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.)

July 7th, 2009

What is Microsoft's Web platform (and what's Chris Wilson's part in it)?

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 10:20 am

Categories: .Net Framework, Corporate strategy, Development tools, Expression Studio, Google, Internet Explorer, Mix '09, Open source, Silverlight (wpf/e), Visual Studio 10 ("Hawaii"), Web 2.0, Worldwide Partner Conference (WWPC), Yahoo

Tags: Web, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Corp., Tool, Web Platform, Chris Wilson, Installer, Web Browsers, Channel Management, Productivity

Those who keep close tabs on what Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) team is doing no doubt heard that IE veteran and Platform Architect Chris Wilson left IE back in May.  He’s still with Microsoft but has a broader though equally challenging role: Helping the company flesh out its “open Web platform.”

Wilson, who first joined the IE team back in 1995, has spent a lot of his time on the hot seat. Wilson has represented Microsoft — a company many have come to see as throwing a monkey-wrench into Web standards, rather than championing them — as part of various standards groups. Wilson has been part of groups forging standards for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), HTML, the Document Object Model and XSL through various W3C working groups, and currently remains co-chair of the HTML working group.)

Wilson’s new job is Principal Program Manager of the Open Web Platform in Microsoft’s Developer Division. In that role, Wilson reports to John Montgomery, who is group program manager of the year-old browser programmability and tools unit. The new post marks the first time that Wilson hasn’t been part of the Windows client division (IE is part of the Windows unit) since he joined Microsoft.

In his new role, Wilson is part of the team building the JavaScript runtime and tools for IE, he said. He still will be working closely with the IE team as it moves toward developing IE 9 and its successors. But he’ll be broadening his focus, too.

“There’s been a recognition (at Microsoft) that the Web platform is a programming platform and runtime APIs (application programming interfaces) are super-important,” he said.

So, what, exactly, is “the open Web platform” in Microsoft’s view? I’ve only seen it described fairly vaguely as something encompassing core Web products for developers, designers and end users.

The open Web platform is not a single, definable entity, Wilson said. “But to me, it’s CSS, HTML 5, JavaScript and other APIs developed by the W3C,” he said.

At the Mix ‘09 conference, Microsoft officials rolled out a new test version of the company’s Web platform installer (version 2.0), as well as a gallery of third-party Web-development tools from both open-source and closed-source vendors. Is this part of Microsoft’s open Web platform, as well, I asked Wilson. The Installer provides a single download for everything from Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio, to IIS 7.0, to PHP (Community Version 5.2.9-1). Microsoft may make a follow-up announcement about the platform/installer at the Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) next week in New Orleans.

“We have disparate pieces that aren’t tied together at Microsoft,” Wilson acknowledged. “We need more than debuggers. We need to explain ‘how do I sit down with a blank slate and write Web apps’?”

In other words, it’s not just the server-side components upon which Microsoft largely focused at Mix ‘09, but also tools like Expression Web — “whch isn’t seen right now this way, but is actually an open Web tool,” according to Wilson.

What do you think Microsoft should do to help developers who want to write Web apps? What kinds of tools, products and standards (other than the obvious, like HTML 5) do you want to see the company offer? and support?

May 28th, 2009

Silverlight 3 to launch July 10

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 1:17 pm

Categories: .Net Framework, Corporate strategy, Development tools, Expression Studio, Silverlight (wpf/e)

Tags: Microsoft Silverlight, Silverlight 3, Corporate Communications, Productivity, Marketing, Mary Jo Foley

Earlier this year, Microsoft officials said they planned to deliver the final version of Silverlight 3 before the end of 2009. Looks like they meant months before…

Microsoft is planning to launch Silverlight 3 and its Expression Studio 3 family of designer tools on July 10 in San Francisco, company officials said on May 28.

Silverlight 3 adds 3D support, GPU acceleration, H.264 video support and out-of-the-browser capabilities to Silverlight, Microsoft’s competitor to Adobe Flash. The out-of-browser support will add to Silverlight capabilities that are available currently in Adobe AIR.

Microsoft released the one and only planned beta of Silverlight 3 in March 2009.

I’ll be interested to see how much, if any, of Silverlight 3 gets incorporated into the upcoming Windows Mobile 6.5 and 7.0 releases (thanks to the “Alchemy” component of the platforms, as well as the Office 2010 Web Apps (for which Silverlight is not required but will “enhance the experience”) …. Stay tuned.

March 18th, 2009

Microsoft's SuperPreview: A Web site developer's new best friend?

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 11:01 am

Categories: Apple, Development tools, Expression Studio, Google, Internet Explorer, Mix '09

Tags: Developer, Web, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Corp., Web Site, Site, Tool, Web SuperPreview, Web Browsers, Productivity

Microsoft showed off at Mix ‘09 a new tool — Expression Web SuperPreview — that could prove very useful as new browsers from a variety of vendors proliferate.

The tool allows developers and designers to see how their sites look and work with different browsers so they can debug them more easily.

SuperPreview is part of Microsoft’s forthcoming Expression Web 3 release. Microsoft made available for download a subset of the full SuperPreview tool — the part that developers and designers  can use to compare how their sites look in Internet Explorer (IE) 6, 7 and 8. The full release of SuperPreview will allow developers to also compare how their sites look in Firefox, Sarari, Chrome and more.

(Update: My mistake: Microsoft isn’t planning on supporting Chrome or Opera with the first release of SuperPreview. The final first release will support IE 6, 7 and 8; Safari (for Mac, not Windows); and Firefox, officials told me.)

With Microsoft expected to release to the Web the final version of IE 8 this week. Given how many existing sites don’t look and work right in the more standards-compatible IE 8, SuperPreview could be handy for folks trying to tweak their sites to work in IE 8.

Long Zheng of istartedsomething has more details and screen shots of the new SuperPreview tool.

March 18th, 2009

Microsoft rolls out Silverlight 3 beta and more developer goodies

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 9:31 am

Categories: .Net Framework, Corporate strategy, Development tools, Expression Studio, Mix '09, Silverlight (wpf/e)

Tags: Microsoft Silverlight, Microsoft Corp., Beta, Productivity, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft, as widely expected, has made the first beta of Silverlight 3 available for download simultaneously with Day 1 of its Mix ‘09 conference.

Silverlight is Microsoft’s competitor to Flash. The final version of Silverlight 3 is expected to ship before the end of 2009. Silverlight 3 adds support for H.264 video formats; better search-engine optimization support; and new hardware-based graphics acceleration and animation features.

In addition to the beta itself, Microsoft also has posted the software development kit for Silverlight 3, the Silverlight 3 tools for Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 (SP1), and a preview test build of version 3 of its Expression Blend design tool. The new version adds a capability, called SketchFlow, that allows for prototyping of the flow and composition of applications, as well as support for importing Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator files.

Download links for all the new Silverlight and Blend bits are available via the “next best geek” blog. (Thanks to Silicon Alley Insider for the pointer.)

Microsoft also has made available a new preview release of .NET RIA Services, technology for bringing together the ASP.Net and Silverlight platforms, as Ars Technica is reporting. The new services provide developers with patterns for writing logic running on the mid-tier and provides support for common tasks, like data validation, authentication and roles.

The Mix  ‘09 morning keynotes have started. Stay tuned for more over the next couple of days  live from Las Vegas.

March 16th, 2009

Microsoft Mix '09: Fewer sheep to be thrown, more business apps shown

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 6:55 am

Categories: Azure, Corporate strategy, Development tools, Expression Studio, Google, Internet Explorer, Live Mesh, Mix '09, Red Dog, Utility/cloud computing, Web 2.0, Yahoo

Tags: Microsoft Silverlight, Microsoft Corp., Mix, Data Management, Cloud Computing, Channel Management, Marketing, Mary Jo Foley

If you’re tired of Web 2.0 conferences where “Throw a Sheep” apps reign supreme, Microsoft’s Mix ‘09 might be a breath of fresh air.

At previous Mix events — Microsoft’s showcase for designer/developer tools — Microsoft has played up the same kind of consumer-focused social-networking scenarios as its Web rivals. But this year’s Mix looks a bit more business-focused (at least based on the Mix ‘09 session list).

Microsoft execs are on tap to talk up more of what’s coming in Silverlight 3, ASP.Net 4.0 and Expression Studio 3.0 at this week’s Las Vegas confab. A new Azure cloud-computing Community Technology Preview (CTP) also may be on tap. And many company watchers are expecting Microsoft to announce on Thursday during the morning Mix keynote that Internet Explorer 8 (IE 8) is as done as it’s going to be and will be released to the Web.

But business uses of Microsoft’s Web-centric technologies are getting a surprising amount of attention at this year’s Mix. These sessions caught my eye:

Microsoft Silverlight Is Ready for Business
Come learn how to build a Silverlight business application today with the new UI features including DataGrid, DataForm, validation and navigation. Also see an example of how to connect to services using a LINQ enabled, Entity Framework-backed, data management solution.

Experience Design Patterns for Business Applications with Microsoft Silverlight 3
Come hear how creating great user experiences for business applications can result in both improved productivity and significant support cost savings. Learn how to use proven user experience patterns in cost effective ways with Silverlight 3, including rich data display, data input and advanced data validation, and application navigation

Building Amazing Business Centric Applications with Microsoft Silverlight 3
This will be a great Silverlight session, but we won’t be able to release any details until after MIX09 Keynotes. Check this abstract after MIX09 Keynotes for a complete session description.

Building Data-Driven Applications with Microsoft Silverlight and Microsoft ASP.NET
This will be a great Silverlight session, but we won’t be able to release any details until after MIX09 Keynotes. Check this abstract after MIX09 Keynotes for a complete session description.

It also seems the Softies are ready to share more about how Live Mesh can do more than allow users to sync their photos across different devices. Mesh-enabling an existing Web app gives it a lot of new capabilities, as this Mix session hints:

Mesh-Enabled Web Applications
Come learn how to extend your existing Web applications and get them to live and breathe within Live Mesh. See how Mesh-enabled Web applications can be accessed from anywhere through a Web browser as well as run locally (and offline) on a user’s desktop. Also see how Web applications can take full advantage of value-add Mesh services such as a dedicated sandbox, online and offline synchronized storage, automatic application updates, identity, application catalogue, social computing, and more.

What are you hoping and/or expecting Microsoft to unveil this week at Mix?

March 9th, 2009

Microsoft's Mix '09: A podcast preview

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 7:27 am

Categories: Azure, Corporate strategy, Database, Development tools, Expression Studio, Internet Explorer, Legal, Linux, Mix '09, SQL Server, Silverlight (wpf/e), Utility/cloud computing, Visual Studio 10 ("Hawaii")

Tags: Microsoft Corp., Podcasts, Web Browsers, Internet, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft’s Mix ‘09 conference is just around the corner, kicking off on March 18. From the session list, it looks like attendees will get an earful about Silverlight 3.0, ASP.Net 4.0, Internet Explorer 8.0 and Microsoft’s usual messaging around the designer-developer continuum.

What else is on tap for this year’s Mix? Check out the latest installment of MicroBite — a collaborative podcast between yours truly and Gavin Clarke, Software Editor with The Register — for our (somewhat) educated guesses. Clarke and I also pontificate on the unbundling of IE from Windows 7, Microsoft’s patent war on Linux and more.

If there are topics you’d like us to tackle in future podcasts, we’re all ears….

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.

May 12th, 2008

Microsoft issues first SP1 betas for VS 2008, .Net Framework 3.5

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 11:45 am

Categories: .Net Framework, Database, Development tools, Expression Studio, SQL Server, Service Pack, Silverlight (wpf/e), Visual Studio 2008 (Orcas)

Tags: Microsoft ADO.NET, Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5, Microsoft Corp., Beta, Astoria, .Net, Application Servers, Databases, Middleware

Microsoft is making available to testers a first beta release of Service Pack (SP) 1 for Visual Studio 2008 and the accompanying .Net Framework 3.5.

On May 12, Microsoft made available to any/all interested parties the first beta bits for both VS 2008 SP1 and .Net Framework 3.5 SP1. These can be downloaded from Microsoft’s Microsoft Developer Network site. Microsoft is warning testers that there are some compatibility issues involving the VS 2008/.Net Framework 3.5 SP1 betas and Expression Blend, the Silverlight 2 Beta 1 software development kit (SDK) and Silverlight Tools Beta 1 for VS 2008.

New to VS 2008 SP1, according to Microsoft, are “new features for targeting Windows, Office, and the Web. Developers building .NET-basedapplications will enjoy improved performance in the WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) designer, new components for Visual Basic and Visual C++, as well as an MFC-based Office 2007 Ribbon. Web developers will see continued improvement in the client-side script tooling including JavaScript IntelliSense.”

And new to the .Net Framework 3.5 SP 1 are “more controls, a streamlined setup, improved start-up performance, and powerful new graphics features for client development and rich data scaffolding, improved AJAX support, and other improvements for Web development.”

The .Net Framework 3.5 SP1 and VS 2008 SP1 also both add support for the ADO.Net Entity Framework. The framework service pack also adds support for ADO.Net Data Services, and the VS 2008 one adds support for the still-in-beta SQL Server 2008 release.

Microsoft has been building an entity data model framework around its ADO.Net technology that is designed to raise the level of abraction for database programmers. Originally, the ADO.Net Entity Framework was slated to be part of Visual Studio 2008.

ADO.Net Services, the technology codenamed “Astoria,” is a RESTful interface for data. Astoria is designed to enable applications to expose data as a data service that can be consumed by Web clients within a corporate network and across the Internet. Microsoft released a first test build of Astoria in December 2007, with officials saying the final release should be ready around mid-2008.

Microsoft officials declined to provide a target date for delivery of the final SP1s for Visual Studio 2008 and .Net Framework 3.5.

April 30th, 2008

What would you change (first) about Windows' look and feel?

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 7:49 am

Categories: Corporate strategy, Development tools, Expression Studio, Research, Web 2.0, Windows Live, Windows client

Tags: Operating System, Microsoft Corp., David Vaskevitch, Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Software, Mary Jo Foley

If you were hired by Microsoft to make the Windows experience less annoying, what would be on your to-do list?

Mark Hamburg, the Adobe Photoshop/Lightroom guru recently hired by Microsoft, is tasked with figuring out how to improve the way Microsoft’s operating system works.

Hamburg didn’t recently join Microsoft to work on SmartFlow, Microsoft’s alleged competitor to Lightroom, as I guessed yesterday. Instead, he’s working on future OS interface concepts, according to a posting on the ProPhotoHome blog that a reader forwarded to me. According to the post:

“Mark was invited by David Vaskevitch to come lead a team working on the future of OS User Experience at Microsoft.

“This is the way Mark phrased it:

“Now, given that I find the current Windows experience really annoying and yet I keep having to deal with it, this opportunity was a little too interesting to turn down. I can’t imagine doing serious imaging anywhere other than Adobe, but, I needed to do something other than imaging for a while.”

This begs the question, what, exactly, is Vaskevitch working on? Vaskevitch is a Senior Vice President and Chief Technical Officer at Microsoft, who has been working with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates “to develop a focused and unified strategy and architecture for future Microsoft platforms.” Vaskevitch is also quite the digital-photography buff.

Given Vaskevitch’s charter is to focus on the future, it’s not a complete given that Hamburg will be focused on improving Windows. Windows is Microsoft’s one and only operating system today. (Windows Mobile, based on Windows CE, isn’t technically “Windows,” but for all intents and purposes, it is still is part of the Windows family.)

However, there has been scuttlebutt around rumored Microsoft efforts to build a new operating system that isn’t Windows at its core. And is Windows Live or virtualized Windows still “Windows”? Maybe, maybe not.

“User experience” doesn’t translate exactly to “user interface.” It’s also about the applications which customers use to achieve a task. But it’s more UI than anything else.

So if you were to provide Hamburg with a SHORT list of suggestions as to what you’d like to see changed in the Windows UI, where would you start?

Update: News.com’s Stephen Shankland has additional speculation on what Hamburg might bring to the Windows UI table.