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Bill Gates made a valedictory appearance at this year’s TechEd and along with a Steve Ballmer robot had some some development related announcements:
Not on the formal program was a certain amount of uncertainty over the arrival of SQL Server 2008:
He said Microsoft’s SharePoint Server would become the first Microsoft product to use enterprise search from its Fast Search and Transfer acquisition. The delayed SQL Server will be next. "Think of it as SQL Server, but it’s really Fast," he said.
For all the talk of data services, there was still no date on the next edition of SQL Server. Demonstrating SQL Server 2008, Dave Campbell, from Microsoft’s data storage platform division said SQL Server 2008 would be available in the "next month or two."
SQL Server 2008 is due in 3Q so it is not really past its latest due date. Fast Search & Transfer was acquired by Microsoft in January.
The delivery of the Hyper-V beta wasn’t the only work Microsoft developers wrapped up last week just in time for the holidays:
Microsoft Office 2007 System Service Pack 1
Actually multiple service packs, this is a fit and finish release for both client and server Office 2007 software that provides “stability, performance and security enhancements.” Downloads are available now and coming soon to automatic update. There’s also a whitepaper that describes the changes. Also available was SP1 for kissing cousin Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.
We’re making available today the RC release of Windows Vista SP1, found here on MSDN and here on TechNet, with an FAQ here. I invite you to download, install and use the SP1 RC and let us know about your experience by providing your feedback here.
Public downloads are now also available. It may throw a crimp into the “now business can take Vista seriously” stories, but Microsoft is highlighting the obvious in warning that SP1 most likely won’t solve Vista software compatibility problems.
Windows XP SP3 RC1
Microsoft snuck this one out and I still haven’t found a direct Microsoft download link, but the folks at BetaNews have made it available. What Microsoft is providing is a new overview of what’s in SP3 and not unexpectedly, it’s mostly a roll-up of individual fixes, but there are some minor new features and feature enhancements.
Microsoft’s SharePoint Server business intranet collaboration offering gets the chance to demonstrate some Web 2.0 social graces with partnerships announced today with wiki vendor Atlassian Software Systems and NewsGator Technologies. Not to worry about “carrying ons” though, SharePoint is still all business.
Microsoft Business Process Alliance Enables Mainstream Adoption of Business Process Management:
At the Gartner Business Process Management Summit, Microsoft Corp. today announced the formation of the Microsoft Business Process Alliance (BPA), which extends the benefits of business process management (BPM) to an array of companies and offers enhanced functionality to existing Microsoft customers. The Business Process Alliance is a group of 10 industry-leading software vendors focused on making BPM solutions more broadly accessible and helping companies take advantage of BPM tools based on the Microsoft® platform. Through this alliance, a broad range of customers will benefit from a powerful set of end-to-end tools for automating and optimizing business processes. The initial members of the BPA are AmberPoint, Ascentn, IDS Scheer, Fair Isaac, Global360, InRule, Metastorm, PNMsoft, RuleBurst and SourceCode Technology Holdings Inc. Microsoft also announced enhancements to its Windows® Workflow Foundation technology in the .NET Framework 3.0, adding support for the upcoming BPEL 2.0 standard and further providing capabilities and tools for developers and independent software vendors building BPEL-enabled workflow applications.
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Microsoft also announced a road map for the adoption of the BPEL 2.0 standard in Windows Workflow Foundation to help drive industry interoperability and drive greater mainstream adoption of BPEL-enabled workflow applications. Microsoft will enable further integration between Windows Workflow Foundation and its BizTalk® Server product as part of the BizTalk Server 2006 R2 release, which will be generally available in the third quarter of 2007.
The roadmap for BPEL incoporation in Workflow comes from Microsoft’s Paul Andrew:
In March 2007 Microsoft plans to release a CTP of a set of BPEL activities for Windows Workflow Foundation (WF). This will be called BPEL for Windows Workflow Foundation March CTP and the CTP release will implement the BPEL 1.1 specification. The final release of BPEL for Windows Workflow Foundation will implement the OASIS BPEL 2.0 standard and is planned for release in Q4 of calendar year 2007.
The download will be separate from the .NET Framework and it will be required for developing BPEL based workflows in Visual Studio. The same download will provide runtime operations for executing BPEL based workflows.
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The next major version of BizTalk Server will be built on Windows Workflow Foundation. This was announced back when Windows Workflow Foundation was first disclosed in September 2005. BizTalk Server will be able to take advantage of these BPEL activities at that time to also allow for BPEL 2.0 support. At that time both Windows Workflow Foundation and BizTalk Server will support BPEL 2.0.
Since this isn’t completely obvious, here’s the net:
What I haven’t mentioned is the role of Windows SharePoint Services and Office SharePoint Server 2007 which are both based on Workflow. For information on that I recommend David Chappell’s document,”Microsoft and BPM: A Technology Overview,” which is available on the Microsoft BPM web site.
Some Microsoft news items from this week that did not find posts of their own:
Ed Bott notes the first appearance of Vista OEM prices (for smaller OEMs) and Microsoft Answers ‘Vista OEM’ Questions. If you actually need to buy a retail copy of Vista, hopefully you’re savvy enough to not pay full price. Best line:
Going OEM means you don’t get the skimpy manual or other scraps of paper that comes with the regular retail version. But when (was) the last time a basic Microsoft manual told you anything you needed to know?
For a completely different demographic: Yes, there is a Windows Vista Starter Edition.
Microsoft released the software development kits (SDKs) for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and the Microsoft Office Project 2007 platform.
Shocking news: Microsoft hurt by poor Live branding, analysts say.
Stop me if you have heard this one before: Symantec warns of new zero-day Word attack. This one too: Windows Defender Lets Spyware Slip onto Vista PCs.
Nintendo profits soar and the Wii now does the Internet - Wii news channel debuts early. Meanwhile, Sony’s PlayStation 3 to Debut in Europe, Mideast, Africa and Australia on March 23.
Two Major Linux Groups Merge to Fight Microsoft
The two main evangelizers of the Linux operating system, Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) and the Free Standards Group (FSG), are merging to form the Linux Foundation.
LiMo arrives for mobile Linux:
The duopoly of Windows Mobile and Symbian is to face its biggest challenge yet, with six big names in mobile telephony backing the development of a new Linux-based software platform for mobile phones.
The founders of the LiMo Foundation are handset makers Motorola, NEC, Panasonic and Samsung, plus two big operators - NTT DoCoMo and Vodafone
Network Engines Selected By Microsoft to Support Existing Whale Communications Customers.
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