RC1 of Silverlight 1.0

Silverlight 1.0 RC1

Since the beta we released at MIX, we’ve fixed approximately 2000 bugs and work items and we’re now feature complete with the final JavaScript-based API. This version of the runtime is vastly more stable than the beta release: our stress test runs show improvements of two or three orders of magnitude in many cases, and the product demonstrates the polish one might expect from a near-final release.

There is also a alpha refresh of Silverlight 1.1 for you to download and play with. This is cool stuff!

Services Platform

Software Plus Services

Yesterday at Microsoft’s Financial Analyst Meeting Ray Ozzie gave us his Software Architect viewpoint, every one of our software offerings is either a socket for a new attached service that connects to that software offering, or an upgrade or up-sell opportunity to extend a product’s value proposition up to the Web and, potentially, through mobile devices.We’re building a platform to support our own apps and solutions, and to support our partners’ applications and solutions, and to support enterprise solutions and enterprise infrastructure. We are the only company in the industry that has the breadth of reach from consumer to enterprises to understand and deliver and to take full advantage of the services opportunity in all of these markets.

I believe we’re the only company with the platform DNA that’s necessarily to viably deliver this highly leveragable platform approach to services. And we’re certainly one of the few companies that has the financial capacity to capitalize on this sea change, this services transformation.

Atom’s Time

Atom Feed

What’s Next? · Now we’ll find out who’s interested. The Atom feed format is a success; RSS isn’t going away, but a steadily-increasing proportion of the world’s new feeds are Atom 1.0.

A prediction  that Google’s influence will see Atom become the dominant feed publishing standard within the next few years.

The Atom feed format is an upgrade to RSS and as more and more publishers gradate to it we will arrive at a tipping point. There is so much that needs to be done along the lines of Tagging, attention and identity; Atom will help move us along.

WGA Wins!

Windows Genuine Advantage Wins

Over one thousand people around the world discovered through WGA that their software wasn’t legitimate, so they sent Microsoft the disks and brought down the biggest software counterfeiting operation in history,

Just a day after the CEO of Acer was whining that Windows Vista wasn’t producing a windfall for his struggling company the counterfeiters have shown that there is indeed a huge worldwide demand for the latest Microsoft OS.

The Chinese criminal syndicate involved had their production facility and assets seized by the Chinese authorities, no get-out-of-jail cards were offered for sale. In a week were Swedish authorities closed ThePiratesBay and Russian prosecutors are indicting AllofMP3 we are seeing a sea-change in the perception that software is free. 

IronRuby Beta

IronRuby First Drop

John Lam announce today the first drop of the IronRuby source code. IronRuby is licensed under very liberal terms as set out by the Microsoft Permissive License.

Two Scott’s

Dotnet Developer Songs

When I last spoke to Scott Guthrie he told me he was going to FOO Camp, where the most interesting and imaginative people in the software industry meet. I now have this image of Scott Guthrie and Scott Hanselman sitting round the camp fire into the wee hours of the night singing dotnet developer songs….

Scott Hanselman announced last night that he is going to work for Scott to possibly collaborate on many more dotnet developer songs. Scott Hanselman is one of the best software technology speakers and the most underrated blogger in the business. Scott Guthrie has to be the most authoritative blogger around, as his Team creates new and exciting technologies he is able to articulate all the complexities in very simple terms.

Two Scott’s with the respect and admiration of the dotnet developer community will greatly help inspire and create many cool new applications and solutions.

Google Calling

Google Phone

Google Pushes for Rules to Aid Wireless Plans

Google wants to be the disruptive force in telecommunications, delivering ads to every man, woman and child on the planet. Competition benefits all of us, but can Google play in the same league as Verizon and AT&T?

Verizon and AT&T are behemoths that have swallowed technology and telecommunications companies whole. Their PR statements yesterday accusing Google of trying to influence the United States government are dumbfounding even for our age of hypocrisy.

Google has lots of money in the bank, but the banks have a lot of money in Verizon and AT&T.

Microsoft Sponsored Links on Google

I first saw this a few weeks ago after TechEd Microsoft paid for sponsored links on Google for the lame VirtualTechEd site. Why on earth should Microsoft have to pay for Google links when Microsoft.com is one of the top destinations on the Internet?

What ever hapened to Live.com?

Why doesn’t Microsoft advertise on my blog? Most dotnet bloggers avoid using Google ads, but here the corporate clones within Microsoft have decided to invest their shareholders money on a Mountain View company rather then a dotnet blog.

Check-this out, Google; Microsoft WPC and Paul Mooney’s blog is ahead of the Microsoft WPC site, LOL and he didn’t have to pay Google for my ranking. Why hasn’t anyone at Microsoft noticed this yet?

Streaming LiveStation

LiveStation

This is Microsoft’s offering for Live broadcasting over the Internet This is the information broadcast space, it’s about getting lots of content out to many people all at once using a peer 2 peer cloud.I’m still waiting for a Joost invite and I never did win a SlingBox after tossing many business cards into fishbowls at various Tech conferences, but I just signed-up for the LiveStation beta.

Microsoft Immigration Center

Invest in the Future

Microsoft just announced that it’s opening a new software development center in the greater Vancouver, British Columbia, area. The Microsoft Canada Development Centre will open in the fall of 2007 and will be home to software developers from around the world.

Microsoft is a global company, and our greatest asset is smart, talented, highly skilled people. Our goal as a company is to attract the next generation of leading software developers from all parts of the world, and this center will be a beacon for some of that talent. – S. Somasegar, VP of the Immigration Developer Division at Microsoft.

The Microsoft Canada Development Centre will operate as one of a handful of development centers outside the company’s Redmond, Wash., headquarters; the others are located in North Carolina, Ireland, Denmark and Israel.

There are not enough Irish people working at Microsoft’s Irish Development center, I wish they would invest in a school in the west of Ireland.

Steve Ballmer is a multi-Billionaire, I wish he would personally invest in the future of the great state of Michigan after all they invested in him.