Why ‘Azure’?

October 31, 2008 at 4:01 pm · Filed under .NET

Mary Jo Foley asks, Why ‘Azure’?  She uses Anand Iyer’s answer (from his post):

Azure is a vibrant, dynamic and uplifting color. Azure is also linked to the image of the blue sky and, by extension, ‘the cloud.’

I think there is a more direct association between azure and the Windows cloud:

1. Clouds are opaque. 
2. If you put a window in a cloud, you can see through to the clear sky.
3. The clear sky is azure.

So, Windows in the Cloud == Windows Azure

Tags: Azure, Clouds, PDC, PDC2008, Windows

Comments (1)

Live Framework

October 28, 2008 at 11:02 am · Filed under .NET

David Treadwell announced the Live Framework at the PDC2008 this morning.  Live Services is the collection of Live Messenger, Contacts, etc., plus Live Mesh.  Live Framework is the set of APIs to program against Windows Live Services. 

This is very cool stuff.  There are two things here that I think are significant:

1. A programmable synchronization platform.
2. An application framework for installing/running applications across multiple devices.

This is very exciting stuff, but now back to my old saw.

I really want to see Live Framework go beyond Windows Mobile devices to every major mobile platform.  This means the Apple, RIM, Google, Nokia platforms, etc.

My main reason?  A major value proposition of Live Framework is phone device support.  Duh.  But, I don’t want to invest my time and data in Live Mesh applications if it comes with a lock-in to the Windows Mobile platform.

Given the discussion at a partner meeting yesterday about Windows Mobile, I think this will be a pretty common feeling.

Microsoft may not be able to make this happen, of course, but I hope they really try.

BTW: We interviewed David on Gillmor Gang 04.25.08 specifically talking about Live Mesh.

Tags: Live Mesh, Microsoft, PDC, PDC2008

Comments

Windows 7

October 28, 2008 at 9:46 am · Filed under Miscellaneous

Recently I lauded the new name in my post, Windows 7? Right on!  I led that post with

First of all let me say that I’m not that excited about the “Windows” part of Windows 7.  I’m sure that will change when I see it later this month at the PDC.

A Microsoft guy not involved with the Windows team emailed me to tell me that his experience with Windows 7 is that it performs dramatically better.

That got me interested.  And now I’ve seen it at PDC2008.  Am I excited?

Well, not really.  With Windows Vista I allowed my love for shiny new objects to drive some of my decisions.  Windows 7 does have plenty of new — and cool — features.  Some that struck me:  some real improvements in Windows management (finally), create and mount VHDs, bitlocker on thumb drives, boot from VHDs, better multi-monitor and high DPI support, multi-monitor remote desktop,

These are all good things that make Windows better, but what I really care about is that it perform better and that the features can be used without killing performance.  To this end, they have worked on reducing Windows memory footprint, reduced disk I/O for indexing, better power management, increase boot speed, device readiness and responsiveness

If Windows 7 enhances my productivity through performance and stability, then I can get excited.

Tags: Microsoft, PDC, PDC2008, Windows7

Comments (1)

Microsoft Windows Azure

October 27, 2008 at 11:42 am · Filed under .NET, Grid Computing, Web 2.0

Microsoft’s long awaited cloud platform has finally been unveiled here at PDC 2008.  Late to the Internet, Microsoft hit it hard.  Late to the cloud, Microsoft is doing the same with Windows Azure.  Happily, this will put an end to all the guessing about what Zurich, Red Dog, biztalk.net, SSDS, Live Mesh, etc., actually are.  

Of course, now begins the discussion of how all these pieces fit together.  

This is not a simple approach like Amazon’s EC2 or Google App Engine.  Not to trivialize either, but they are certainly easier to understand.  Try explaining them to the proverbial grandmother — no problem, especially if you leave out virtualization and pythons 😉  (preemptive comment: I know AWS is much more than EC2 and that bigger and better things are coming from Google).

Regardless, the Microsoft Azure is multi-faceted.  In typical Microsoft fashion, there is a lot for a developer to choose from:

• Azure Storage, Management, and Compute.  Run WCF/ASP.NET based services, with work queues and data storage.
• Microsoft .NET Services, nee biztalk.net (wrote about here).  This gives you an Internet Service Bus, Access Control, and Workflow Services.  Messages and workflow in the cloud connecting other cloud and enterprise offerings.  Very big deal.
• Microsoft SQL Services, nee SQL Server Data Services or SSDS.  Eventually a relational model in the sky, currently not too different from Azure Storage.
• Live Services: Not too much detail on this today, but this is clearly what was “Live Mesh”: a rich synchronization framework, “live operating environment” for writing applications to across the Web and on user’s devices. 
• Windows Live (Live Office, Live Sharepoint, Live Dynamics CRM, etc). In-cloud applications extensible by partners and users with in-cloud and in-premises solutions.

It all does fit together, and will be of immediate value to developers.  As Marc Jacobs of Lab49 said to me afterward,

We could make use of all of these services today.

Damned straight.  It is the openness of this platform, the ability of developers to mix and match the different components, and to do it between the cloud and in-premises solutions that makes this such a winner. 

This last point is an important one.  Microsoft is in a unique position to help enterprise IT bridge to the cloud.  While I don’t think Amazon and Google will cede that market to Microsoft, their current offerings aren’t a natural fit. 

Taking this all together — not forgetting Microsoft’s leading developer productivity story — it looks like a home run to me.

Tags: .NET, Azure, Microsoft, PDC, PDC2008, Reddog, Zurich

Comments (3)

Going to PDC2008

October 19, 2008 at 11:20 am · Filed under .NET

I’m going to the PDC. 

I am mostly excited to hear about how all Microsoft’s cloud + parallel programming +  distributed computing story all fits together.  And hopeful that it really does all fit together.

I’m interested in hearing more about Windows 7, but I’m not that excited about it. 

As in all conferences, 99% of the value is in meeting and hanging out with people.   If you are going too and want to meet up, let me know. 

email me: robert at digipede dot net.

Tags: Microsoft, PDC, PDC2008

Comments

Windows 7? Right on!

October 13, 2008 at 10:12 pm · Filed under .NET

First of all let me say that I’m not that excited about the “Windows” part of Windows 7.  I’m sure that will change when I see it later this month at the PDC.

I have a long history as a Windows user.  In fact, I have Windows 1 sitting on my desk.  Actually, these are installation floppies for the Microsoft Windows Operating Environment. 

I have disliked the Windows product naming convention since Windows 95.  That should have been Windows 4.0 with some extra designation to distinguish it from NT.  Since then, the naming of Windows versions has been absurd.

I’m thrilled that the next one is called Windows 7.  I hope this is the end of the trend of seemingly arbitrary names interspersed by release years.  If the subsequent name isn’t 7.x or 8, however, this will actually just have been worse then calling it 2010.

Tags: Microsoft, PDC, Windows, Windows7

Comments (2)