Software Development in the Real World

Microsoft and RIM Bring Windows Live to BlackBerry

One annoying thing about using a BlackBerry has always been the fact that some of the Live Services that work so well on Windows Mobile Devices don't work at all on the BlackBerry.  Sounds like Microsoft and RIM will be solving the issue shortly!

For enterprise users, this won't mean much, but for consumers that go out and buy BlackBerry's and don't have a BES Server, this means you can sign up to Microsoft as your email provider, and have the email "pushed" to your device.  Google has GMail for Blackberry, but it is not push technology.

The integration of Windows Live services into the BlackBerry platform will allow customers who use Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger on their BlackBerry smartphone to benefit from the BlackBerry platform architecture with the ability to communicate in real time using push technology, and an exceptional mobile communications experience. Customers will also be able to seamlessly access their Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger account from their BlackBerry smartphone by simply entering their Windows Live e-mail address and password once.

“The BlackBerry platform is respected around the world for providing optimized messaging capabilities, and RIM continues to look for ways to provide customers with a wide range of communications options and the best possible mobile experience,” said Mark Guibert, vice president, Corporate Marketing at RIM. “Our relationship with Microsoft and the addition of Windows Live services to BlackBerry smartphones help us build on that strategy for our customers.”

These partnerships are great as they pave the way for things like Silverlight on BlackBerry's, and other cool ideas.

Read the Press Release from Microsoft here.

Mark February 27th, 2008 on your Calendars

The rumour mill is flying again this week, as Microsoft is set to announce something big on February 27th, 2008.

Nobody really knows what is going to happen, but the blogs are a buzzing. 

Will Silverlight 2.0 be introduced and go live?  Whatever it is, it makes for interesting stories for people to read, and write about.  That's what's fun about the Internet these days.  You go to bed, and you miss all the good stuff!

What we know right now:

1. Robert Scobble saw the demo, and he started to cry
2. Googlers have seen it, and trembled in their pants
3. It's getting a lot of press on nearly every major blog, including TechCrunch
4. Coincides with TED, and .NET Heroes Happen Here Event Launch in LA Keynoted by Steve Ballmer
5. MIX 08 kicks off exactly one week later, an event focused around the future of web applications.

Check out http://www.opensourcehero.com/. 

Nobody knows for sure what it is however.  Some of the ideas floating around:

1. Silverlight 2.0
2. New Project that takes advantage of PhotoSynth Technology
3. Some new Surface technology
4. Silverlight Space that puts Google Maps to shame

Is it the perfect storm for Silverlight and Microsoft?  It seems like everything is being setup for it.  What will launch for sure on the 27th of course is Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, and Visual Studio 2008!  Although the additional Microsoft "secret" might not be a specific Silverlight announcement, my guess is whatever it is, it will run on Silverlight.  If you look at the top left of www.opensourcehero.com you will notice the "Click Here to Install Silverlight".

One thing is for sure, February 27th, 2008 will be an exciting day for technology.  It will either be a day where the Internet is left in awe that Microsoft pulled off a huge technological advancement, or another flop in time.

Technorati Tags: Silverlight,Microsoft,Software Development

Software Development Week in Review

This will be a new feature article written at the end of the week that reflects on the week from a software development standpoint. 

Today is XML's Birthday, so let's all wish XML a happy 10th!  10 years ago today, XML 1.0 became a W3C Recommendation!

This week Microsoft released a hot-fix for some really annoying Visual Studio 2008 issues.  It mainly focuses on fixing many performance issues when working with larger web sites.  Our main corporate web site is over 6 GB of rich streaming video, training modules and html pages, all wrapped up in a search engine, so you can imagine how awesome this hot-fix is.  They also released Visual Studio 2008 Web Deployment projects, which had previously only been available as Community Technology Preview.

Microsoft also shipped Vista Service Pack 1 this week, which should usher in a lot more Vista adoption.  Although most out there have been slamming vista's sales, the reality is most corporate IT policies basically ban any new operating systems from the network until a service pack is released.  I have been running SP1 for a few months now, and am extremely thrilled at the performance gains.

Eclipse 3.4 M5 is now available for download.  Some new visual components have been added, as well as some better search and replace capabilities.  Some breadcrumb navigation has been added as well, which seems like a nice feature.

Microsoft released the .NET Reference Source Code a few weeks ago now, but this week saw the introduction of the .NET Mass Downloader.  This sweet application lets you download the entire .NET Reference Source Code for offline usage.

Internet Explorer 8 will be shown at Mix 08!  For those that don't know, Microsoft has been hard at work making IE8 the most standards compliant browser you will ever see.  It will put FireFox, Safari, and others to shame with its Standards Only mode, which recently passed the ACID 2 test.  Expect an IE8 beta midyear.

Silverlight 2.0 is nearly hear as well, various blogger's out there have already mentioned in round about ways that it WILL ship within a month (probably for MIX 08), and will include: extensible control framework, layout manager support, two-way data binding support, control template and skinning, StackPanel, Grid, TabControl, Slider, ScrollViewer, DataGrid, Isolated Storage, generics, threading, textbox, checkbox, radio buttons, etc.

Can't end the week without talking about the Microsoft Yahoo! possibility.  While most say it's a done deal, it's far from done.  Tomorrow you will hear the news that Yahoo! has turned down the deal, as Yahoo! feels it greatly undervalues the company.  The deal does make a lot of sense really for these companies.  The server farms and data centres these companies keep will be able to consolidate, saving the companies millions of dollars, and allowing Yahoo! to benefit by running much leaner.  From a developer point of view, having developer.yahoo.com and dev.live.com under one umbrella would be pretty sweet.

If I was a Yahoo! shareholder, I would freak out of they turn down the deal on Monday.  Yahoo! has failed to re-invent itself since launching, something Microsoft has been able to do at least 5 times since the 80's.  These two companies would give shareholders a lot of things to be excited about, as well as the Web.

Lastly, Saleforce.com seems to be looking for a buy from Oracle for around 9 billion dollars. Sounds like an Austin Powers movie, and sounds like a smart move if Larry Ellison and ex Oracle Marc Benioff come to agreement.  A few other sites are reporting that Marc Benioff might be Larry Ellison's successor. Is that the last of the rumours?  Nope.  Google is apparently buying a large share in Cnet!Gota love rumours.  Should be an interesting 2008.

Have a great week!

Java Not Worth Building In

"Java's not worth building in. Nobody uses Java anymore. It's this big heavyweight ball and chain..."

Those were the exact words of Steve Jobs in January of 2007.  You have to keep this statement in context.  Jobs was talking about the portable device market, and the desktop market.  In 2000, Jobs actually made a valiant effort of bringing Java to the desktop with the launch of Mac OSX.  The harsh reality for Java supporters out there is that software developers don't want to write desktop application in Java.

I mean sure they want to write games, and small applications here and there, but for the most part now, desktop applications are ruled by C, C++, or .net.  For every one (1) Java application released, there are 10 .net, C, or VB applications released.

Java does have its place still in the enterprise market, but they have lost the desktop battle.  The only other "desktop-ish" battle they had a chance to win was the browser battle, but on that battle field, Flash is the master, hands down.  Adobe made a brilliant move in acquiring Macromedia.

When the iPhone is released at the end of the month, it will sport the most sophisticated, well thought user interface ever written for a portable device.  It will not run Java.  This will make the device a hundred times more stable as it will protect people from going to download badly written Java applications onto their mobile phones.  It will force anyone that wants to write an application for the iPhone, to go through Apple.  Here is where many will call fowl, however, I call "hurray!".  It will start forcing application standards and performance requirements on people!  And this of course is only if Apple decides to open this up.  And they will, once they own the cell phone market and make it the platform for cell phones.

Listen to the D 2007 Conference and watch Steve and Bill chat.  Steve Jobs knows that the mistakes he made in the past were partnerships, or lack thereof. 

"We weren't so good with partnering with people. Bill and Microsoft were really good at it."

Look at facebook, they own the social network market (There are others, but for usefulness and most avid users, they win hands down), and have now opened up the development via the facebook API.  This was sheer genius on Mark Zuckerberg's part!  This will surely catapult facebook into the stratosphere!  Steve Jobs will make the iPhone the cell phone.  Sure there will be others, but the iPhone will capture market share you would not believe when compared to other phones.

 

At the end of the day, people want great software that is fast, easy to use, and performs the way they expect it.  The iPhone will do this, as the iPod did. 

Now what if Apple decides to sell the iPhone "Operating System" to phone companies once they smell defeat...  This could be Apple's chance to take a road that was once not taken, and saw Microsoft become what Apple could have been.