Interesting news from Gartner last week. According to the research firm, cloud computing now leads the list of the top 10 strategic technologies for 2010.

That may come as a surprise to some, but it’s consistent with what industry observers have been saying recently. It was Gartner that earlier this year predicted that cloud services revenue will surpass $54.3 billion (U.S.) in 2009, while IDC said in March that avoiding the cloud “won’t really be an option” five years from now.

Looks like cloud computing has jumped the shark – and in a good way.

Clearly, there’s a more receptive audience for it, and that’s why PDC09 is so timely. The next 12 months are a critical time for developers. Many of the technologies that were once talked about as part of our vision are now tangible tools and services. The Windows Azure Community Technology Preview is available today to anyone who’s interested, Windows 7 is now officially launched, and the public beta of SharePoint 2010 is set for November.

The ingredients of a world where software and services become one and the same are there, and now we’re seeing the trigger. Business expectations are growing. It’s up to developers to begin building the next wave of software that can live on premise or as a service – solutions that are flexible to meet the demand of people who want to move seamlessly between offline and online environments.

It’s going to be an interesting 12 months.

Came across an interesting item the other day from David Senf of IDC Canada. He’s posted a TweetPhoto of a tag cloud from a recent IDC cloud computing study. Beside the two most predictable words (“internet” and “virtual”), it’s interesting to see how high “security, scalable” and “unfamiliar” ranked.

I often hear these words when speaking about our Software + Services vision, which is hardly surprising. Any serious conversation about the value of IT to an organization has to account for security and scalability. They are crucial to achieving the right return on investment. In this sense, cloud computing requires the same amount of due diligence as any other strategy.

The notion of not being familiar, however, is another story. I can’t comment on a report I haven’t seen, but I can talk about my own experience, and I get the sense that many businesses still see the cloud as a new and strange place, one that is still in its formative stages, and certainly not a place to be in the here and now.

Many of these people might be surprised to find that they engage in cloud computing every time they sit down at their PC. Over the past 10 years, for example, millions of people have used our cloud-based services such as Hosted Exchange, Outlook Web Access and Live Meeting, on devices of their choosing.

This past September we also started the technical preview program for Office Web Apps for Windows Live customers. For those who don’t know, Office Web Apps are lightweight versions of familiar Office programs (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote) delivered through the browser, letting people access their documents from virtually anywhere and easily share and work with others online.

In some ways it is early days when it comes to mixing software with online services. But for all the pros and cons you may hear, know that you can stick with what you already know.

1,250 Slices of Pizza

1,115 Cans of Pop

480 Time Horton's Donuts

~100 Litres of hot Tim Horton's Coffee

375 "This one time at Game Camp t-shirts"

300 Visual C# Express CDs

5 deep XNA sessions

351 Passionate Attendees!

1 Game Camp

So we held the kick off to Game Camp yesterday.  Just incredible.  I'll post more about this later in the week as articles, blogs and pictures continue to stream in.

In all, we had 351 people show up.  Way more than we anticipated which is really good but had it's challenges.  We went through 1,250 slices of pizza and over 1100 cans of pop!  That's incredible on its own.  The pizza place couldn't keep up with the higher volume of people! (we'll need to fix that)

Even with all that pizza and pop, we learned that we needed even more!  (on average every person had half a pizza... crazy!)

My promise is that i will buy more pizza and more pop next time we run this.  Apparently the Tim Horton's coffee and donuts were appreciated

Overall the feedback was incredible!  We're going to regroup and make the next events even better.  Currently we have Waterloo, Hamilton, Ottawa, Monreal and Toronto #2 under development!  Do you want to host an XNA Game Camp?  Post a comment and we'll send you the details!

I work closely with Dan Fernandez and it does bring a tear to my eye...

Happy Birthday Express, On behalf of Canada! :)

Someone vote for Alfred!  You know he deserves it!

I thought this was particularly special given that we shipped Vista this week...  Remember these days?

This is a horrible reminder of what the next 5 months have to offer us Canadians....

A big thank you to the guys at Schtickers.com.  I just got my wicked/awesome Superman Laptop Schticker...  Nice.

I don't know why I found this funny.  Maybe it's the fact that Microsoft has always had tons of fridges filled with free pop, including Coke...

Oh ya, I remember now.  I drink Pepsi.

Great post by Alfred Thompson.

We encounter this discussion all the time. Educators look to Microsoft and other companies for guidance with what tools and languages they should teach with.  My response has always been that Microsoft and others provide tools and technology for a toolbox.  Some educators have success using certain tools over others.

Education strategy is complex and of course there is no one tool for all jobs.  We do our best to provide a wide variety of tools to choose from and of course the best resources to support them.

At the end of the day, we look to educators to tell us what tools have worked for them.  That being said, i do believe it is our responsibility to help connect educators so that they may share their knowledge and improve the quality of education for everyone.

Can you tell i'm excited?  That's right... Beta 2 for XNA Game Studio Express is on its way!!!

Check out the XNA Team Blog for details...

Dan Fernandez gave you a glance at what the new Coding4Fun site will look like.  I do think it looks pretty cool.  I'm a fan of the objects in ice look.  To be honest, i'm just a big comic book fan.  I can't wait to see the finished site.

What do you think of the design? Visit Dan's blog and let him know!

 There are amazing opportunities for IT jobs in Canada.  The SHRC suggests that almost 89,000 new jobs are expected in the next three to four years with only 7,000 estimated new graduates to fill these jobs.

http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=40931

My experience says the same thing.  There is a negative perception that job opportunities in IT aren't there.  That's just plain wrong.  Did you know that the IT sector has one of the lowest unemployment rates in Canada?  

The good news is that high school students may finally be getting the message as enrollment is slightly up in many schools.  The unfortunate news is that some schools have lowered their entrance bar in order to meet admission goals which may account for this increase.  The schools that have lowered their entrance bar may pay for this in the long run as their graduating students won't compete with other graduates where the entrance bar has remained high.

Check out Laura Foy's Imagine Cup "behind the scenes" video.  Featuring the winning Short Film team from.... CANADA!

BTW, what do you think of On10.net?

I needed a title for this awesome video!