Well, Rickand Matt were absent from the meetings today. In their absence I took it upon myself to document the 3rd day. We started off the day with an extra half hour to sleep in… It was St. Pat’s day yesterday after all.


------------------

8:45 AM
Eric Rudder Keynote

This time was denoted as a closing keynote, however it was merely a Q&A session. Most of the time seemed to be focused around trust. There were a number of reflective comments doubting the commitment to change. Todd from AZ (don’t remember his last name) made a great point around Microsoft’s community responsibilities. For instance they stated they are focused on security and have learned a number of development best practices for the future, so why haven’t they shared this with the entire community. Eric’s answer didn’t seem to indicate he got the point. His answer was a commit to have a Microsoft security focused meeting within the next 30 days. There is some interpretation on my part, but his answer seemed to indicate participation with Microsoft customers. I believe what Todd was looking for global IT community involvement. A world where Microsoft would feel responsible for what they have learned, and contribute learns and best practices to everyone, not for an economy gain, but because it’s the responsible thing to do. Efforts such as this, repeated over time, would build trust. Am I too idealistic? Or naive? Eric’s last comments on the subject of security was that “Microsoft is a little gun shy”, they don’t want to make a big press release that they have the answer to security issues, followed by any future announcements of a security bug…

The more interesting part of this discussion was Microsoft’s protocol choice for the future… You guess it, Web Services. Specifically Eric stated that Interoperability to him and Microsoft is synonymous to Web Services. This commitment seems to stretch too far in my opinion. Everything is to have a WS interface. This means according to Eric, WS interface for; Exchange, SQL Server, and basically any MS product line defined as a Server. Web Server interface to the database…. Does that make sense to anyone?
--------------------
9:15 AM
Mike Hall - Windows CE and Mobility
I missed the opening demo. The session mainly discussed the embedded options for Microsoft which are: Windows CE, Windows XP Embedded and SPOT.
For CE, the focus was around a tool named Platform Builder. It is used to configure the components you want to deploy to a CE device. With this product comes millions on lines of code available with the free edition of the builder.
If you are interested in embedded OSs, CE is derived from MM Light which Mike claimed was available from the MS research site. I tried searching for it with no success, maybe I missed understood the name. However he indicated that Ivan @ ivanjo at microsoft dot com would provide help.
Windows XP Embedded is a componentized version of XP. Supposedly you can decide which OS features you want to install. With this product you can run any previously developed Windows application on the embedded machine. Additionally you can lock the application to be the only available application, providing what seemed like kiosk ability.
SPOT was interest… but frankly the watches are too large to wear and the features are too limiting. The toolkit is for watch vendors to develop a product and what they decide is what you get. Until you can add your own code to the watch or device, who cares… OK, OK I get that you can receive SMS messages on it, but so can my cell phone.
---------------------
10:30 AM
Prashant Sridharn - Visual Studio 2005

At Prashant’s request I will limit my blog of this session… it is to be announced Monday, it just a weekend away. I do have some comments to add here though specifically to the Java / Open Source community.

The session started with a story of Prashant getting a tattoo where ever he was the ’98 TechEd. The tatooist asked what Prashant did for a living and after discovering he worked for MS, the tatooist pulled out his copy of J++. The story illustrating that everyone is and can be a developer. There is a big push from MS to provide hobbyist and students with tools. What would Mort do without MS?

The future breakdown of the toolset was provided which I’ll skip for now, but let me share this. In the world of technology a technology is either leaping or be leaped. The Java community is being leaped. The toolsets around team development coming out seem to hit at the sweet spot of enterprise full life-cycle development. There will be a new version code tool which will allow for concurrent development, there will be a build system which Prashant himself compared to cruise control, system-wide task list, and bug tracking. This wouldn’t be too big a deal, if it wasn’t so well integrated. Each one of these tools on their own, I could agree there is an option for in the open source community. The integration in the toolset is extremely well done. Prashant announced that they had worked very closely with a number of the XP / Agile leaders providing a compelling story.

My main disappointment (but not a surprise) was that MS didn’t use what the community had worked on. They brought us up here to ask use “why do people hate us?” and “how can we build a community together?”. After this presentation here are some clues. There are people who have developed NANT and NUNIT for use with the MS development product line. Do MS use those technologies or extend them or promote them? NO did they even make them pluggable into the environment? NO. They have developed their own build system and their own unit testing framework alienating yet another group.


-------------------------
Well it’s over… I for one have learned a tremendous amount regarding Microsoft, their products, future and people. Additionally, there are some exceptionally talented developers working at Microsoft. I am grateful for the hospitality and their internal commitment to provide such an event.

Here are my thoughts and opinions on the matter based on the following facts:
1) Everyone (including MS) believes the future is heterogeneous
2) Microsoft is doing everything to drive people to their OS, specifically designed to the “best” stack.

OK, I would say most people aren’t looking for MS to open source windows (ok Larry is, and probably Stallman) they make money on windows. Great, make it compelling, innovate, make it great, make it secure and a large number of people will purchase it. The issue is MS doesn’t have an answer for the other end (which they agree will be there) out side of SOAP. More is needed here, I don’t know what shape this takes, maybe .net on linux and solaris, maybe a commitment to provide binary interoperability to Java. The consistent story from MS is if we build for another platform it will take away from Windows… I don’t agree, I think it will extend there software reach. In the end, they need to decide if they are a software company or an OS company. I think there is a significant difference. One decision, leads to controlling tactics, a lot of marketing and fragmentation of the industry. The other decision provides solutions to customer problems. There IS money to be made fixing client problems, in a way that is inclusive and not exclusive.

The conversations were open and honest. I can’t say that anything in particular was decided or resolved through the 3 days. In the end the lines of communication have been left open to all the attendees… and that’s a good thing. Here’s hoping for a better tomorrow.