I was speaking with a friend from a UK ISV and we were discussing the pace of technology releases from Microsoft - why it is in sometimes very good, why it is sometimes bad, why it is never, ever boreing! It has certainly been a busy 3 years of major releases from Microsoft which impact ISVs.
What is the likelihood of my working with an ISV that will use all 4 technologies :-) ? i.e.
Actually it is probably not as far fetched as it might initially sound (or at least - that is what I am currently trying to convince myself). Can I convince you? Here goes:
Many of our early adopters of .NET Framework 3.0 are impatiently waiting for the dev tools. They will adopt "Orcas" swiftly.
1. ISV adopts Visual Studio "Orcas" - Tick
Once on "Orcas" it would be a simple enough step to find yourself lured into one of the sexier new features - ADO.NET has at least three - LINQ, Entity Framework and Synchronization Services.
2. ISV adopts .NET Framework 3.5 - Tick
Then there is the question of Windows Server 2003 vs Windows Server "Longhorn". Well, if the ISV happens to do a lot of WCF work today (many do) and also does a lot of ASPX work, then suddenly "Longhorn" IIS7.0 and Windows Process Activation Service (was WAS) begin to look very attractive.
3. ISV adopts Windows Server "Longhorn" - Tick
Now that leaves "Katmai". Well - as every UK ISV will tell you, the SQL team do great Beta programmes and very stable Betas. We found it easy to get ISVs interested in SQL Server 2005 Betas - and I hope we can do the same with "Katmai" (even though I'm not really sure what is in it yet!)
4. ISV adopts "Katmai" - Tick
Easy as shooting fish in a barrel. I wish :-)