PDC 05
As I waited at Los Angeles airport, for a mini-bus to take us to the hotel, I was already looking forward to all the announcements and cool presentations I knew would be made at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference. My enthusiasm though, was dwarfed by the apparent and very tangible excitement of my fellow passengers who were anticipating the same thing, but also the gigabytes of free (normally expensive) released and beta software, and to glimpse into the inner workings of Microsoft that I tend to take for granted. My fellow passengers were of course, customers. Developers, consultants and software architects representing Microsoft customers from all over the world, had flown in to be present at the 2005 PDC. Roughly 7000 of them in fact, were descending on Los Angeles and as they did so, Microsoft Developers, Vice Presidents and Program Managers, along with many other sponsoring companies, were busy preparing to receive them.
The Microsoft staff had come to tell the developers about radical improvements in Windows, Office, SQL Server and .NET technologies. They were preparing documentation and slideshows on tips and tricks, best practices, and other launches that make this event one of the most informative in the Microsoft calendar. Even after attending my first day today, it was clear that this was one such event, and our customers would not be disappointed.
On a personal note, I appeal to the organizers, for the next PDC to be hosted somewhere else with a better infrastructure for public transport and fewer cars on the road, since it took 3 hours to get from the airport to the hotel on arrival on Monday afternoon, and each trip to the Conference center from my hotel in Hollywood, takes around 40 minutes. I have spent far too long travelling on this trip, and I think we would all benefit from somewhere less gridlocked!
Day 3 - Tuesday 13th of September
This is actually my first day of attendance, and in common with most attendees, my first real session was the key note speeches by Bill Gates and Jim Allchin. In his keynote speech, Bill set the scene for the PDC and commented on how popular the PDC was, even when other shows like Comdex have gone by the wayside, unable to draw sufficient audiences, since the internet now provides so much information and media that you rarely need to spend the time or money traveling to events like these. In addition to showing us an amusing recruitment video featuring Napolean Dynamite as a fellow geek, Bill set out the idea that Microsoft has reached a point of building a solid foundation that can be taken for granted in building applications for the internet, server and client, that amazing applications can be built on.
Bill described how far computer hardware has come since Microsoft started, and how communication is growing faster and faster, and how a service oriented architecture is where Microsoft is currently focusing. Next, introducing Chris Caposella, Bill covered briefly the advances made in Windows Vista and the underlying platforms, along with Office 12, both of which are targeted to fully release around this time next year. All attendees could however take the copy of the Beta Version of Windows Vista home with them to test on their own PCs (Part of a package called "The Goods", which all attendees are given).
Chris provided some entertaining and enlightening views on Windows Vista and Office 12. It is clear that the graphics power of the PC is really being utilized with this operating system, as informative touches are abound, as well as a very tight integration with contextual search is available everywhere. Clearly, wherever it could be made to look 3 dimensional, the Vista developers had done it. The lower taskbar, now shows miniature views of the running applications they represent, even a running video is shown in a realtime thumbnail view as you hover the mouse over each application icon in the taskbar. The same happens with Alt-Tab, so that it's easier to see the applications that are running.
The ability to start an application or find a file simply by entering some of the name into the start menu search box, makes it easier to use, and faster to get going. Many different views on your files, regardless of physical location (local or shared on a central server, or shared peer to peer between you and your friends), all make this a very easy to use system, and throughout the demo you begin to feel the need to upgrade the moment it becomes available. It's far more than a facelift. It's a combination of features and work to provide foundations in Presentation, Data management, Communication, and secure Services.
Not only were there advances in the client application environment, but also in the web environment. Using new technologies like Atlas, Windows Presentation Foundation light (WPF/E), AJAX (Asynchronous Java Script in XML), web applications can run smoothly and act like any client application, with all the richness of a 3-D animated UI.
Chris went onto Internet Explorer 7.0, and how it adds tabs (of course) but also a new thumbnail view of those tabs, making it easier to view and store those as a single favorite, to restore the same web environment any time you need. IE 7 also adds more security to protect against Phishing by warning the user and communicating with a central service to report and learn about new Phishing sites all the time.
RSS as a data source, features strongly in all presentations and demonstrations during the day, and of course subscribing to RSS feeds both in the browser and on the desktop are easier, now that there is also an addition Sidebar feature of Windows Vista for all those things you want running all the time, which provide useful information you want to get to quickly. There is even a feature for laptops which allows the Sidebar applications to show up as a Sideshow in a small LCD window on the closed laptop, for things like weather, reminders etc., just like a PDA, so that you don't have to open the laptop to see the information - even if it's switched off in most cases. Developers are encouraged to create new applications for the sidebar, called "gadgets", to further add value to the concept.
Chris then moves onto Office 12, indicating that the mantra for the team is to "get better results, faster", and in doing so, they have improved the menu system of all the Office suite of applications, moing away from drop down menus, which were getting difficult to navigate with 1500 commands available. Many of the wish list items from customers frequently asked for features which were already present in the applications, but were difficult to find. Office 12 will address that by making things easier to find, group and use, by providing more iconic categorized menus available in an area between the menu bar and the content.
I won't go into all of the Office 12 features here, since you can read the full transcript of Bill and Chris' speech and presentations, as well as view the Webcast yourselves. The (almost) live webcast option appears to be low quality right now, especially audio, but within a few days I am sure the edited version will be there in the on-Demand section.
Next Jim Alchin gave his keynote speech, and went into much further detail on Windows. Starting with another example of how far we have come, he demonstrated Windows Version 1 on an IBM PC-XT, giving us a brief view of the windows leading to the Reversi game. Then switching gears, showed us a short video of the graphics and real-life details of the next version of Far Cry from the CryTek company. An amazing leap forward in the 20 years it took to get here.
Jim's full keynote transcript is available online, along with the transcript from Darryn Dieken, Charles Fitzgerald, Don Box, Anders Hejlsberg, Chris Anderson ,and Scott Guthrie, who spent time showing just how easy it was to use the new Windows Foundations to develop first class applications in very little time. They actually wrote the client and server code during the presentation, and it worked flawlessly.
To close this section, a full application called Max, was demonstrated by Hillel Cooperman, to show how quickly a full application could be built on these new foundations, and how smooth and good looking the whole user interface is. This application is also available for download on: http://www.microsoft.com/max
Finally, one of Microsoft's customers had the opportunity to show their latest creation, based on Windows Vista foundations. Joe Flannery, the vice president of marketing for North Face, and their web site development consultants were represented by Mark Belanger, CTO and co-founder of Fluid. Together they demonstrated multiple overlapping video presentations and views on products and commercials which will wow their customers in months to come - especially as it was all a Web Application!
As it was getting close to lunch time, poor Dee Dee Walsh then had a tough time holding the audience interest in a development which is important, if almost incidental. The Digital Locker, allows Microsoft to keep track of all the software purchases you make, for download, so that you can't lose them if your PC Hard drive dies, or you lose the license documentation. Regardless of the vendor you purchased the software from, the central account you hold against your Passport account, will save this information for you and can enable you to download the software again, directly from the site if needed.
I also attended several sessions after that, including a really interesting one on SQL Service Messaging, for communication between different services. This is something available in SQL Server 2005, and something I think our team will be able to use, since it closely matches a feature we had to build ourselves. We will see.
One interesting promotion today was a batch of 1000 JasJar Pocket PC Phones, from i-mate. These were to retail at $1054.95, but the lucky 1000 attendees who managed to get down to the purchasing counters, and enter their orders, were able to buy them for just $149! There were also 250 blue-tooth headsets for just $9.99. A considerable discount on both items, and just one of the many promotions being made both within the sessions, and in the Expo, where companies like Intel, AMD, HP, Dell and many others were showing off the power of the PC and Microsoft together with their expertise.
Looking forward to Wednesday, when will get similar general session introductions from Eric Rudder, Senior VP for Servers and Tools, and Steve Sinofsky, Senior VP of Office.
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