Windows Phone 7 Released

I do keep going on about Windows Phone 7 and I'm really not that interested in it, but I'd be performing a disservice if I didn't cover the recent release of the Windows Phone 7 handsets. The Microsoft marketing machine has been in full force on this release. There's a great article referenced in http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/10/10/11/1610201/Microsoft-Unveils-Windows-Phone-7-Lineup that is full of hyperbole ('do or die', 'it's officially Microsoft's last, best chance for relevance in the post-desktop computing world') which I find particularly funny as it isn't valid and is deconstructed quite well in the comments people have left on the story. Microsoft are, in fact, still a very successful company with several business areas performing very well. On a more useful note, there's a nice balanced review at: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/21/winphone7_review/ and more information on the available handsets at: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/10/windows-phone-7-london-a-few-first-impressions.ars

Silverlight

Microsoft have just completed their Professional Developer's Conference (PDC - more details next month) for 2010 and one of the announcements made was about Microsoft's future strategy for Silverlight, HTML5 and tools for development of rich clients. Microsoft have adjusted their position and with the improvements they are making to IE 9 with respect to web standards, they are recommending use of HTML 5 technologies for cross platform web based applications with rich user interfaces. This is very much the area that they had previously been pushing Silverlight for. This was met with a very strong reaction from the developer community with lots of complaints about the effort already invested in existing Silverlight applications. One such post is referenced in the article at: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/01/muglia_silverlight_future/ I love the phrase 'all of their eggs into the Silverlight basket', which astounds me. I very much believe in using the right tool for the right job and the implication of anyone using Silverlight for all applications or only working on Silverlight applications is fundamentally wrong to me. That aside, Microsoft did push Silverlight heavily over the last few years as a replacement for Flash and rich content within a web browser so some might see this as a large change in direction, although it is a direction that the rest of the industry are moving towards. The furore that this announcement generated resulted in a clarification being issued by Microsoft: http://team.silverlight.net/announcement/pdc-and-silverlight/ It's clear that Silverlight still is important to Microsoft and it still has a place as a technology but they accept that it won't be the solution to all problems.

Apple - Back to the Mac

Apple recently held a media event which they billed as 'Back to the Mac', where they released information on what enhancements will be included in the next version of Mac OS X, codenamed 'Lion'. Some details can be found at: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/10/mac-os-x-107-lion-mac-os-x-meets-the-ipad.ars Most notable of which is the new Mac App Store. They claim that they won't lock down Macs as they've done with iPhones and iPads, as you'd still be able to install applications from elsewhere. I wonder how long that'll be the case for. What is interesting is the restriction on the technologies that can be used to develop applications that are available on the Mac App Store. Specifically, Java has been excluded and Apple have gone as far as deprecating Java on OS X. Details can be found here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/21/apple_threatens_to_kill_java_on_the_mac/ and http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/22/jobs_on_java_for_mac/ This sounds very familiar to the recent situation with developing applications for iPhones where up until the most recent changes, Apple didn't allow applications on their App Store that used any programming language or frameworks except those provided with the iOS SDK, for example applications written using Flash CS5 or MonoTouch were not acceptable.

Office 365

Microsoft have announced a new service, Office 365, as seen here: http://office365.microsoft.com/
When I say 'new service', what they actually mean is a consolidation of their existing hosted serviceds under one banner. Information can also be found at: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/10/microsoft-repackages-its-productivity-services-as-office-365.ars
The pricing doesn't look too bad per user for all that functionality and if you're wondering what Microsoft Lync is, have a look at: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/lync/default.aspx

Visual Studio LightSwitch and WebMatrix

I should have talked about this last month but I had enough to cover so it's in this month. Recently, Microsoft released beta versions of two new developer tools, Visual Studio LightSwitch (http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/lightswitch) and WebMatrix (http://www.microsoft.com/web/webmatrix/).
VS LightSwitch is focused on providing a framework, and the tools around that, for developing line of business applications with a consistent application architecture, using .NET technologies such as Silverlight (oh dear, see above). WebMatrix is very much focused on the beginner developer looking for an easy way to get into developing web applications using .NET technologies.
Applications written in both tools can then be maintained by developers working with the main line of Visual Studio editions, so applications initially implemented in these tools aren't then constrained by them should application requirements change beyond those supported by these tools.
It's an interesting choice from Microsoft to release these tools as they don't provide anything that can't be done using Visual Studio (and in some cases the free Express Edition of Visual Studio) but both are much more focused on specific tasks rather than providing general purpose development environments that you get with the full versions of Visual Studio.