TechEd 2004 Europe live report : the keynote - the conference officially launched !
June 29, 2004 [General] | By Edward J. R.
There was a lot of talk and presentations about all possible Microsoft technologies but there were also some interesting items related to mobility. See this picture that shows Steve Lombardi clothed as Pocket PC phone ("I'm pocket pc phone, because I have protruding antenna" - he said) and James Pratt clothed as Microsoft Smartphone (of clamshell design, he even once slammed his head with the keypad!):
So apart from funny clothes of Steve and James what was out there at the keynote? Here are the highlights:
- each participant of the keynote got a drum and there was big warming up "drumming session" that finished with extremely loud shouting ; the drums were later on used during the keynote to applause speakers that were talking during the keynote - instead of clapping
- key investments of Microsoft in various technologies listed, interestingly, somewhere at the bottom of the list was ".NET Compact Framework" so apparently mobility is not that unimportant for Micrsoft
- plans for future mentioned, shortly speaking: Visual Studio .NET 2005 next year, SQL Server with .NET enabled in stored procedures and Longhorn operating system later; mentioned also Visual Studio "Orcas" - the next, after Visual Studio .NET 2005 version of the IDE. New paradigm in user interface in Longhorn - called "Avalon" also mentioned
- Visual Studio Team Edition mentioned that facilitates working in teams - visualizing design and deployment, but also ensuring that security criteria are met
- Visual Studio express products announced , for example Visual Basic Express, Visual C# Express, etc - so that developers can get development environment for a nominal price, very low price, instead of paying thousands of USD for full Visual Studio .NET
- Virtual Server 2005 - kind-of VMware but operating system for the hardware - multiple systems in one hardware
- infrastructure of the TechEd mentioned: 1000 PCs from Dell and Voice over IP phones that are available for participants so that they can make FREE CALLS to anywhere in the world ; there was some talk about USB enabled Voice over IP phones and related technology - so that voice over IP is reliable and effective with "nice functionalities"
- security roadmap showed and the need for deploying patches (security updates and enhancements) stressed
- "Connected Productivity" mentioned and where Perosnal Productivity and Team Productivity must be high - at this point also "mobility" was mentioned
- Steve Lombardi and James Pratt came out
- the first one clothed as "Pocket PC phone" and the second one clothed as "Microsoft Smartphone" and they were showing how easy it is to develop applications for Windows Mobile with Visual Studio .NET
- O2 and Teliasonera deals announced for MapPoint Location server
- so that enterprise customers can easily make location aware applications with help of GSM service of these operators
- future version of Windows Mobile Developer portal presented, so that developers can publish applications easily, directly from the Visual Studio .NET 2005
- mobile sofware catalog presented on the Microsoft Smartphone :
And it was presented: the mobile blogging application making and deploying to the catalog and later on buying it and installing in the phone through Over The Air download.
- Microsoft's investment in research mentioned - the "Microsoft Research" unit, and it was said that in Europe Microsoft has research centeres in UK and Denmark
- Jim Gray from San Francisco from Microsoft Research was telling why it is important for Microsoft to invest in research, he mentined his project: "World Wide Telescope" that uses web services to distribute data all over the world
- Jim Gray mentioned CERN project - construction of accelerator ; the challenge of sending data from CERN in Europe to USA was presented and solution: OC192 = 9.9 Gbps line ; the challange of moving the data with rate of 1 Gigabyte per second was mentioned
- new dual-processor 64-bit platform from Intel announced ; by the end of 2005 vast majority of servers will be 64-bit servers
- participants were asked to put 3D glasses on
and demonstration was shoed of 3D animation ; the animation that looked blurry without 3D glasses became sharp three-dimensional when partipants viewed it through the glasses
- in the audience our reporter spotted Neil Enns, Robert Levy and some other members of Windows Mobile team, with whom he shaked hands, but they were too tired after inter-continental traveling and preferred not to be photographed yet.
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