17 Nov, 2006
Microsoft Conference - The New Microsoft Applications
Posted by: Jason Drohn In: technology
Today, I attended a MSDN Conference just outside of Pittsburgh, PA. Basically, it was a sales pitch for their new software and a view of some of the expanded functionality of the new applications.
The one impression that I walked away with? Microsoft continues to turn everything visual.
The presentation was split up into three parts. The first was somewhat uninteresting, dealing with fancy ways to hook into databases, both on and off line. The cool thing was the fact that their new Visual Basic software has a ‘Team Edition.’ Without going into many details, it does allows for all members of a team to collaborate effectively. You have your designers, coders, and business people, all working together. The software allows everyone access to what they need to see to successfully run the business.
The second piece was an intricate flowchart model. What you do is design a flowchart visually, like with a complex web payment system, and write the code that corresponds to each individual piece. It is remarkably simple to write very complex applications. The one thing that concerns me is the fact that Microsoft is making everything visual, almost completely taking programmers out of the situation.
The third section, and possibly the most interesting, was the new “Web Expression” software. (It is available in beta for free download - for now..). A nice feature is that it writes in completely compliant XHTML and CSS. You can also choose to write in ASP.net. The coolest feature is the fact that it can use XML data to fill a product list though. All you do is input the data, write a CSS, and it spits out a great shopping cart application. In being overly critical though, it is basically beefed up FrontPage. I don’t know about you, but I would rather use a text editor!
So in following up with the Microsoft theme of last century, expect to see even more visual Microsoft. Ultimately, that is the reason they dominate the market so why should they stray from that path? When something works, use it. I just can’t wait to see what Google and Mozilla come up with though!!