Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Monday, August 13, 2007
GridView 2.0
You can find good resources for ASP.NET 2.0 Gridview Control
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.ui.webcontrols.gridview.rowediting.aspx
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.ui.webcontrols.gridview.rowediting.aspx
Pakistan becomes the first country in the world to have WiMax
Pakistan has become the first country in the world to have countrywide WiMax deployment. The cities covered are as follows:
-Abbottabad
-Jhelum
-R.Y. Khan
-Bahawalpur
-Karachi
-Sahiwal
-D.I. Khan
-Lahore
-Sargodha
-Faisalabad
-Multan
-Sheikhupura
-Gujranwala
-Okara
-Sialkot
-Gujrat
-Peshawar
-Sukhur
-Hyderabad
-Quetta
-Islamabad
-Rawalpindi
I think in the next few years WiMax is going to transform our society, especially our IT industry.
For complete details go to:
http://www.wateen.com/HomeUsers.aspx?HomeTreeID=16
-Abbottabad
-Jhelum
-R.Y. Khan
-Bahawalpur
-Karachi
-Sahiwal
-D.I. Khan
-Lahore
-Sargodha
-Faisalabad
-Multan
-Sheikhupura
-Gujranwala
-Okara
-Sialkot
-Gujrat
-Peshawar
-Sukhur
-Hyderabad
-Quetta
-Islamabad
-Rawalpindi
I think in the next few years WiMax is going to transform our society, especially our IT industry.
For complete details go to:
http://www.wateen.com/HomeUsers.aspx?HomeTreeID=16
Friday, August 10, 2007
10 Things You Should Know About Microsoft's Silverlight
Shawn Wildermuth
August 09, 2007 (CIO) Crafting a Web strategy is important for any thriving business. However, implementing that strategy with rich Internet applications is not always as easy as it should be. To ease that pain, Microsoft Corp. recently announced Silverlight, a cross-platform, cross-browser plug-in for Web application developers. The plug-in, currently available as a Release Candidate (which for all intents and purposes means it's released now), enables rich application development including media, interactivity and animation. The Silverlight plug-in currently works with Internet Explorer and Firefox Web browsers on Windows and with Firefox and Safari on Mac OS X.
I've been using Silverlight since I taught a course for internal Microsoft developers, shortly before the software's public unveiling as "WPF/E." I've written several books about Microsoft-based software development, such as Pragmatic ADO.Net (Addison-Wesley Professional, 2002), I co-wrote four Microsoft developer certification books, and I have invested quite a bit of time in examining the promises that the company is making for this "Flash killer." It's always hard to be critical of software that isn't fully released yet -- for one thing, it's impossible to point out serious bugs since they may be addressed by the time you fire up the development tool -- but the following reflects my professional and technical judgment based on several months of hands-on experience.
With the public release of Silverlight imminent, now is the right time to become familiar with the software and how it might affect your Web application strategy. With so much Silverlight information available right now, it is difficult to distill what is important and what is hype. I'll do my best to lift the fog with these 10 things that you should know about Microsoft's Silverlight.
1. Silverlight Avoids Cross-Browser/OS IssuesFor most development teams, developing a Web site that will work identically with popular browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Opera, is a difficult proposition. The problem is not simply the necessity for multiple code implementations but also exponentially large testing sets. As a developer creates matrices of browser versions and operating systems, the number of testbeds needed becomes enormous.
Usually, there are two ways that a development project addresses this: support only a small subset of Web browsers or increase the number of quality assurance personnel.
In contrast, the Silverlight plug-in enables an identical development model regardless of user operating system and browser. Currently, two operating systems and three browsers are supported. Microsoft is promising to add support for the Opera browser on Windows and Mac. In addition, the Mono project has made tremendous strides in its Moonlight project, which intends to bring Silverlight to Linux.
2. Silverlight 1.1 Is the Real StoryThe recent Release Candidate of Silverlight 1.0 has many organizations considering whether they should start working with Silverlight. While Silverlight 1.0 has many important and interesting features, in reality most Silverlight adoption hangs on its anticipated 1.1 release.
The Silverlight 1.1 release (currently in an alpha preview) is the first to support .Net in any appreciable way. This includes the basic .Net languages, C# and Visual Basic. In addition, according to Microsoft, Silverlight 1.1 will have .Net support for dynamic languages, such as Ruby, Python, dynamic Visual Basic and managed JScript. In my opinion, the important languages for Silverlight to support are C# and Visual Basic, as they allow .Net developers to create interesting Silverlight applications. In the Silverlight 1.1 release, any .Net language should be supported, since what is actually delivered to the browser are .Net assemblies.
In contrast, Silverlight 1.0 only supports Ecma International languages that are interpreted in the client. Silverlight 1.0 works well for existing Web developers who are already using client-side script for their work.
Silverlight 1.1 also supports a rich custom control model, which is important to ensure an integrated development experience. The Silverlight 1.0 experience is much less mature and is unlikely to get third parties interested in control development.
3. Silverlight Uses Technologies Your Developers Already KnowSilverlight is built with existing Microsoft technologies: a mix of Windows Presentation Framework-like XAML (XML application markup language), JavaScript and .Net technologies. If your developers are already familiar with Microsoft .Net and Web technologies, they can use their existing knowledge to build Silverlight applications. Even if your developers lack these skills, learning these technologies has applicability beyond the single product or project -- which isn't necessarily the case for other solutions, such as Adobe Flash's ActionScript.
The version of Silverlight you choose to introduce to a new project will likely depend on your development team's skill set. If your development team primarily does heavy ASP.Net server-side development (mostly C# and VB.Net), you should wait until Silverlight 1.1 is available. If your team is adept at client-side languages like JavaScript, Silverlight 1.0 is a great platform to introduce.
4. Silverlight UI Is just Markup -- Like HTMLXAML is the Silverlight's lingua franca for user interface design. You may already be familiar with another popular markup language, HTML. HTML files are plain text that contain information that tells the Web browser how to render the look and feel of a Web page. XAML does the same thing. However, instead of the browser interpreting the instructions about how to render the file, the Silverlight runtime does the rendering.
XAML being markup is important because it can be created dynamically. No matter what tools your developers use for server-side Web development, you are probably creating dynamic HTML to create pages. This technique is so compelling because you can create reusable pieces of HTML that you use on your site. A good example is the design of the main page of most Web sites. Normally, the header and footer (and often the left and right side borders) are reused throughout a Web page.
Because XAML is just markup, you can use server-side technologies to dynamically create XAML, just as your development teams already do with HTML. The markup language is different, but the techniques are the same.
5. Silverlight and AJAX Technologies Are ComplementaryThe Web is evolving. When the Web was new, back in the 1990s, everyone warned that developers should move as much as possible to the server so the application could scale. While this works well technically, it hampered the user experience. Now Asynchronous JavaScript and XML is all the rage. Simply put, AJAX writes code directly in the browser to enable better user interaction. The canonical example of this is Google maps (or Microsoft's Live maps, if you prefer).
Silverlight follows this model by allowing more expressive user interfaces in the browser. Exchanging data between the server and client using AJAX technologies (no matter which AJAX library you happen to use) allows Silverlight applications to be even more powerful. Using the rich user-interface model of Silverlight with the strong data-transfer model of AJAX allows for incredible interactivity without forcing users to wait for page refreshes.
6. Silverlight Allows Developers and Designers to Work TogetherThe Web has forced development teams to think more about design and aesthetics. Responsive user experience and intuitive interfaces have become the norm instead of the exception. This usually happens by involving artistic and user experience skills in application development. Today, that is accomplished by employing artists to come up with the design for a Web site.
However, the assets that artists use and deliver are usually different from the tools that developers use. Typically, artists deliver image files (e.g., Photoshop or .jpg files) or (in advanced cases) HTML wire frames for developers to integrate into a project. No matter what technology you use, these designs must be integrated into the Web application code. As the design evolves, this integration happens over and over. Silverlight suggests a better development story. The Microsoft tool set for Silverlight is a mix of traditional development tools, like Visual Studio, and new tools that are geared for designers, called Expression Studio.
For Silverlight, the primary design tool is Expression Blend, which allows creation of XAML in a way that is comfortable and familiar to designers. Using Blend is like Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop. The big difference is that it uses the same artifacts the developers use. Blend works with the same project files, XAML and JavaScript files as does Visual Studio. When a design is created and polished, there is no integration step to use it in Silverlight. Designers can see their designs interact with the same logic that developers add as a project matures. Doing so helps designers and developers to work closely together.
7. Silverlight Deliverables Are Not AtomicSilverlight is delivered to a Web browser in pieces. This means the code is in one or more packages (JavaScript files, assemblies, etc.), the design is delivered as one or more packages (as XAML files), and other assets are separately delivered (including images, fonts and video). First-time Silverlight developers who are familiar with Flash's single-file deliverable may consider this a detraction to the Silverlight platform.
In fact, I believe it is a benefit. The separate packages encourage the creation of dynamic server-side content much more easily than is accomplished today using Flash. It allows us to create compelling and dynamic XAML on the server and simply deliver it the way we do other markup (e.g., HTML). Silverlight has a facility for using Zip files to package up multiple files that are used by the XAML code (images, videos, fonts, script files, etc.) and download them efficiently to the client, but it is not a requirement.
8. Silverlight Is NewAs of this writing, Silverlight 1.0 is in a Release Candidate state, and Silverlight 1.1 is in Alpha Release. This is Microsoft's first try at this sort of technology. The technology is immature compared with similar offerings by other companies, most notably Adobe Inc.'s Flash and Flex products. Flash is currently at Version 9.0 and has had a longer time to get ahead in both ubiquity and richness. This is not to say that Silverlight won't catch up. Microsoft has a knack for learning from others' success and failure (see Java and .Net). But it is not a certainty.
If you plan to create applications that are primarily replacements for data-driven desktop applications, you might miss the lack of basic controls and data binding in Silverlight. Silverlight is not a replacement for Windows Forms, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Java Applets or Sharepoint. Simply put, Silverlight was not designed to do line-of-business applications in these early versions. But if you want to create rich, compelling applications with reach across platforms and operating systems, Silverlight is a good fit.
9. Silverlight XAML versus WPF XAMLIt is easy to tout XAML as a great benefit because Microsoft's WPF also uses XAML. Unfortunately, these benefits are not as compelling as it may seem because of low WPF adoption and the differences between WPF XAML and Silverlight XAML.
First, anecdotal evidence indicates that WPF adoption rates are still relatively low in comparison with other client-side technologies, such as Visual Basic 6 and .Net's Windows Forms. So the fact that XAML has been in the wild for several years is a benefit, but it is not a big benefit in my opinion.
Second, the Silverlight XAML is a simplified grammar compared to WPF XAML, so Silverlight XAML is not as powerful. This is good and bad. Silverlight XAML is very understandable, but if your developers are coming to Silverlight from WPF, it might seem incomplete.
In my opinion, the smaller grammar is actually best for Silverlight, as the runtime is small and manageable for end users. Silverlight XAML does not include anything that is not necessary for the task at hand. Certainly, it would be beneficial to build more functionality into Silverlight XAML, but the current approach is to be careful about how much is added to keep the application programming interface small and light.
10. Silverlight Is a Great Way to Learn XAMLAs seen in the previous section, Silverlight's XAML has a small grammar. This means it is a great way to learn how XAML works. Developers trying to learn XAML and to come up to speed on the technology will appreciate Silverlight as a way to create clear and concise code. Most developers will soon start thinking about features they would like in Silverlight. When they start looking at WPF's XAML, they will see most of those features are already there.
In contrast, developers who start with WPF and pick up Silverlight will need to give up some of the arrows in their quivers.
Silverlight's runtime is about 4.5MB at this point. The .Net 3.0 runtime (the first to support WPF) weighs in at closer to 30MB. Surely not all of .Net 3.0 is WPF, but a large portion of it is. Starting with the smaller Silverlight XAML is a key to learning XAML quickly. You can't get bogged down in the minutiae of advanced WPF XAML concepts, such as templates, theming, data binding and 3-D.
Now is the time to determine where to use Silverlight in your own Web strategy. Silverlight is an exciting technology that should benefit companies, customers and users. I hope this article has helped you dig deeper than the marketing materials and understand the real benefits and limitations of the technology.
Shawn Wildermuth is a Microsoft MVP (C#), MCSD.Net, MCT. He is the founder of Wildermuth Consulting Services, delivering architecture, mentoring and software solutions in the Atlanta area. Shawn has enjoyed building data-driven software for more than 20 years. He is also a speaker on the INETA Speakers Bureau. Currently, Shawn is currently taking his Silverlight Workshop around the country, teaching people how to use Silverlight in their own projects. Shawn is the author of several books including Pragmatic ADO.Net (Addison-Wesley Professional, 2002); he is also co-author of four Microsoft Certification Training Kits for Microsoft Press, as well as the upcoming Prescriptive Data Architectures.
August 09, 2007 (CIO) Crafting a Web strategy is important for any thriving business. However, implementing that strategy with rich Internet applications is not always as easy as it should be. To ease that pain, Microsoft Corp. recently announced Silverlight, a cross-platform, cross-browser plug-in for Web application developers. The plug-in, currently available as a Release Candidate (which for all intents and purposes means it's released now), enables rich application development including media, interactivity and animation. The Silverlight plug-in currently works with Internet Explorer and Firefox Web browsers on Windows and with Firefox and Safari on Mac OS X.
I've been using Silverlight since I taught a course for internal Microsoft developers, shortly before the software's public unveiling as "WPF/E." I've written several books about Microsoft-based software development, such as Pragmatic ADO.Net (Addison-Wesley Professional, 2002), I co-wrote four Microsoft developer certification books, and I have invested quite a bit of time in examining the promises that the company is making for this "Flash killer." It's always hard to be critical of software that isn't fully released yet -- for one thing, it's impossible to point out serious bugs since they may be addressed by the time you fire up the development tool -- but the following reflects my professional and technical judgment based on several months of hands-on experience.
With the public release of Silverlight imminent, now is the right time to become familiar with the software and how it might affect your Web application strategy. With so much Silverlight information available right now, it is difficult to distill what is important and what is hype. I'll do my best to lift the fog with these 10 things that you should know about Microsoft's Silverlight.
1. Silverlight Avoids Cross-Browser/OS IssuesFor most development teams, developing a Web site that will work identically with popular browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Opera, is a difficult proposition. The problem is not simply the necessity for multiple code implementations but also exponentially large testing sets. As a developer creates matrices of browser versions and operating systems, the number of testbeds needed becomes enormous.
Usually, there are two ways that a development project addresses this: support only a small subset of Web browsers or increase the number of quality assurance personnel.
In contrast, the Silverlight plug-in enables an identical development model regardless of user operating system and browser. Currently, two operating systems and three browsers are supported. Microsoft is promising to add support for the Opera browser on Windows and Mac. In addition, the Mono project has made tremendous strides in its Moonlight project, which intends to bring Silverlight to Linux.
2. Silverlight 1.1 Is the Real StoryThe recent Release Candidate of Silverlight 1.0 has many organizations considering whether they should start working with Silverlight. While Silverlight 1.0 has many important and interesting features, in reality most Silverlight adoption hangs on its anticipated 1.1 release.
The Silverlight 1.1 release (currently in an alpha preview) is the first to support .Net in any appreciable way. This includes the basic .Net languages, C# and Visual Basic. In addition, according to Microsoft, Silverlight 1.1 will have .Net support for dynamic languages, such as Ruby, Python, dynamic Visual Basic and managed JScript. In my opinion, the important languages for Silverlight to support are C# and Visual Basic, as they allow .Net developers to create interesting Silverlight applications. In the Silverlight 1.1 release, any .Net language should be supported, since what is actually delivered to the browser are .Net assemblies.
In contrast, Silverlight 1.0 only supports Ecma International languages that are interpreted in the client. Silverlight 1.0 works well for existing Web developers who are already using client-side script for their work.
Silverlight 1.1 also supports a rich custom control model, which is important to ensure an integrated development experience. The Silverlight 1.0 experience is much less mature and is unlikely to get third parties interested in control development.
3. Silverlight Uses Technologies Your Developers Already KnowSilverlight is built with existing Microsoft technologies: a mix of Windows Presentation Framework-like XAML (XML application markup language), JavaScript and .Net technologies. If your developers are already familiar with Microsoft .Net and Web technologies, they can use their existing knowledge to build Silverlight applications. Even if your developers lack these skills, learning these technologies has applicability beyond the single product or project -- which isn't necessarily the case for other solutions, such as Adobe Flash's ActionScript.
The version of Silverlight you choose to introduce to a new project will likely depend on your development team's skill set. If your development team primarily does heavy ASP.Net server-side development (mostly C# and VB.Net), you should wait until Silverlight 1.1 is available. If your team is adept at client-side languages like JavaScript, Silverlight 1.0 is a great platform to introduce.
4. Silverlight UI Is just Markup -- Like HTMLXAML is the Silverlight's lingua franca for user interface design. You may already be familiar with another popular markup language, HTML. HTML files are plain text that contain information that tells the Web browser how to render the look and feel of a Web page. XAML does the same thing. However, instead of the browser interpreting the instructions about how to render the file, the Silverlight runtime does the rendering.
XAML being markup is important because it can be created dynamically. No matter what tools your developers use for server-side Web development, you are probably creating dynamic HTML to create pages. This technique is so compelling because you can create reusable pieces of HTML that you use on your site. A good example is the design of the main page of most Web sites. Normally, the header and footer (and often the left and right side borders) are reused throughout a Web page.
Because XAML is just markup, you can use server-side technologies to dynamically create XAML, just as your development teams already do with HTML. The markup language is different, but the techniques are the same.
5. Silverlight and AJAX Technologies Are ComplementaryThe Web is evolving. When the Web was new, back in the 1990s, everyone warned that developers should move as much as possible to the server so the application could scale. While this works well technically, it hampered the user experience. Now Asynchronous JavaScript and XML is all the rage. Simply put, AJAX writes code directly in the browser to enable better user interaction. The canonical example of this is Google maps (or Microsoft's Live maps, if you prefer).
Silverlight follows this model by allowing more expressive user interfaces in the browser. Exchanging data between the server and client using AJAX technologies (no matter which AJAX library you happen to use) allows Silverlight applications to be even more powerful. Using the rich user-interface model of Silverlight with the strong data-transfer model of AJAX allows for incredible interactivity without forcing users to wait for page refreshes.
6. Silverlight Allows Developers and Designers to Work TogetherThe Web has forced development teams to think more about design and aesthetics. Responsive user experience and intuitive interfaces have become the norm instead of the exception. This usually happens by involving artistic and user experience skills in application development. Today, that is accomplished by employing artists to come up with the design for a Web site.
However, the assets that artists use and deliver are usually different from the tools that developers use. Typically, artists deliver image files (e.g., Photoshop or .jpg files) or (in advanced cases) HTML wire frames for developers to integrate into a project. No matter what technology you use, these designs must be integrated into the Web application code. As the design evolves, this integration happens over and over. Silverlight suggests a better development story. The Microsoft tool set for Silverlight is a mix of traditional development tools, like Visual Studio, and new tools that are geared for designers, called Expression Studio.
For Silverlight, the primary design tool is Expression Blend, which allows creation of XAML in a way that is comfortable and familiar to designers. Using Blend is like Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop. The big difference is that it uses the same artifacts the developers use. Blend works with the same project files, XAML and JavaScript files as does Visual Studio. When a design is created and polished, there is no integration step to use it in Silverlight. Designers can see their designs interact with the same logic that developers add as a project matures. Doing so helps designers and developers to work closely together.
7. Silverlight Deliverables Are Not AtomicSilverlight is delivered to a Web browser in pieces. This means the code is in one or more packages (JavaScript files, assemblies, etc.), the design is delivered as one or more packages (as XAML files), and other assets are separately delivered (including images, fonts and video). First-time Silverlight developers who are familiar with Flash's single-file deliverable may consider this a detraction to the Silverlight platform.
In fact, I believe it is a benefit. The separate packages encourage the creation of dynamic server-side content much more easily than is accomplished today using Flash. It allows us to create compelling and dynamic XAML on the server and simply deliver it the way we do other markup (e.g., HTML). Silverlight has a facility for using Zip files to package up multiple files that are used by the XAML code (images, videos, fonts, script files, etc.) and download them efficiently to the client, but it is not a requirement.
8. Silverlight Is NewAs of this writing, Silverlight 1.0 is in a Release Candidate state, and Silverlight 1.1 is in Alpha Release. This is Microsoft's first try at this sort of technology. The technology is immature compared with similar offerings by other companies, most notably Adobe Inc.'s Flash and Flex products. Flash is currently at Version 9.0 and has had a longer time to get ahead in both ubiquity and richness. This is not to say that Silverlight won't catch up. Microsoft has a knack for learning from others' success and failure (see Java and .Net). But it is not a certainty.
If you plan to create applications that are primarily replacements for data-driven desktop applications, you might miss the lack of basic controls and data binding in Silverlight. Silverlight is not a replacement for Windows Forms, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Java Applets or Sharepoint. Simply put, Silverlight was not designed to do line-of-business applications in these early versions. But if you want to create rich, compelling applications with reach across platforms and operating systems, Silverlight is a good fit.
9. Silverlight XAML versus WPF XAMLIt is easy to tout XAML as a great benefit because Microsoft's WPF also uses XAML. Unfortunately, these benefits are not as compelling as it may seem because of low WPF adoption and the differences between WPF XAML and Silverlight XAML.
First, anecdotal evidence indicates that WPF adoption rates are still relatively low in comparison with other client-side technologies, such as Visual Basic 6 and .Net's Windows Forms. So the fact that XAML has been in the wild for several years is a benefit, but it is not a big benefit in my opinion.
Second, the Silverlight XAML is a simplified grammar compared to WPF XAML, so Silverlight XAML is not as powerful. This is good and bad. Silverlight XAML is very understandable, but if your developers are coming to Silverlight from WPF, it might seem incomplete.
In my opinion, the smaller grammar is actually best for Silverlight, as the runtime is small and manageable for end users. Silverlight XAML does not include anything that is not necessary for the task at hand. Certainly, it would be beneficial to build more functionality into Silverlight XAML, but the current approach is to be careful about how much is added to keep the application programming interface small and light.
10. Silverlight Is a Great Way to Learn XAMLAs seen in the previous section, Silverlight's XAML has a small grammar. This means it is a great way to learn how XAML works. Developers trying to learn XAML and to come up to speed on the technology will appreciate Silverlight as a way to create clear and concise code. Most developers will soon start thinking about features they would like in Silverlight. When they start looking at WPF's XAML, they will see most of those features are already there.
In contrast, developers who start with WPF and pick up Silverlight will need to give up some of the arrows in their quivers.
Silverlight's runtime is about 4.5MB at this point. The .Net 3.0 runtime (the first to support WPF) weighs in at closer to 30MB. Surely not all of .Net 3.0 is WPF, but a large portion of it is. Starting with the smaller Silverlight XAML is a key to learning XAML quickly. You can't get bogged down in the minutiae of advanced WPF XAML concepts, such as templates, theming, data binding and 3-D.
Now is the time to determine where to use Silverlight in your own Web strategy. Silverlight is an exciting technology that should benefit companies, customers and users. I hope this article has helped you dig deeper than the marketing materials and understand the real benefits and limitations of the technology.
Shawn Wildermuth is a Microsoft MVP (C#), MCSD.Net, MCT. He is the founder of Wildermuth Consulting Services, delivering architecture, mentoring and software solutions in the Atlanta area. Shawn has enjoyed building data-driven software for more than 20 years. He is also a speaker on the INETA Speakers Bureau. Currently, Shawn is currently taking his Silverlight Workshop around the country, teaching people how to use Silverlight in their own projects. Shawn is the author of several books including Pragmatic ADO.Net (Addison-Wesley Professional, 2002); he is also co-author of four Microsoft Certification Training Kits for Microsoft Press, as well as the upcoming Prescriptive Data Architectures.
Windows Live Core - the Software as a Service platform
While Ray Ozzie has been keeping details of his Software as a Service platform quiet, some small bits of information are emerging from other members on his team. Two of his direct reports, David Treadwell and Amitabh Srivastava are both listed as working on developing the next generation Live services platform known as Windows Live Core:
"This start-up effort will define the vision and create the implementation for cloud-based platform services that will allow the creation of compelling applications that make deep use of network-based information."
Other members of the Windows Live Core team that we've tracked down include David Cutler, who led the development of Windows, Abolade Gbadegesin, former architect of networking in Windows Vista and Elissa Murphy, Principal PM for Windows Live Core. This team has "joined Ray Ozzie to focus on next generation cloud services; to build an highly efficient computing fabric for Microsoft data centers and a services platform for agile development of high-quality cloud services." In a question and answer with financial analysts in February, Ozzie talked about how Google helped Microsoft change its thinking about services as a platform:
"In the Google case, what's fascinating to me is that although you can characterize Google as a search compete, there are two very significant things that happened at Microsoft [as a result]. One was the recognition of advertising as an economic engine," Ozzie said. "And the other was services-based infrastructure. Once the realization was made by different groups that every product would have a services component, you go back to the company's platform roots and figure out what kind of platform treats the services layer as a system."
As Srivastava's Microsoft Research page mentions, part of the work on the Windows Live Core Operating System is heavily focused on Microsoft data centers. James Hamilton, an architect on the Windows Live Core team, gave two presentations recently discussing module datacentres and how they can be used to provide economies of scale for Software as a Service. The idea of using commercial shipping containers to build high-scale datacenters seems rather unusual, however those working on the Ozzie team are the ideal candidates to innovatively solve these kinds of complex problems. The need for datacenters was highlighted by Ozzie in an interview early last year with Fortune, where he said that Microsoft must build a global network of server farms that will cost "staggering" amounts of money. For those who are saying that "Live is dead" this should serve as a reminder that Microsoft are investing heavily in online services and are serious about their future in this sector.
While the premise behind Windows Live Core is becoming clearer, there is certainly a lot more to be learnt. Whether Ray Ozzie provides more details at Mix07 is anybody's guess. We're unable to attend but will be following the events closely, and we'll be looking to our readers to send us the talk from the floor - drop us a comment below if you're planning on going and what you are hoping to see or hear.
"This start-up effort will define the vision and create the implementation for cloud-based platform services that will allow the creation of compelling applications that make deep use of network-based information."
Other members of the Windows Live Core team that we've tracked down include David Cutler, who led the development of Windows, Abolade Gbadegesin, former architect of networking in Windows Vista and Elissa Murphy, Principal PM for Windows Live Core. This team has "joined Ray Ozzie to focus on next generation cloud services; to build an highly efficient computing fabric for Microsoft data centers and a services platform for agile development of high-quality cloud services." In a question and answer with financial analysts in February, Ozzie talked about how Google helped Microsoft change its thinking about services as a platform:
"In the Google case, what's fascinating to me is that although you can characterize Google as a search compete, there are two very significant things that happened at Microsoft [as a result]. One was the recognition of advertising as an economic engine," Ozzie said. "And the other was services-based infrastructure. Once the realization was made by different groups that every product would have a services component, you go back to the company's platform roots and figure out what kind of platform treats the services layer as a system."
As Srivastava's Microsoft Research page mentions, part of the work on the Windows Live Core Operating System is heavily focused on Microsoft data centers. James Hamilton, an architect on the Windows Live Core team, gave two presentations recently discussing module datacentres and how they can be used to provide economies of scale for Software as a Service. The idea of using commercial shipping containers to build high-scale datacenters seems rather unusual, however those working on the Ozzie team are the ideal candidates to innovatively solve these kinds of complex problems. The need for datacenters was highlighted by Ozzie in an interview early last year with Fortune, where he said that Microsoft must build a global network of server farms that will cost "staggering" amounts of money. For those who are saying that "Live is dead" this should serve as a reminder that Microsoft are investing heavily in online services and are serious about their future in this sector.
While the premise behind Windows Live Core is becoming clearer, there is certainly a lot more to be learnt. Whether Ray Ozzie provides more details at Mix07 is anybody's guess. We're unable to attend but will be following the events closely, and we'll be looking to our readers to send us the talk from the floor - drop us a comment below if you're planning on going and what you are hoping to see or hear.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Microsoft Gains Ground On Open-Source Apache Web Server
Microsoft Gains Ground On Open-Source Apache Web Server
Netcraft's August 2007 survey of about 128 million Web sites shows a decline in market share for Apache to 48.4%, while Microsoft has risen to a 36.2% share of active Web sites.
By J. Nicholas Hoover InformationWeek
Apache has long held a tight grip on the Web server market as one of the only true redoubts of open source software. But that hold is loosening, according to surveys by research firm and Internet services company Netcraft.
Microsoft's Internet Information Services (IIS) has been creeping up on Apache HTTP Server for the last 16 months or so, and the August survey shows the narrowest margin yet. "Microsoft's recent gains raise the prospect that Windows may soon challenge Apache's leadership position," a post on Netcraft's Web site says. "If Microsoft continues to gain share at its current pace, it could close the gap on Apache sometime in 2008."
Netcraft's August 2007 survey of about 128 million Web sites shows a decline for Apache from 69.7% of active sites on the Internet in June 2005 to 48.4% today, the first time its share has been this low in nine years. Microsoft, meanwhile, has risen in the last 16 months to a 36.2% share of active Web sites. As recently as November 2005, the gap between the two servers in overall sites on the Web -- active or not -- was as wide as 50%.
Notably, Apache's losses have been compounded by gains from Google, which uses its own Google-flavored Web server for its own sites, and open source server lighttpd, which now make up a total 5.6% of the Web server market. Google switched its Blogger sites from Apache to its specialized Google Front End server earlier this year, according to Netcraft.
Regardless, Microsoft has been steadily on the rise since Go Daddy migrated more than 3.5 million sites from Linux to Microsoft in April 2006. Among potential reasons for Microsoft's increases are increasingly better security, which had been a problem point for IIS in the past, and Microsoft's developer prowess with technologies like .Net. IIS 6.0, which debuted in 2003, has seen only three reported vulnerabilities, significantly less than the 13 Apache has seen since 2005 alone.
Microsoft is including a new version -- IIS7 -- with Windows Server 2008, which will be released by the end of the year to server hardware manufacturers. Microsoft's own site is already running on the new software, and Microsoft has released a "Go Live" license for the most recent test release, meaning that IIS7 is ready enough to run live Web sites with Microsoft support.
IIS7 includes a modular architecture that breaks the server down into pieces for HTTP, others for security and compression, and so on. It also includes performance, manageability, and diagnostics upgrades. Microsoft recently announced that IIS7 will be one of the "server core" options for Windows Server 2008, meaning that those hoping to use a Windows Server box exclusively as a Web server can do so without having to install the full version of Windows Server. In an interview this year, Microsoft developer division general manager Scott Guthrie, who oversees IIS, called IIS7 "the most significant release of the Web server we've ever done."
Netcraft's August 2007 survey of about 128 million Web sites shows a decline in market share for Apache to 48.4%, while Microsoft has risen to a 36.2% share of active Web sites.
By J. Nicholas Hoover InformationWeek
Apache has long held a tight grip on the Web server market as one of the only true redoubts of open source software. But that hold is loosening, according to surveys by research firm and Internet services company Netcraft.
Microsoft's Internet Information Services (IIS) has been creeping up on Apache HTTP Server for the last 16 months or so, and the August survey shows the narrowest margin yet. "Microsoft's recent gains raise the prospect that Windows may soon challenge Apache's leadership position," a post on Netcraft's Web site says. "If Microsoft continues to gain share at its current pace, it could close the gap on Apache sometime in 2008."
Netcraft's August 2007 survey of about 128 million Web sites shows a decline for Apache from 69.7% of active sites on the Internet in June 2005 to 48.4% today, the first time its share has been this low in nine years. Microsoft, meanwhile, has risen in the last 16 months to a 36.2% share of active Web sites. As recently as November 2005, the gap between the two servers in overall sites on the Web -- active or not -- was as wide as 50%.
Notably, Apache's losses have been compounded by gains from Google, which uses its own Google-flavored Web server for its own sites, and open source server lighttpd, which now make up a total 5.6% of the Web server market. Google switched its Blogger sites from Apache to its specialized Google Front End server earlier this year, according to Netcraft.
Regardless, Microsoft has been steadily on the rise since Go Daddy migrated more than 3.5 million sites from Linux to Microsoft in April 2006. Among potential reasons for Microsoft's increases are increasingly better security, which had been a problem point for IIS in the past, and Microsoft's developer prowess with technologies like .Net. IIS 6.0, which debuted in 2003, has seen only three reported vulnerabilities, significantly less than the 13 Apache has seen since 2005 alone.
Microsoft is including a new version -- IIS7 -- with Windows Server 2008, which will be released by the end of the year to server hardware manufacturers. Microsoft's own site is already running on the new software, and Microsoft has released a "Go Live" license for the most recent test release, meaning that IIS7 is ready enough to run live Web sites with Microsoft support.
IIS7 includes a modular architecture that breaks the server down into pieces for HTTP, others for security and compression, and so on. It also includes performance, manageability, and diagnostics upgrades. Microsoft recently announced that IIS7 will be one of the "server core" options for Windows Server 2008, meaning that those hoping to use a Windows Server box exclusively as a Web server can do so without having to install the full version of Windows Server. In an interview this year, Microsoft developer division general manager Scott Guthrie, who oversees IIS, called IIS7 "the most significant release of the Web server we've ever done."
Microsoft's BizTalk Services: ESB in the Cloud
Microsoft's BizTalk Services: ESB in the Cloud
Microsoft cooks up an online enterprise service bus with BizTalk Services
by Chris Kanaracus
Steven Martin, Microsoft's director of product management in the Connected Systems Division, says the company's recently launched BizTalk Services initiative is Redmond's "best-kept secret."
The ultimate goal of the effort is an Internet Service Bus (ISB): something that mimics the functionality and role of an enterprise service bus (ESB), such as BizTalk Server, except up on a hosted server instead of behind corporate firewalls.
"If we can take a concept like an ESB and make it work at Internet scope -- meaning firewall-friendly messaging, building an app that assumes that the app lives in multiple DNSes, assumes that identity could be inside or outside the firewall -- we can drive a lot of benefit for users," he says.
To hear Martin talk, Microsoft's work on BizTalk Services was inevitable: "One of our axioms here is, any time in history where the Internet has met the enterprise, the Internet always wins. Always."
The Start of ServicesBizTalk Services is based on Windows Communication Foundation, the Web services stack that is part of the .NET Framework 3.0. So far, Microsoft has released a software development kit and a pair of services, which are available at labs.biztalk.net.
While developers would use the BizTalk Identity Service for dealing with access and identity issues, the BizTalk Connectivity Service is meant for composing composite apps. It provides a secure method of exposing a firewall-protected service and a globally addressable namespace for services, according to Microsoft. The company is also working on a Workflow Service based on Windows Workflow Foundation.
Martin stresses that BizTalk's Web standards-based underpinnings make it viable within heterogeneous environments. "These are services that we're making available in the cloud for developers to build on that are completely agnostic to what their on-premise technology is," he says. "If I'm building a WebSphere app, I can use BizTalk Services for inter-organizational messaging just as well as I could if I was using a .NET stack internally," he says.
Preparing for Prime TimeSo what type of scenarios might BizTalk Services enable? A Microsoft white paper for BizTalk Services describes a hypothetical school Web site that involves interaction with parents and is hosted on an internal server.
The school may use the site to provide various notifications to parents about school events. However, this means the intended recipients of this information must have access to a Web browser, the paper notes. Through the BizTalk ISB, the school could reach these individuals more quickly and in a customized manner, Microsoft argues in the white paper: "For example, when school is closed due to weather, a workflow kicks off. As part of that workflow, the system can notify parents, teachers, and bus drivers, as well as food service vendors, snow plow operators, and local police, using the ISB to traverse networks across these disparate organizations."
Microsoft has one eye on Google as it prepares BizTalk Services for prime time, according to Ronald Schmelzer, an analyst with ZapThink LLC, a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) consultancy. "I think Microsoft is really rethinking a lot of their server infrastructure because Google is a competitive threat," Schmelzer says. Schmelzer says he expects mostly .NET-oriented enterprises and smaller companies will gravitate toward BizTalk Services for building service-oriented apps that straddle departments and divisions. "They may find the BizTalk services are lower-cost and easier to try than developing their own service," he says. "They're appealing to folks who can't make the investment in infrastructure."
Microsoft cooks up an online enterprise service bus with BizTalk Services
by Chris Kanaracus
Steven Martin, Microsoft's director of product management in the Connected Systems Division, says the company's recently launched BizTalk Services initiative is Redmond's "best-kept secret."
The ultimate goal of the effort is an Internet Service Bus (ISB): something that mimics the functionality and role of an enterprise service bus (ESB), such as BizTalk Server, except up on a hosted server instead of behind corporate firewalls.
"If we can take a concept like an ESB and make it work at Internet scope -- meaning firewall-friendly messaging, building an app that assumes that the app lives in multiple DNSes, assumes that identity could be inside or outside the firewall -- we can drive a lot of benefit for users," he says.
To hear Martin talk, Microsoft's work on BizTalk Services was inevitable: "One of our axioms here is, any time in history where the Internet has met the enterprise, the Internet always wins. Always."
The Start of ServicesBizTalk Services is based on Windows Communication Foundation, the Web services stack that is part of the .NET Framework 3.0. So far, Microsoft has released a software development kit and a pair of services, which are available at labs.biztalk.net.
While developers would use the BizTalk Identity Service for dealing with access and identity issues, the BizTalk Connectivity Service is meant for composing composite apps. It provides a secure method of exposing a firewall-protected service and a globally addressable namespace for services, according to Microsoft. The company is also working on a Workflow Service based on Windows Workflow Foundation.
Martin stresses that BizTalk's Web standards-based underpinnings make it viable within heterogeneous environments. "These are services that we're making available in the cloud for developers to build on that are completely agnostic to what their on-premise technology is," he says. "If I'm building a WebSphere app, I can use BizTalk Services for inter-organizational messaging just as well as I could if I was using a .NET stack internally," he says.
Preparing for Prime TimeSo what type of scenarios might BizTalk Services enable? A Microsoft white paper for BizTalk Services describes a hypothetical school Web site that involves interaction with parents and is hosted on an internal server.
The school may use the site to provide various notifications to parents about school events. However, this means the intended recipients of this information must have access to a Web browser, the paper notes. Through the BizTalk ISB, the school could reach these individuals more quickly and in a customized manner, Microsoft argues in the white paper: "For example, when school is closed due to weather, a workflow kicks off. As part of that workflow, the system can notify parents, teachers, and bus drivers, as well as food service vendors, snow plow operators, and local police, using the ISB to traverse networks across these disparate organizations."
Microsoft has one eye on Google as it prepares BizTalk Services for prime time, according to Ronald Schmelzer, an analyst with ZapThink LLC, a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) consultancy. "I think Microsoft is really rethinking a lot of their server infrastructure because Google is a competitive threat," Schmelzer says. Schmelzer says he expects mostly .NET-oriented enterprises and smaller companies will gravitate toward BizTalk Services for building service-oriented apps that straddle departments and divisions. "They may find the BizTalk services are lower-cost and easier to try than developing their own service," he says. "They're appealing to folks who can't make the investment in infrastructure."
Look Out 'Orcas,' Here Comes 'Rosario'
Look Out 'Orcas,' Here Comes 'Rosario'
By Stuart J. Johnston
Talk about getting antsy।
Microsoft (Quote) has only just begun Beta 2 of Visual Studio 2008, but it's already preparing the first community technology preview, or CTP, of that product's successor.
Visual Studio 2008 -- previously codenamed Orcas after an island in Puget Sound north of Seattle -- officially entered its second beta test phase last week। That product is on track for release possibly as soon as the end of the year, although its "official" launch won't come until February 27.
Now the company has announced that it will issue this week the first CTP of the "next" version of Visual Studio Team System, which will come after VS2008। That release is codenamed Rosario, after a historical resort located on Orcas Island.
"Man what a couple of weeks -- first Orcas Beta 2 … and later this week the Rosario August CTP... this confluence of things wasn't exactly by design but it sure is exciting," Brian Harry, Microsoft product unit manager for Team Foundation Server, said in a blog post on Monday.
While the company has traditionally only worked on one release at a time, this time Microsoft is trying a slightly different tack। The objective is to speed up the development process where possible.
"We have been working on Rosario (to some degree or another) since September of last year," Harry said in a post last week. "The outcome of this should be a shorter delta between Orcas and Rosario than we've seen between previous releases. We'll see if that bears out," he added.
What's coming in Rosario? Harry said he will provide more details later in the week but in the meantime what's coming in this first CTP boils down to new tools for manual testers and work item linking and hierarchy support।
In addition, the company is also planning a second CTP for release in "about three months." No other dates, including the final shipping schedule, have been made public yet.
According to his biography on the company's site, Harry joined Microsoft in 1994 when it bought out One Tree Software, the startup he co-founded which developed SourceSafe -- the forerunner of the source code control package that Microsoft today markets as Visual SourceSafe. Since that time, he has worked on projects such as the Microsoft Repository and later what became the .NET Framework.
By Stuart J. Johnston
Talk about getting antsy।
Microsoft (Quote) has only just begun Beta 2 of Visual Studio 2008, but it's already preparing the first community technology preview, or CTP, of that product's successor.
Visual Studio 2008 -- previously codenamed Orcas after an island in Puget Sound north of Seattle -- officially entered its second beta test phase last week। That product is on track for release possibly as soon as the end of the year, although its "official" launch won't come until February 27.
Now the company has announced that it will issue this week the first CTP of the "next" version of Visual Studio Team System, which will come after VS2008। That release is codenamed Rosario, after a historical resort located on Orcas Island.
"Man what a couple of weeks -- first Orcas Beta 2 … and later this week the Rosario August CTP... this confluence of things wasn't exactly by design but it sure is exciting," Brian Harry, Microsoft product unit manager for Team Foundation Server, said in a blog post on Monday.
While the company has traditionally only worked on one release at a time, this time Microsoft is trying a slightly different tack। The objective is to speed up the development process where possible.
"We have been working on Rosario (to some degree or another) since September of last year," Harry said in a post last week. "The outcome of this should be a shorter delta between Orcas and Rosario than we've seen between previous releases. We'll see if that bears out," he added.
What's coming in Rosario? Harry said he will provide more details later in the week but in the meantime what's coming in this first CTP boils down to new tools for manual testers and work item linking and hierarchy support।
In addition, the company is also planning a second CTP for release in "about three months." No other dates, including the final shipping schedule, have been made public yet.
According to his biography on the company's site, Harry joined Microsoft in 1994 when it bought out One Tree Software, the startup he co-founded which developed SourceSafe -- the forerunner of the source code control package that Microsoft today markets as Visual SourceSafe. Since that time, he has worked on projects such as the Microsoft Repository and later what became the .NET Framework.
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