The next version of Microsoft's C# will see interoperability between languages for the enterprise and web, and with Microsoft's legacy COM architecture.
C# 4.0, expected with the next version of Visual Studio, will support something called dynamic look up in order to call dynamic languages like JavaScript, Python and IronPython from inside C#. Visual Basic .NET already works with dynamic look up.
Improved interoperability with Microsoft's Component Object Mode (COM), which gave way to .NET eight years ago, is also planned.
The idea is you'll be able to write C# code that looks like Office for Visual Basic as the dynamic look up will let you use C# to invoke any COM IDispatch object.
The statically typed C# was introduced with .NET in 2000 and has found huge success in the enterprise during the intervening eight years.
Microsoft, though, wants to make it easier for developers to call classes in dynamic-typed languages, particularly its versions of Python and Ruby - IronPython and IronRuby.
Anders Hejlsberg, the renowned software engineer working at Microsoft and lead C# architect, recently demonstrated C# 4.0 talking to JavaScript and IronPython.
Hejlsberg, speaking at Microsoft's Professional Developers' Conference (PDC), said he wanted to bring down the barriers not make things harder for those building in C# and using declarative and dynamic programming languages and methods.
"People say: 'Anders have you gone stark raving mad, haven't you taught us for 10 years static is the right and only way?," he told PDC.
"I'm not saying re-write all your code to be dynamic... However there are an increasing number of things that are important to talk to in your applications that are not dynamically typed and we should ask: should we make it harder to talk to, or easier?'"
Read More..
Showing posts with label Microsoft technologies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Microsoft technologies. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Top Five Things Microsoft Got Right
Virtually any technology analyst will tell you that Microsoft has made a lot of mistakes and just plain dumb decisions over its 33 year history. So how did it get to be the largest software company in the world?
Some would argue by conniving, cheating, and copping other companies' innovations. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) certainly has plenty of detractors. However, it's hard to explain its dominance across the board without a tip of the hat to Microsoft's business acumen and key strategies it has stuck with through the years.
That's the topic of a report released Monday by tracking firm Directions on Microsoft, an independent analysis company located in Kirkland, Wash., almost within spitting distance of the software titan's sprawling Redmond, Wash. campus. The brief report is entitled "Five Strategies Microsoft Got Right" and is a compilation of viewpoints from all the Directions on Microsoft analysts.
First on the list: Microsoft was unique early on in deciding that software was more important than hardware. At the time, the report points out, software for an IBM computer would only run on an IBM (NYSE: IBM) computer and that for an HP (NYSE: HPQ) would only run HP software. From the very early days, however, founder Bill Gates and company focused on software that would run on multiple computers – not just those from one hardware manufacturer.
"That was really the first thing they got right … selling [the] Basic [language] separate from the hardware was fairly innovative for the time," Rob Helm, director of research at Directions on Microsoft, told InternetNews.com. Microsoft soon went on to releasing the MS-DOS operating system that became standard on virtually all PCs in the 1980s – not just on IBM PCs as it started out.
A second strategic move by Microsoft that the report identified was the company's early embrace of outsourcing sales to an army of reseller partners in order to grow more quickly than if it had built its own in-house sales force.
"Today, more than 90 percent of Microsoft products are sold by somebody else," the report states. "This partner community, from small mom-and-pop computer shops to the world's largest systems integrators, enabled the company to achieve unprecedented sales volumes with astounding speed without having to spend huge sums to build a direct sales force and consulting practice."
The third successful strategy was to target its software at "the masses" by undercutting competitors on price while producing products that are simple enough to hold down support costs.
"Technologies for the masses [means] that Microsoft takes its technology mainstream by dialing down the cost and cutting back on the complexity so that IT can make it work, even in smaller IT shops," Helm said.
Strategy number four has almost become a mantra for CEO Steve Ballmer, who more than once has yelled out onstage: "developers, developers, developers."
Over the years, Microsoft has gone from courting developers with Basic to locking them in with Visual Studio, the company's integrated development environment and the high-level languages it supports. Visual Studio and the new Azure development platform for cloud computing are the result of decades of hand feeding developers, even when its own development tool groups wanted to keep the technologies private and internal.
Read More..
Some would argue by conniving, cheating, and copping other companies' innovations. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) certainly has plenty of detractors. However, it's hard to explain its dominance across the board without a tip of the hat to Microsoft's business acumen and key strategies it has stuck with through the years.
That's the topic of a report released Monday by tracking firm Directions on Microsoft, an independent analysis company located in Kirkland, Wash., almost within spitting distance of the software titan's sprawling Redmond, Wash. campus. The brief report is entitled "Five Strategies Microsoft Got Right" and is a compilation of viewpoints from all the Directions on Microsoft analysts.
First on the list: Microsoft was unique early on in deciding that software was more important than hardware. At the time, the report points out, software for an IBM computer would only run on an IBM (NYSE: IBM) computer and that for an HP (NYSE: HPQ) would only run HP software. From the very early days, however, founder Bill Gates and company focused on software that would run on multiple computers – not just those from one hardware manufacturer.
"That was really the first thing they got right … selling [the] Basic [language] separate from the hardware was fairly innovative for the time," Rob Helm, director of research at Directions on Microsoft, told InternetNews.com. Microsoft soon went on to releasing the MS-DOS operating system that became standard on virtually all PCs in the 1980s – not just on IBM PCs as it started out.
A second strategic move by Microsoft that the report identified was the company's early embrace of outsourcing sales to an army of reseller partners in order to grow more quickly than if it had built its own in-house sales force.
"Today, more than 90 percent of Microsoft products are sold by somebody else," the report states. "This partner community, from small mom-and-pop computer shops to the world's largest systems integrators, enabled the company to achieve unprecedented sales volumes with astounding speed without having to spend huge sums to build a direct sales force and consulting practice."
The third successful strategy was to target its software at "the masses" by undercutting competitors on price while producing products that are simple enough to hold down support costs.
"Technologies for the masses [means] that Microsoft takes its technology mainstream by dialing down the cost and cutting back on the complexity so that IT can make it work, even in smaller IT shops," Helm said.
Strategy number four has almost become a mantra for CEO Steve Ballmer, who more than once has yelled out onstage: "developers, developers, developers."
Over the years, Microsoft has gone from courting developers with Basic to locking them in with Visual Studio, the company's integrated development environment and the high-level languages it supports. Visual Studio and the new Azure development platform for cloud computing are the result of decades of hand feeding developers, even when its own development tool groups wanted to keep the technologies private and internal.
Read More..
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Microsoft to explain innovations in Visual Studio and .NET 4.0
Microsoft has selected some of its key executives to explain innovations it planned incorporating in .NET 4.0 and Visual Studio. The move is part of an action plan evolved in the recently organised TechEd developer and PDC events.
Code-named as “Rosario”, Microsoft’s next version of Visual Studio is being promoted as a tool set which will raise analysis of application development process to new levels.
The company is committed to democratise application lifecycle management process. It is working on product enhancement which would meet software development requirements arising from cloud computing, virtualisation and parallelism trends.
Delegates visiting the UK to explain about forthcoming tools included Jason Zander, GM for Visual Studio and Matt Carter, Group Product Manager.
Shedding light on Visual Studio 2010 (VS2010), Carter stated that it is strongly focussed on providing insight, in terms of function and structure of code, of the development process. Microsoft is ensuring to make it easier for building web applications. It is also aimed at encouraging departmental business applications development that makes use of Office UI. Microsoft is also looking forward to make development of SharePoint feel like development of Visual Studio to improve usability.
Carter disclosed that Microsoft wants to reach out to those C++ developers who have made big investment on lines of C++ code, so that they could carry those into the Visual Studio environment.
Read More..
Code-named as “Rosario”, Microsoft’s next version of Visual Studio is being promoted as a tool set which will raise analysis of application development process to new levels.
The company is committed to democratise application lifecycle management process. It is working on product enhancement which would meet software development requirements arising from cloud computing, virtualisation and parallelism trends.
Delegates visiting the UK to explain about forthcoming tools included Jason Zander, GM for Visual Studio and Matt Carter, Group Product Manager.
Shedding light on Visual Studio 2010 (VS2010), Carter stated that it is strongly focussed on providing insight, in terms of function and structure of code, of the development process. Microsoft is ensuring to make it easier for building web applications. It is also aimed at encouraging departmental business applications development that makes use of Office UI. Microsoft is also looking forward to make development of SharePoint feel like development of Visual Studio to improve usability.
Carter disclosed that Microsoft wants to reach out to those C++ developers who have made big investment on lines of C++ code, so that they could carry those into the Visual Studio environment.
Read More..
Microsoft Releases Free Chart Controls
Microsoft has rolled out a software package for the .NET Framework 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008 users that allows developers to quickly setup interactive charts and graphs for applications without writing any code. The Chart Controls software, released earlier this month, adds data visualization tools for developers creating ASP.NET pages or Windows Forms applications.
The free tools can be used to produce interactive charts that simplify complex statistical or financial analysis. The software package includes a comprehensive list of 2D and 3D chart types, customizable visual appearance features, built-in data manipulation and formulas, and annotations capabilities, among other features.
"This should provide a useful (and free) addition to your standard ASP.NET toolkit of functionality, and enable you to easily add richer visualization and data workflow scenarios to your ASP.NET applications," wrote Scott Guthrie, Microsoft's developer corporate vice president, in a blog posting on Monday.
Microsoft acquired the chart control technology in June of last year from Dundas Software, a Toronto, Ontario-based provider of data visualization technologies. Redmond first employed it in its SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Report Builder 2.0 release. The Data Visualization Group within the SQL Server Reporting Services Team gets credit for creating the new ASP.NET Chart Controls.
For new developers, Microsoft is providing a sample environment with more than 200 samples of ASP.NET and Windows Forms, as well as the C# source code. Every major feature in Chart Controls for the .NET Framework is covered in the samples. Users can see the Chart Controls in action and use the code as templates for their own Web and Windows apps.
Read More..
The free tools can be used to produce interactive charts that simplify complex statistical or financial analysis. The software package includes a comprehensive list of 2D and 3D chart types, customizable visual appearance features, built-in data manipulation and formulas, and annotations capabilities, among other features.
"This should provide a useful (and free) addition to your standard ASP.NET toolkit of functionality, and enable you to easily add richer visualization and data workflow scenarios to your ASP.NET applications," wrote Scott Guthrie, Microsoft's developer corporate vice president, in a blog posting on Monday.
Microsoft acquired the chart control technology in June of last year from Dundas Software, a Toronto, Ontario-based provider of data visualization technologies. Redmond first employed it in its SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Report Builder 2.0 release. The Data Visualization Group within the SQL Server Reporting Services Team gets credit for creating the new ASP.NET Chart Controls.
For new developers, Microsoft is providing a sample environment with more than 200 samples of ASP.NET and Windows Forms, as well as the C# source code. Every major feature in Chart Controls for the .NET Framework is covered in the samples. Users can see the Chart Controls in action and use the code as templates for their own Web and Windows apps.
Read More..
30% off in the mother of all online Microsoft Press promotions
Delegates who attended the TechEd in Durban this year bombarded the Intersoft stand to take advantage of the heavily discounted books.
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Chief amongst the titles bought were: Windows Server 2008, Admin Pocket Consultant, System Centre Config Manager 07, Visual C# 2008 Step By Step, Exc Server 2007 Admin Companion, Introducing Silverlight 2e, Office Communication Server 07, Powershell Scripting Guide, Programming Visual C# 2008, Visual Basic 2008 Step By Step, Programming Asp.Net 3.5, Programming Linq, Win Server 2008 Admin Comp and Windows Server 2008 Inside Out.
Visit www.microsoft-press.co.za for publishing dates on all SQL Server 2008 titles.
If you weren't at the Durban TechEd (and even if you were) you can take huge advantage of this success by checking out www.microsoft-press.co.za. This is an online promotion only for tech-savvy people and by the by, you can seize the opportunity to get great Xmas gifts for techno-wise friends or eager-to-learn family. If your purchases total over R500, delivery is free too!
Enjoy spreading the experience of the love of learning and finding neat tricky ways of getting more out of what you do – get online at www.microsoft-press.co.za and take your 30% off.
Read More..
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Chief amongst the titles bought were: Windows Server 2008, Admin Pocket Consultant, System Centre Config Manager 07, Visual C# 2008 Step By Step, Exc Server 2007 Admin Companion, Introducing Silverlight 2e, Office Communication Server 07, Powershell Scripting Guide, Programming Visual C# 2008, Visual Basic 2008 Step By Step, Programming Asp.Net 3.5, Programming Linq, Win Server 2008 Admin Comp and Windows Server 2008 Inside Out.
Visit www.microsoft-press.co.za for publishing dates on all SQL Server 2008 titles.
If you weren't at the Durban TechEd (and even if you were) you can take huge advantage of this success by checking out www.microsoft-press.co.za. This is an online promotion only for tech-savvy people and by the by, you can seize the opportunity to get great Xmas gifts for techno-wise friends or eager-to-learn family. If your purchases total over R500, delivery is free too!
Enjoy spreading the experience of the love of learning and finding neat tricky ways of getting more out of what you do – get online at www.microsoft-press.co.za and take your 30% off.
Read More..
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Nero 9.0.9.4 Ultra Edition with Microsoft NET Framework 3.0
Simply Create, Rip, Burn, Copy, Share, Backup, Play, and Enjoy! Nero 9, the easy-to-use yet powerful multimedia suite, gives you the freedom to create, rip, copy, burn, edit, share, and upload online. Whatever you want – music, video, photo, and data – share and enjoy with family and friends anytime, anywhere.
Nero 9 is the next generation of the world’s most trusted integrated digital media and home entertainment software suite. It features new cutting-edge functionality that makes enjoying digital media content simple. This easy-to-use yet powerful multimedia suite, gives you the freedom to create, rip, copy, burn, edit, share, and upload online. Whatever you want – music, video, photo, and data – enjoy and share with family and friends anytime, anywhere. With easy-to-use Nero StartSmart command center, your digital life has never been more flexible, feasible, and fun.
Nero 9 Highlights:
• Fast and easy rip, burn, Autobackup, and copy functions
• Backup files to CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray Discs*
• Create professional-looking DVD movies with integrated 3D menus
• Copy, burn, share, upload, and create music mixes like a DJ
• Convert music, photos, and DVDs to play on your iPod® and other mobile devices
• Quick photo and video upload to My Nero, YouTube™, and MySpace
• Watch, record, pause, and customize your live TV experience
• Play AVCHD and other HD formats
Creative Projects Are Easier than Ever
Using the intuitive Nero StartSmart command center of Nero 9, your digital life has never been more flexible, feasible, and fun. You directly access features and perform one-click functions such as Audio Ripping, Burning, Copying, and AutoBackup, with optimized performance for Windows Vista® with Nero DiscCopy Gadget and Nero Live (TV) for Windows Vista Sidebar.
Fully Enjoy Your Content at Home, Online and On-the-go
Whether it’s video, photo, or music, you can convert and share everything your imagination creates in your digital world. Convert & share multimedia files to play on iPod®, PSP®, and upload online your coolest photos and videos to share with online communities like My Nero, YouTube™, and MySpace.
Make Your PC a Dynamic Home-Entertainment Device
Experience TV from the comfort of your sofa with state-of-the-art TV technology, even for HDTV and DVB Radio. Pause, record, schedule, manage, and playback your TV shows.
Best in the Business Software Gets Better
The ripping and burning capabilities of Nero 9 are the most reliable in the industry. Burn and copy to CD, DVD, Blu-ray Disc – even copy movies*. With DVD-R Dual Layer and DVD+R Double Layer support, you’ll get more data on a disc than ever before!*
Trusted and Reliable – Backup, Restore, and Secure
Don’t lose your valuable memories and important files to life’s potential hazards, system crash, or risky hardware. Backing up, securing, and managing files and data is a point-and-click away.
Nero 9 is available in the following languages:
Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Japanese, Korean, Czech, Norwegian, Danish, Polish, Dutch, Portuguese (Brazil), English, Russian, Finnish, Spanish, French, Spanish (Latin America), German, Swedish, Greek, Thai,, Hungarian, Turkish, Italian.
Read More..
Nero 9 is the next generation of the world’s most trusted integrated digital media and home entertainment software suite. It features new cutting-edge functionality that makes enjoying digital media content simple. This easy-to-use yet powerful multimedia suite, gives you the freedom to create, rip, copy, burn, edit, share, and upload online. Whatever you want – music, video, photo, and data – enjoy and share with family and friends anytime, anywhere. With easy-to-use Nero StartSmart command center, your digital life has never been more flexible, feasible, and fun.
Nero 9 Highlights:
• Fast and easy rip, burn, Autobackup, and copy functions
• Backup files to CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray Discs*
• Create professional-looking DVD movies with integrated 3D menus
• Copy, burn, share, upload, and create music mixes like a DJ
• Convert music, photos, and DVDs to play on your iPod® and other mobile devices
• Quick photo and video upload to My Nero, YouTube™, and MySpace
• Watch, record, pause, and customize your live TV experience
• Play AVCHD and other HD formats
Creative Projects Are Easier than Ever
Using the intuitive Nero StartSmart command center of Nero 9, your digital life has never been more flexible, feasible, and fun. You directly access features and perform one-click functions such as Audio Ripping, Burning, Copying, and AutoBackup, with optimized performance for Windows Vista® with Nero DiscCopy Gadget and Nero Live (TV) for Windows Vista Sidebar.
Fully Enjoy Your Content at Home, Online and On-the-go
Whether it’s video, photo, or music, you can convert and share everything your imagination creates in your digital world. Convert & share multimedia files to play on iPod®, PSP®, and upload online your coolest photos and videos to share with online communities like My Nero, YouTube™, and MySpace.
Make Your PC a Dynamic Home-Entertainment Device
Experience TV from the comfort of your sofa with state-of-the-art TV technology, even for HDTV and DVB Radio. Pause, record, schedule, manage, and playback your TV shows.
Best in the Business Software Gets Better
The ripping and burning capabilities of Nero 9 are the most reliable in the industry. Burn and copy to CD, DVD, Blu-ray Disc – even copy movies*. With DVD-R Dual Layer and DVD+R Double Layer support, you’ll get more data on a disc than ever before!*
Trusted and Reliable – Backup, Restore, and Secure
Don’t lose your valuable memories and important files to life’s potential hazards, system crash, or risky hardware. Backing up, securing, and managing files and data is a point-and-click away.
Nero 9 is available in the following languages:
Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Japanese, Korean, Czech, Norwegian, Danish, Polish, Dutch, Portuguese (Brazil), English, Russian, Finnish, Spanish, French, Spanish (Latin America), German, Swedish, Greek, Thai,, Hungarian, Turkish, Italian.
Read More..
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Micrsoft Virtual Earth ASP.NET Control CTP release
For all those .NET savys and Javascript haters there is finally some good news in the virutal earth world. Microsoft finally released its long waited Microsoft Virtual Earth ASP.NET control CTP version. After playing with it for couple hours I've to agree it really rocks.
Some of the compelling reasons for microsoft shifting its gears from pure JavaScript control to Microsoft ASP.Net Control are tedious javascript development, application and code security, difficulties in leveraging .NET framework. This VE ASP.Net control has it all. You can take advantage of Visual studio 2008 intellisense and write code for Map control on fly. Not only you can write code on fly but you can debug the code using standard Visual studio 2008 debugger.
Read More..
Some of the compelling reasons for microsoft shifting its gears from pure JavaScript control to Microsoft ASP.Net Control are tedious javascript development, application and code security, difficulties in leveraging .NET framework. This VE ASP.Net control has it all. You can take advantage of Visual studio 2008 intellisense and write code for Map control on fly. Not only you can write code on fly but you can debug the code using standard Visual studio 2008 debugger.
Read More..
Monday, November 24, 2008
What’s New With Robotics Developer Studio 2008
At the RoboDevelopment Conference and Expo in Santa Clara, California, Microsoft released the new version of Microsoft Developer Studio 2008 (Microsoft RDS), the latest version of the robotics programming platform and the third major release in two years. The toolkit allows developers, whether professional or hobbyists, to create software applications that run on robots.
RDS 2008
In the new version RDS 2008, there are now several new features, including:
• Increased runtime performance.
Performance is improved 1.5 to three times faster in message throughput between services, and services now load two times faster. Developers can now also define more specific message communication between services, reducing network utilization and optimizing the processing of data.
• Improvements to the Visual Programming Language (VPL) tool.
The simple drag-and-drop-based visual programming tool now includes a simple method for defining and configuring distributed applications, making it easier to create applications that can run across networked devices.
• Improvements to the Visual Simulation Environment (VSE) tool.
VSE now includes the ability to record and play back simulations, which allows for easier review of simulation experiences. VSE also adds a new floor-plan editor to simplify the definition of interior structures, and three new sample simulation environments (apartment, outdoor and urban) that enable developers to better test their robot applications. Another new feature is support for importing content from DS SolidWorks® 3-D computer-aided design (CAD) software and Microsoft trueSpace 3-D modeling software.
• Greater development flexibility.
This new release provides support for both Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008, which makes it accessible to a broad audience of developers. Improved support for running VPL and VSE on 64-bit Windows platforms provides more flexible installation options.
Along with the new release, ABB, a supplier of industrial robots and robotics software, is offering a connectivity package known as ABB Connect to Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008 (ACM). ACM lets robotics students work in a virtual environment in order to design and implement virtual robotics. The package contains all the services needed to build a complete virtual robot controller.
Challenges for Robotics Devs
So now that you have the software, what can you do with it? Visit RoboChamps, of course! At Robochamps, there are a series of challenges for developers which are based in simulation, thus removing the barriers to entry that normally exist when writing code for robots…things like cost and deep hardware knowledge, for example. RoboChamps is built on top of the simulation functionality provided in Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008, which means that participants can program their robots using the .NET languages they are already familiar with.
Read More..
RDS 2008
In the new version RDS 2008, there are now several new features, including:
• Increased runtime performance.
Performance is improved 1.5 to three times faster in message throughput between services, and services now load two times faster. Developers can now also define more specific message communication between services, reducing network utilization and optimizing the processing of data.
• Improvements to the Visual Programming Language (VPL) tool.
The simple drag-and-drop-based visual programming tool now includes a simple method for defining and configuring distributed applications, making it easier to create applications that can run across networked devices.
• Improvements to the Visual Simulation Environment (VSE) tool.
VSE now includes the ability to record and play back simulations, which allows for easier review of simulation experiences. VSE also adds a new floor-plan editor to simplify the definition of interior structures, and three new sample simulation environments (apartment, outdoor and urban) that enable developers to better test their robot applications. Another new feature is support for importing content from DS SolidWorks® 3-D computer-aided design (CAD) software and Microsoft trueSpace 3-D modeling software.
• Greater development flexibility.
This new release provides support for both Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008, which makes it accessible to a broad audience of developers. Improved support for running VPL and VSE on 64-bit Windows platforms provides more flexible installation options.
Along with the new release, ABB, a supplier of industrial robots and robotics software, is offering a connectivity package known as ABB Connect to Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008 (ACM). ACM lets robotics students work in a virtual environment in order to design and implement virtual robotics. The package contains all the services needed to build a complete virtual robot controller.
Challenges for Robotics Devs
So now that you have the software, what can you do with it? Visit RoboChamps, of course! At Robochamps, there are a series of challenges for developers which are based in simulation, thus removing the barriers to entry that normally exist when writing code for robots…things like cost and deep hardware knowledge, for example. RoboChamps is built on top of the simulation functionality provided in Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008, which means that participants can program their robots using the .NET languages they are already familiar with.
Read More..
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Microsoft Would Still Do a Yahoo Search Deal
At Microsoft’s annual shareholder’s meeting today, CEO Steve Ballmer has put the kibosh on speculation that the company will resurrect its bid to acquire Yahoo. However, Ballmer did suggest that a search deal was possible.
Microsoft’s single-minded pursuit to acquire Yahoo never made much sense to me. Sure, it would obtain substantial search market shareover night, but it would still have to claw its way up to compete with Google. Even when the two companies are combined, Google still holds the upper hand in market share.
There is also a great deal of overlap between Microsoft and Yahoo products, and there would certainly be a culture clash among employees. Brain drain is another issue. If Microsoft were to buy Yahoo today, it would not be obtaining the talent that it would have just a few months back. It would also be costly to retain people–even its own employees, many of whom would be hesitant to spend their time at Microsoft getting caught up in turf wars.
A merger with Yahoo would distract Microsoft from important initiatives that are core to its future success, such as project Oslo, an multi-product effort to steer developers toward model driven development and service oriented architecture, as well as continued investment in the .NET Framework.
Read More..
Microsoft’s single-minded pursuit to acquire Yahoo never made much sense to me. Sure, it would obtain substantial search market shareover night, but it would still have to claw its way up to compete with Google. Even when the two companies are combined, Google still holds the upper hand in market share.
There is also a great deal of overlap between Microsoft and Yahoo products, and there would certainly be a culture clash among employees. Brain drain is another issue. If Microsoft were to buy Yahoo today, it would not be obtaining the talent that it would have just a few months back. It would also be costly to retain people–even its own employees, many of whom would be hesitant to spend their time at Microsoft getting caught up in turf wars.
A merger with Yahoo would distract Microsoft from important initiatives that are core to its future success, such as project Oslo, an multi-product effort to steer developers toward model driven development and service oriented architecture, as well as continued investment in the .NET Framework.
Read More..
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Why program Microsoft SQL Server from .NET?
Microsoft developers may use LINQ or other data access technologies for applications that implement common business operations. But larger, more specialized applications are good candidates for .NET-enabled SQL Server. Microsoft’s José Blakely, a partner architect for SQL Server, offers three scenarios where programming the database from .NET makes sense:
Deep extensibility in the database. Developers can build core database constructs such as table-valued functions, user-defined aggregates or rich types using a CLR language (such as C# or VB.NET) in Visual Studio. The managed environment is safer and more robust compared with unmanaged extensions (built in C++, for example). And it runs faster and scales much better than similar functionality in Transact-SQL.
A more powerful environment for database developers. They can leverage .NET libraries (such as those for regular expressions, string manipulation and math functions) and use them in SQL Server.
The ability, via the CLR, to write specialized business logic using modern .NET programming languages and run those programs close to the data inside the database. With the very high data volumes being stored in databases—often hundreds of terabytes or even petabytes—managing data in the middle tier is unworkable. Embedding the CLR in SQL Server lets developers move complex business computations to the database.
Read More..
Deep extensibility in the database. Developers can build core database constructs such as table-valued functions, user-defined aggregates or rich types using a CLR language (such as C# or VB.NET) in Visual Studio. The managed environment is safer and more robust compared with unmanaged extensions (built in C++, for example). And it runs faster and scales much better than similar functionality in Transact-SQL.
A more powerful environment for database developers. They can leverage .NET libraries (such as those for regular expressions, string manipulation and math functions) and use them in SQL Server.
The ability, via the CLR, to write specialized business logic using modern .NET programming languages and run those programs close to the data inside the database. With the very high data volumes being stored in databases—often hundreds of terabytes or even petabytes—managing data in the middle tier is unworkable. Embedding the CLR in SQL Server lets developers move complex business computations to the database.
Read More..
Microsoft files suit to defend Visual Studio users
Microsoft filed a lawsuit in a U.S. District Court in San Francisco last week, asking a judge to invalidate several patents that are the subject of infringement suits filed by WebXchange against three large companies over their use of Microsoft's Visual Studio development tools. The software vendor seeks to invalidate patents used to sue Allstate, Dell and FedEx.
Microsoft said in its lawsuit against WebXchange that the claims against Allstate Insurance Corp., Dell and FedEx relate to their use of Visual Studio. Microsoft added that by asking the court in San Francisco to declare WebXchange's patents invalid, it hopes to defend the three sued customers and spare other Visual Studio users from similar legal actions.
Read More..
Microsoft said in its lawsuit against WebXchange that the claims against Allstate Insurance Corp., Dell and FedEx relate to their use of Visual Studio. Microsoft added that by asking the court in San Francisco to declare WebXchange's patents invalid, it hopes to defend the three sued customers and spare other Visual Studio users from similar legal actions.
Read More..
Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SP1
Microsoft has recentky launced the development tool support for Windows Cloud Computing - Windows Azure.
Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio extend Visual Studio to enable the creation, building, debugging, running and packaging of scalable services on Windows Azure.
Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio includes:
*C# and VB Project templates for building Cloud Services
*Integration with the Development Fabric and Development Storage services
*Debugging Cloud Service Roles running in the Development Fabric
*Building and packaging of Cloud Service Packages
*Browsing to the Azure Services Developer Portal
*Role configuration
*SSL Certificate selection
Read More..
Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio extend Visual Studio to enable the creation, building, debugging, running and packaging of scalable services on Windows Azure.
Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio includes:
*C# and VB Project templates for building Cloud Services
*Integration with the Development Fabric and Development Storage services
*Debugging Cloud Service Roles running in the Development Fabric
*Building and packaging of Cloud Service Packages
*Browsing to the Azure Services Developer Portal
*Role configuration
*SSL Certificate selection
Read More..
Monday, November 10, 2008
Microsoft: Scoop On BizTalk Server 2009
Microsoft's BizTalk Server 2009 is on track for availability during the first half of next year with a full public Community Technology Preview of the business process management server product slated for this year's fourth quarter, Microsoft said Friday. Microsoft also provided more details about new capabilities in the software, which until now Microsoft had called BizTalk Server 2006 R3.
As it has done with some of its other products, Microsoft is committing to a regular and more transparent development schedule for BizTalk Server, said Burley Kawasaki, product management director for Microsoft's Connected Systems Division. Microsoft wants to fall into a "rhythm of releases" for BizTalk Server, delivering a major upgrade every two years as it plans to do with Windows Server and other products. "We're trying to be more predictable for our enterprise customers," Kawasaki said.
Microsoft has begun planning for the product release that follows BizTalk Server 2009, code-named "BizTalk Server 7," Kawasaki said, and will start providing customers and channel partners with information about that release early next year. Priorities for that and future generations of the product include more tools for enterprise connectivity, support for the latest capabilities in the Windows platform such as messaging and workflow, and improved visibility throughout a business for such applications as business intelligence and asset tracking.
Enhancements and new capabilities offered in BizTalk Server 2009 generally revolve around improved enterprise connectivity, expanded platform support and improved developer productivity, Kawasaki said. "It's a pretty full release. It helps reinforce the focus on enterprise connectivity."
BizTalk Server 2009 will support Microsoft's new wave of platform systems including Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and .Net Framework 3.5, as well as supporting Microsoft's new Hyper-V server virtualization software. Managing the life cycle of applications developed for BizTalk will be easier with a new release of ESB Guidance 2.0 patterns and practices.
The new software will offer improved connectivity both inside and outside the firewall through a new UDDI v3-compliant services registry; new and enhanced line-of-business adapters for SQL Server, Oracle (NSDQ:ORCL)'s E-Business Suite and other applications; enhanced integration with host systems such as IBM (NYSE:IBM) WebSphere MQSeries and CICS; and a new mobile RFID platform. The software will also provide enhanced business-to-business capabilities with updates to its EDI, AS2 and SWIFT protocols.
Read More..
As it has done with some of its other products, Microsoft is committing to a regular and more transparent development schedule for BizTalk Server, said Burley Kawasaki, product management director for Microsoft's Connected Systems Division. Microsoft wants to fall into a "rhythm of releases" for BizTalk Server, delivering a major upgrade every two years as it plans to do with Windows Server and other products. "We're trying to be more predictable for our enterprise customers," Kawasaki said.
Microsoft has begun planning for the product release that follows BizTalk Server 2009, code-named "BizTalk Server 7," Kawasaki said, and will start providing customers and channel partners with information about that release early next year. Priorities for that and future generations of the product include more tools for enterprise connectivity, support for the latest capabilities in the Windows platform such as messaging and workflow, and improved visibility throughout a business for such applications as business intelligence and asset tracking.
Enhancements and new capabilities offered in BizTalk Server 2009 generally revolve around improved enterprise connectivity, expanded platform support and improved developer productivity, Kawasaki said. "It's a pretty full release. It helps reinforce the focus on enterprise connectivity."
BizTalk Server 2009 will support Microsoft's new wave of platform systems including Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and .Net Framework 3.5, as well as supporting Microsoft's new Hyper-V server virtualization software. Managing the life cycle of applications developed for BizTalk will be easier with a new release of ESB Guidance 2.0 patterns and practices.
The new software will offer improved connectivity both inside and outside the firewall through a new UDDI v3-compliant services registry; new and enhanced line-of-business adapters for SQL Server, Oracle (NSDQ:ORCL)'s E-Business Suite and other applications; enhanced integration with host systems such as IBM (NYSE:IBM) WebSphere MQSeries and CICS; and a new mobile RFID platform. The software will also provide enhanced business-to-business capabilities with updates to its EDI, AS2 and SWIFT protocols.
Read More..
Friday, October 17, 2008
Microsoft PDC to feature various technologies
Microsoft bills its upcoming Professional Developers Conference as a gathering of developers and architects and a chance to understand the future of Microsoft's platform. From this backdrop, the Los Angeles conference, which begins on October 26, is set to feature insights on a host of technologies ranging from model-driven software development to cloud computing and the Windows OS.
Highlights include a Community Technology Preview of Microsoft's "Oslo" software modeling platform, as well as sessions on the company's "Dublin" application server extensions for Windows. Microsoft's planned cloud OS, dubbed "Red Dog," also is expected to draw a lot of attention.
In some cases, technologies from different spaces will mesh together at the conference, such as during a session entitled, " 'Dublin' and .Net Services: Extending On-Premise Applications to the Cloud." Read More..
Highlights include a Community Technology Preview of Microsoft's "Oslo" software modeling platform, as well as sessions on the company's "Dublin" application server extensions for Windows. Microsoft's planned cloud OS, dubbed "Red Dog," also is expected to draw a lot of attention.
In some cases, technologies from different spaces will mesh together at the conference, such as during a session entitled, " 'Dublin' and .Net Services: Extending On-Premise Applications to the Cloud." Read More..
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