Microsoft Details Next Wave of Software Innovation to Developers at The Microsoft Professional Developers Conference 2003
October 27 2003 - 12:00PM
PR Newswire (US)
Microsoft Details Next Wave of Software Innovation to Developers at
The Microsoft Professional Developers Conference 2003 Showcases
Windows Platform Developer Opportunities; Unveils New Windows
Platform Technologies and WinFX, the Next-Generation Windows
Programming Model LOS ANGELES, Oct. 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --
Today Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect of
Microsoft Corp. , outlined Microsoft Corp.'s vision for the next
wave of software development and detailed plans to help developers
take advantage of the next wave of software opportunities at
Microsoft(R) Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2003.
Highlighting platform software and development tools designed to
enable developers to build a new generation of "smart," connected
applications, Microsoft gave thousands of developers in attendance
an early look at a technical preview of the next major release of
Windows(R), code-named "Longhorn." The company also unveiled the
next-generation Windows programming model, named WinFX(TM), which
provides a high productivity approach for building applications.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO ) The
Next Wave of Computing Gates discussed key catalysts in software
development, pointing to a variety of trends driving the next wave,
including Web services interoperability, proliferation of smart
clients and software and hardware innovation. He highlighted key
characteristics of the next wave: developers building connected
systems using Web services that reflect the dynamic nature of the
real world; software making oceans of digital information more
meaningful and actionable; and new breakthrough user experiences,
improving interactions between people, groups and organizations.
Gates detailed several waves of Microsoft platform software to
facilitate applications development, including the Visual Studio(R)
"Whidbey" development tools, Microsoft SQL Server(TM) "Yukon,"
smart device software and Windows "Longhorn." Gates highlighted how
Microsoft's integrated platform approach, with support from a broad
developer ecosystem, provides a strong foundation for developers to
pursue the next wave of software opportunities. "It's an exciting
time to be a software developer," Gates said. "Continuing hardware
advances, powerful tools and the potential of anything on the
Internet to become a building block all make it a great time to do
pioneering work. Microsoft is investing heavily to make Windows the
optimal platform for developers who want to build on this next wave
of innovation." WinFX: The Next-Generation Windows Programming
Model Also delivering a keynote address at PDC was Jim Allchin,
group vice president of the Platforms Groupat Microsoft, who
introduced WinFX, the application programming model for the next
generation of Windows, and a number of new Windows platform
technologies for developers. WinFX evolves the Microsoft .NET
Framework's programming model, greatly increasing developer
productivity as well as application security and reliability.
Allchin discussed four major areas of platform innovation for
developers in Windows "Longhorn": -- Focus on the fundamentals.
Windows "Longhorn" builds on Microsoft's investments around
increasing security, performance, connectivity and scalability.
"Longhorn" will extend the security technologies in development for
Windows XP to protect against malicious exploits, as well as
introduce new security improvements at the architecture level that
developers can take advantage of to help extend security across
applications and services. Performance improvements will come from
new technologies such as SuperFetch, which will help applications
launch more quickly, and ClickOnce installation, which will speed
and simplify application deployment. -- New Windows presentation
technologies, code-named "Avalon." "Avalon" is the graphics
subsystem in Windows "Longhorn" and a foundation for the Windows
"Longhorn" shell that will enable developers to build breakthrough
user experiences. It provides a unified architecture for presenting
user interface, documents and media. "Avalon" enables developers to
easily take advantage of leading-edge graphics hardware, and
provides native support for declarative, markup-based programming,
making it simpler to build Windows-based applications. -- New
Windows storage technologies, code-named "WinFS." "WinFS" is the
next generation of data storage that provides vastly improved ways
to find, relate and act on information. "WinFS" is the storage
subsystem in Windows "Longhorn" that more securely stores both
structured and unstructured data. With "WinFS," developers can take
advantage of prebuilt data structures in their applications, and
extend those structures to handle their specific requirements and
add unique value to the application by creating new structures. --
New Windows communications technologies, code-named "Indigo."
"Indigo" is a new approach to building and running connected
systems built from the ground up around the Web services
architecture. "Indigo's" advanced Web services support provides
capabilities for more-secure, reliable and transacted messaging and
interoperability. "Indigo" unifies a broad array of distributed
systems capabilities in a composable and extensible way, spanning
transports, security systems, messaging patterns, encodings,
network topologies and hosting models. Allchin discussed how
developers that invest today in managed code with the .NET
Framework, smart client applications and Web services were well
positioned to take advantage of the opportunities ahead. Putting
New Platform Technologies to Work To illustrate the variety of new
opportunities these new Windows platform technologies create for
independent software vendors (ISVs), Web and corporate developers,
Allchin was joined onstage by representatives from Adobe Systems
Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Merck & Co. Inc. to demonstrate
prototype applications exploiting the new Windows "Longhorn"
technologies. "Platform innovation creates new possibilities for
developers by building on today's investments to advance the
application development process," said Allchin. "The success of
'Longhorn' will come about through our commitment to working with
the software-development community -- the people who turn the
potential of Windows into the power of personal computing." Adobe
Systems, a leading developer of software for consumers, creative
professionals and enterprises, demonstrated the possibilities for
ISVs created by integrating the new "Avalon" presentation
technology and declarative programming techniques for Windows.
Using these technologies, a prototype version of Adobe After
Effects showed how developers could unify documents, cutting-edge
graphics and media. For example, developers would now be able to
build animated charts and graphs that are linked to back-end data
sources to produce a smart solution that displays stock prices,
sales and other information within a high-end professionally
designed format. "Many developers have not taken the visual design
of their applications seriously enough, with the most innovative
work restricted to creative professional software and games," said
Greg Gilley, vice president of Graphics Applications Development at
Adobe. "'Longhorn's' new 'Avalon' technology brings the designer
and developer closer, so they can truly collaborate on creating
software applications that are as beautiful as they are
functional." Online retailer Amazon.com joined Allchin to show how
new technologies such as "Avalon" and "WinFS" can enable Web-based
businesses to create more seamless experiences for online shoppers.
Amazon Chief Technology Officer Allan Vermeulen showed off a
prototype application, built using Visual C#(R) and "XAML," a
declarative markup language for "Avalon," that demonstrates how the
Windows user interface subsystem builds on the features available
through Amazon Web Services to create an entirely seamless
experience for users. "Microsoft's platform innovations have the
potential to empower Amazon Web Services developers to quickly and
easily build more-connected, information-driven applications that
start to blur the line between traditional applications and the
Web," Vermeulen said. "With Windows 'Longhorn,' PC applications
come to life -- enabling developers to deliver an experience
capable of conveying a unique brand identity in a desktop
application." Pharmaceutical research firm Merck and Co. and
clinical trial automation developer DataLabs Inc. also took the
stage, with an application that connects information from patients,
doctors and technology systems to automate collection and
processing of data in clinical trials based on the interoperability
functionality of the "Indigo" technologies. The application will
have the ability to connect thousands of clinical trial
participants in remote locations, reducing the five- to seven-year
time frame typically required for clinical trials by eliminating
redundancies in the data collection process. "Each clinical trial
has hundreds of patients, physicians, scientists and regulators
that all need to work together, who are rarely under the same roof,
or in the same organization, or on the same network," said Rich
Gleeson, vice president of Enterprise Solutions at DataLabs. "With
the developer capabilities in Windows 'Longhorn,' we will have the
ability to build a new class of more-secure and connected business
applications that connect real-world relationships among people
with powerful software to drive greater business efficiencies
across the entire clinical trial process." About the Professional
Developers Conference The Microsoft Professional Developers
Conference (PDC) is Microsoft's premier developer event. The PDC
brings together the world's top developers to get an early look at
Microsoft software innovations, to interact with the technology
leaders within Microsoft and the broad Microsoft development
community, and to discover the opportunity presented by targeting
the Microsoft platform. About Microsoft Founded in 1975, Microsoft
is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet
technologies for personal and business computing. The company
offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower
people through great software -- any time, any place and on any
device. NOTE: Microsoft, Windows, WinFX, Visual Studio and Visual
C# are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft
Corp. in the United States and/or other countries. The names of
actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the
trademarks of their respective owners.
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http://photoarchive.ap.org/ DATASOURCE: Microsoft Corp. CONTACT:
Rapid Response Team of Waggener Edstrom, +1-503-443-7070, or , for
Microsoft Corp. Web site: http://www.microsoft.com/
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