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Tech-Ed: Gates' Farewell to Developers Focuses on Silverlight, Velocity, Oslo
6/3/2008
Microsoft also announced a new CTP of the Microsoft Sync Framework for Windows Mobile. The Sync Framework enables collaboration and offline functionality for devices, services and applications.
Gaining Velocity
One of the notable surprises at the conference was Project Velocity, which aims
to streamline and enhance access to disparate data sources for high-performance
applications that are spread across large clusters of computers. Microsoft has
released the first community technology preview (CTP) of the forthcoming distributed
in-memory application cache platform.
Also announced during the keynote was the release of Silverlight 2 beta 2, available for download this week. The latest cut of Microsoft's cross-platform rich Internet application platform is now available under the Go Live license, enabling dev shops to start working on public-facing Silverlight applications.
Somasegar demoed Silverlight 2 applications, including the Crossfader music video app that showed advanced interface effects and streaming low-bandwidth video playback. He also demoed integration with Expression Designer, showing how developers can tune application design from the Expression tooling.
Microsoft has updated tooling for Silverlight developers, announcing both the Expression Blend 2.5 June 2008 Preview and Microsoft Silverlight Tools beta 2 for Visual Studio 2008.
Finally, attendees also learned that IE 8 beta 2 will be available Aug. 20. IE 8 will usher improved support for Web standards, as well as two new features Gates emphasized: "Activities," which lets users gather things they do on the Web in a single place, and "Slices," which enables Web site owners to drive focus to a specific portion of their pages.
Michael Desmond is the founding editor of Redmond Developer News. Contact him at mdesmond@reddevnews.com.
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