The following lists the announcements made at Microsoft Professional Developers Conference in LA
Major announcements:
- Cloud services: SQL Services (includes SSDS), .Net Services, and Live Services
- .NET application development technologies for the Internet cloud. New set of .NET APIs for developers to build applications to deploy to the cloud.
- Cloud OS: Windows Azure
- Based on Mary Jo's post way back in June, Red Dog project describes the Windows Cloud OS called Windows Azure.
- This platform as stated by Ballmer, will be Windows Server for the cloud, I would add that Windows Azure is seen as a service running in data centres rather than a actual client OS. Windows Azure provides a highly scalable infrastructure for hosting cloud applications.
- Keynote related announcements on SharePoint: Sharepoint Online, SharePoint services (not in the context of WSS) - part of Windows Azure services framework.
- SharePoint: There was also a closed door discussion with the SharePoint product team at PDC with around 20 or so people on an invitation-only basis. I can't say anything about what was discussed due to NDAs but I can say that Mike Ammerlaan is working on much awaited and improved infrastructure features for the next version of SharePoint. In terms of timeline, expect the beta of the next version of SharePoint by end of 2009
- Windows 7: UI and performance improvements to name a few. Revamp of traditional Windows apps such as Paint with Ribbon interface. Better tabbing experience to access your running programs and applications.