Today was the first day of Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference, but they may as well have called it official announcement day! For anyone who uses Microsoft technologies on a day-to-day basis, today is a day to remember. Definitely one for the history books of technology.
The big announcement was Windows Azure:
Today, during a keynote speech at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference 2008 (PDC2008), Ray Ozzie, Microsoft Corp.’s chief software architect, announced Windows Azure, the cloud-based service foundation underlying its Azure Services Platform, and highlighted this platform’s role in delivering a software plus services approach to computing.
That’s a lot of marketing speak, but as usual Mary Jo Foley has a great post breaking Azure down. I’d suggest you read that to get a better idea of what exactly Azure is all about.
A few other interesting announcements:
- Windows Live ID Becomes an OpenID Provider – This is a major shot in the arm for OpenID. Support is currently available in the form of a CTP. Dare Obasanjo has more details and a screencast.
- Microsoft is opening Surface up to developers. PDC attendees will receive an invitation to join the Surface community where they can download an SDK and Simulator. Killer apps to follow?
- Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 M3 (Milestone 3) will be shown to PDC attendees. Today they released the privacy statement – Long Zheng does a good job of parsing it.
- Microsoft’s new ‘M’ language will be offered under the Open Specification Promise (OSP). More news on this is expected tomorrow.
- Not really PDC-related, but Bill Gates is stepping up the fight to open up “white space.”
That’s a lot of stuff for one day! As a developer, I’m a bit overwhelmed with the Azure announcement. It’s going to take a while to process. Very exciting though!
UPDATE: Colinizer has another great summary of today’s announcements on his blog. Check it out!