Redmond. (Thanks to Microsoft Architect Don Box for the pointer.)

Update: Looks like Schlimmer removed the original post. Here’s the cached version.

Schlimmer also included notes on other changes coming “later” — which I’m taking to mean either in VS11 or some kind of interim delivery vehicle.

Schlimmer said Microsoft has four “pushes” for VS10 (which, at one point, also was known by the codename “Hawaii.”) The team wants to make VS “the developer’s favorite application;” to focus especially on the needs of small- to mid-size business (SMB) users; to “ride the latest (2009) platform technologies;” and to improve the underlying infrastructure.

(At one point, Microsoft was referring to VS10 as one of the key pillars of its Oslo modeling strategy and platform, but more recently, Microsoft has reined in Oslo to refer specifically to the core tool, language and repository.)

Messaging aside, what’s in the VS pipeline, according to Schlimmer?

For VS10:

A new Windows Presentation Foundation-based (WPF) text editor
More “modern,” with more of a WPF look and feel throughout the suite
Smaller in size (in code and data) than Visual Studio 2008
More reliable and modular

For some time “later”:

Visual Studio Tools for Applications (VSTA) used for macros, plus other “end-user extensibility” improvements
The ability to create more add-ins in managed code
Full WPF shell
Extensive support for the parallel framework for multicore hardware

Like just about every Microsoft product these days, VS 10 is going to get the Software+Services treatment, Schlimmer continued. The VS10 release will see Help based on Live Search; integrate community ratings; and add support for multiple-machine synchronization via Live Mesh and Live ID. There are plans to add instant messaging some time later to facilitate small-team communication, as well as “multi-user editing” of shared source code.

Microsoft has not provided a public ship-date target for VS10 (that I know of… anyone else?). If the company sticks to its every-two- to three-year schedule, it’s probably due in 2009 or 2010, as VS 2008 was released to manufacturing at the end of 2007.

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