The next generation of Microsoft's Visual Studio Team System is about to see the light of day.
A community technology preview of VSTS, code-named "Rosario," is set for availability within the next week, according to a blog post from Brian Harry, a Microsoft distinguished engineer.
Despite the CTP, Microsoft's roadmap for Rosario's release appears to remain a bit hazy, judging from Harry's post. "We have not be announcing anticipated timelines for Rosario, so for now you'll have to be happy with getting your hands on the bits to play with," he wrote.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates kicked off the company's annual financial analysis by, once again, talking about the future. Referring to computing progress, "the next 10 years are by far the most interesting," he said.
But in a departure, Gates spoke more about Microsoft's more immediate plans to get to the future.
Among the cornerstones of Microsoft's success is planning. The company often has a five- or 10-year plan. By contrast, many competitors, particularly in the dot-com arena, think quarter to quarter.
Microsoft is expecting to deliver a public Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 for download on Friday, July 27, company officials said. It will roll out simultaneously Beta 2 of the .Net Framework 3.5.
Update on July 26: Looks like Microsoft posted the Beta 2 bits earlier than it told us it would. (Thanks to WinBeta.org folks for the tip.)
Microsoft is expecting to deliver the final versions of Visual Studio 2008 and .Net Framework 3.5 before the end of this year, officials said this week. (Microsoft had been wavering until today, claiming that the release to manufacturing of VS 2008 could potentially slip into early 2008.)
Today, July 26, Microsoft is expecting to post for download by testers the release candidate of SilverLight 1.0; a first Community Technology Preview of Silverlight 1.1; and a new preview release of Expression Blend Version 2.0, company officials said.
Tomorrow, Microsoft takes the next step in effort to bridge the gap between telephone and computer, releasing to manufacturing two key unified communications products.
Jeff Raikes, president of the Microsoft Business Division, announced at Microsoft's financial analyst meeting Thursday that Office Communications Server 2007 and its client component, Office Communicator, are code complete and ready to go.
Gurdeep Singh Pall, vice president of the Unified Communications Group, stated Microsoft's goals with UC in a press release.
This week, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, working in concert with its counterparts in the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, announced the largest software piracy bust in history. The bust, code-named "Operation Summer Solstice," netted more than $500 million in software and 25 arrests, most of which took place in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong.
Go figure, but Microsoft's reviled Windows Genuine Advantage technology played a role in the bust. According to the company, more than 1000 customers in 12 different countries had unknowingly purchased pirated software from Chinese crime syndicates, discovered their software was illegitimate via WGA, and reported the crime to Microsoft using software tools designed for that purpose.
Microsoft has acquired AdECN, a company that offers what it describes as a stock market for display ads.
AdECN earlier this year launched an auction-based exchange for online advertising. Members can buy ad inventory for advertisers and sell on behalf of publishers. It currently has 37 member advertising networks, said Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft's platform and services division.
The acquisition will complement Microsoft's AdCenter and extend the technology offered by aQuantive, another company that Microsoft is in the process of acquiring, he said. AdECN, based in Carpenteria, Calif., will expand Microsoft's capabilities by offering an auction exchange for display ads, he said.
Microsoft Windows will run more PCs than there are cars in the world by the end of Microsoft's fiscal year 2008, said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer July 26 at the company's analyst day here.
The software giant announced it sold 60 million copies of Windows Vista this year, more than the entire installed base of Apple, and is well on the way to reaching 1 billion Windows users by the end of the fiscal year, Ballmer and Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner told analysts and reporters. The latest number includes 40 million copies sold in the first 100 days of the product's January release.
Microsoft wants more open source software to run on Windows. Microsoft also wants its own Open Source Initiative approved license. Perhaps they really can get along.
On the software side, Microsoft today announced a partnership with open source solution vendor SpikeSource to eventually certify all of SpikeSource's SpikeIgnited solutions on the Microsoft Windows platform.
The move could make dozens of popular open source solutions available to Windows users in a fully supported manner. SpikeSource solutions include the gambit of content management, CRM and collaboration solutions. The first SpikeIgnited solution being made Windows-certified is the Drupal content management solution. Throughout the second half of 2007, SpikeSource plans on rolling out additional offerings.
Microsoft has beaten a rival bid from Internet search giant Google to provide s inside upcoming Electronic Arts video games that run via the LIVE network on the Xbox 360 game console and Windows-based PCs. EA is the largest maker of games on the planet and is responsible for such game franchises as Madden Football, Tiger Woods Golf, NHL Hockey, and NASCAR Racing.
The Microsoft deal is big for two reasons. First, that the company was able to outperform market leader Google here is somewhat surprising. Second, this deal encompasses the entire line of EA titles, which include some of the best-selling games on the planet, many of which are updated every year.
Look for improvements in the way policies are set up in SQL Server 2008 when Microsoft releases the next community test preview of the database server by month's end.
Those participating in the CTP program of Microsoft's next-generation database server will notice some significant improvements, according to Francois Ajenstat, director of product management for Microsoft's SQL Server,
Perhaps the most noteworthy improvement is the declarative management framework, a policy-based system for managing one or more instances of the new database, Ajenstat said in an interview.