Live Blog: Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference Keynote

The live blog of Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference keynote starts now:
10:16 PT Pricing will be based on resources and service level required. Ozzy says tomorrow will be devoted to experiences. Steven Sinofsky, one of the lead Windows 7 engineers, is scheduled to participate in that keynote.

That's it for today.
10:15 PT PDC Attendees will be the first with access to Azure starting at noon today, by signing up at Azure.com. The SDK and platform will be opened up over the next few weeks. "We're going to be intentionally progressive.. in how we roll this out." No charge during preview since it may ultimately be incompatible with final product."When it is released commercially, Windows Azure will have a very straightforward business model."

10:14 PT So we've tied together two online services to make things easy for both managers and customers (non-techies). Now Ray Ozzie is coming back to summarize today's news and talk about what's next for tomorrow. "An end to end view of software and services taking somewhat of an infrastructural perspective." Windows Azure: "a kind of service-based OS"


10:13 PT Now he's playing the role of a customer who gets to see a Web portal showing how the project is progressing -- how much money is being spent vs the budget. This is displayed via cute gauges created using Silverlight.


10:12 PT First he used it as a developer. Then as a manager, he sees different things, for example, timesheets. Now he's looking at a custom Word template for status report. He's able to grab data from the CRM app, put it into the template, and publish it to a SharePoint site.


10:11 PT Now he shows how if you're logged on to MS Active Directory, Federated Identity lets you connect to CRM Online without logging in. "It's so simple, even a vice president can do it." He's looking at Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, customized for the type of user.


10:09 PT Here's how the identity works: IT admin manages IDs in Active Director. But now a Microsoft Services Coordinator links the Active Directory IDs to the Microsoft Federation Gateway so users can seamless access online services. Now he's talking about extensibility and showing a chart of what the online versions of Exchange, SharePoint and MS Dynamics CRM can do as well as features you can have online as well as on premises.


10:05 PT Software plus Services offers power of choice. Enterprises need a hybrid. Some apps need support in cloud, some on premises. But this isn't always easy to do. Problems include what is being called a "Federated Identity" - have to be able to use your identity either on premises or in the cloud. Also extensibility must be considered. Here is how to solve those problems...


9:59 PT A new guy is up to talk about how Azure solves developer problems including need for collaboration, need to stay up to date, lower costs, need for security and availability. He explains: So Microsoft has created Online Services - today, Exchange, CRM, etc. In the future all of its enterprise software will be offered as online services. Benefits include: best experiences, faster time to market, business class security and reliability.


9:55 PT Now he's talking about the Oslo modeling platform which incorporates a new programming language called M (I'm not sure what he means by modeling to be honest). Engineering guy says this PDC reminds him of the one in 1992 when they introduced Windows NT - "The technologies being introduced here today will have the same impact.


9:50 PT So Microsoft envisions the On-Premises Platform (built on Windows Server and Microsoft System Center) integrating with the Azure Services Platform (Windows Azure).


9:48 PT Now talking about a piece of code named Atlanta. Windows System Center takes incoming data, puts it into a useful format for managers.. For example, now an MS engineer is running a SQL server query, taking results into a chart generated using Silverlight. Atlanta seeks to make generating reports easier for non programmers.


9:44 PT .. created by good ol' Contoso to implement a laptop battery recall. So he selects the product from a database and clicks a "Recall button" after filling in a reason. Then there's a management console where we can see all the partners getting the recall notification (and a list of who has the product). This makes scaling supply chain network easier.


9:40 PT Now we're seeing a guy from a company called Red Prairie who's talking about building a recall application. There's a .Net Services portal. They're showing access control rules (lets companies work with partners).


9:37 PT They're talking about all sorts of technologies to help developers migrate from existing server based development (on-premisis world) to the cloud. There's an Azure version of SQL server (it doesn't yet support everything SQL Server does today, but it will..)


9:32 PT They're just telling developers more about Windows Azure. Later today you can get the beta a m.bluehoo.com. Demos are of how it's easy to build apps using Azure and also make them easily accessible and scalable. The idea is that developers will I guess rent from MS, which could be cost effective for a small startup that can't afford big data centers.


9:18 PT Now we're seeing a social network app called BlueHoo that was built on Windows Azure. Go keynote.bluehoo.com.


8:07 PT Live Services will be of most interest to consumers. Now we're going to see some Windows Azure demos. Obviously this is a pretty developer oriented keynote. "Kernels don't demo well," a MS engineer just said that.


8:05 PT We're betting on Azure ourselves. Ozzie says, adding that MS will be building more and more of its own services via Azure. Examples include... Live Services, .Net Services, SQL Services, SharePoint Services, Microsoft Dynamis CRM Services.


8:00 PT Ozzie tips hat to Jeff Bezos and Amazon for their early work in this regard. New Cloud Computing platform is designed to be the bedrock for all computing. Announces new Windows Azure offering at the Web tier you might think of it as Windows in the Cloud. Lowest level foundation for building cloud computing services. Windows Azure is not software that you run on your own servers--it's running on a vast network of Microsoft servers. Being made available as a service.


8:56 PT 1st tier is personal (phones, desktops, laptops). 2nd tier is enterprise (client-server, system management, data centers) 3rd tier is Web tier (serving customers, prospects). This provides infinite capacity on demand anywhere on the globe.


8:54 PT Shared infrastructure needs to be globally accessible. Cloud computing solves a lot of problems relating to globalization - coping with variations in demand, need for lots of storage. Ozzie says, "A new tier in our industry's computing architecture."


8:50 PT In part because so much business has gone global


8:50 PT He's talking about cloud computing -- how is it different from what's come in the past


8:49 PT Problems range from individual user to the core Professional Developer Conference audience of developers and IT pros.


8:47 PT Ray Ozzie is talking about changes in the computing landscape. He's pacing the stage in a chorcoal suit and shirt.


Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/152862/Microsoft.html?tk=rss_news