Dan Rigsby – Coding Up Style

I am going to repost a couple of blogs here, because this is a great continuation of the posts I have had over Microsoft PDC:

• Mike Swanson: PDC2008 Hard Drives, Services, Windows 7, and More
• Tim Sneath: What You’ll Hear at PDC2008

All of these posts stem from the latest Countdown to PDC video on Channel9 which was posts last night September 22nd.  These videos are usually time-boxed to 10 minutes, but this video was only 4.5 minutes and chalked full of interesting information.  The PDC 2008 Content Owner, Mike Swanson, announced what many of us have long assumed.  This will be the “Software + Services” PDC. PDCs in the past have had tended to have a focus or theme such as the “Longhorn” PDC, “.Net” PDC, etc.  This year we can expect a lot of content on Software + Services.

Software + Services (S+S) is a term coined by Ray Ozzie which is basically just a clever way of saying “local software and Internet services interacting with one another”.  It is really more than that though.  S+S is the merger of 5 very popular topics right now:

1. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) – Wcf, Biztalk, parts of Oslo, etc.
2. Software as a Service (SaaS)
3. Web 2.0 -  Social and networking collaborations, not just Ajax
4. Rich Internet Applications (RIA) – Adobe Flex, Silverlight, etc
5. Cloud Computing – Live Mesh, parts of Oslo, etc

The latest ArcReady series is focusing on S+S as well, which is where this definition came from.  It seems everywhere you look at Microsoft, S+S is being marketed more and more.  This will be the next BIG thing.  It is already a hot topic and in many ways is already a “BIG thing”.  As an SOA/Wcf/Cloud kinda guy, I am getting quite pumped up about what is to come.

The Countdown to PDC video also stated a few other things:

1. No matter what we thing, we will be surprised at PDC.  They have read the blogs and the speculations, but there are surprises.
2. Most big announcements are around S+S
3. There will be an announcement of a comprehensive services platform.  This will probably tie in big with Oslo and Live Services such as Mesh.
4. Windows 7 will get a lot more attention.  Right now there are 5 sessions on the PDC session list, but there will be over 20 when all sessions are announced.  I expect a beta or CTP release date, and all of those Microsoft commercials as of late are probably leading up to this.

The last big announcement in the video is how the bits will be delivered to the attendees”.  In the past, they have delivered the bits on CD and DVD.  At PDC 2005, they had 35gig of content that spanned 6 DVDs.  This year, they will have a lot more data.  So attendees are getting a nice “branded” 160GB USB2 external hard drive with all of the bits loaded on.  In many ways 160GB is small, but its a good size for storing your music collection or a backup of your primary OS and files.  The best part though is getting the data, demos, presentations, binaries, etc.  this will give us a chance to play with the new technology and hopefully spawn many new blog posts.  Here are a couple of pictures of the drive:

I am looking forward to the next session announcement list which should come up in early October if not before.  It will be interesting to see what they add.  I will do another synopsis like I did for the last session list to compare what areas are getting the most new additions and changes.

Registration for PDC is still open.  I highly recommend attending this event, if you can.  If you do make it out, drop me a line and maybe we can meet up.  If you can’t attend, at least watch the live feeds of the keynotes and watch for the session videos.   You really should understand what the future and direction is as a .Net developer.

If you are attending PDC, you should check out the videos on Channel 9 tagged PDC08 to see what all of the pre-announcements are.