20 November 2009

Attendees watch the keynote sessions at PDC 2009

This year’s Professional Developers Conference (PDC) was held in Los Angeles and saw Microsoft outline new opportunities and resources for developers to create applications that take advantage of Windows and the reach of the Web. The software giant also invited developers to test new beta versions of Silverlight 4, Office 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010.

Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live Division, demonstrated how developers can take advantage of Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 8 to build compelling computing experiences for customers. “The tremendous support behind Windows 7 equates to tangible opportunity for developers on the Windows platform,” Sinofsky said. “We’re looking forward to the new ways that they will bring Windows and the Web to life for all of our customers.”

Sinofsky also gave a sneak peek of Internet Explorer 9, highlighting advancements in performance and interoperable standards, as well as the way it uses DirectX to bring the full power of the PC to the Web experience.

Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the .NET Developer Platform, announced the public beta of Silverlight 4, only four months after delivering Silverlight 3. The beta can be downloaded at the dedicated Web site. The new version includes extended out-of-browser capabilities, new webcam and microphone capabilities, native multicast support for wide-scale media content delivery and more than 60 customisable controls to build applications.

Kurt DelBene, senior vice president of the Office Business Productivity Group, closed the keynote session by announcing the public betas of Office 2010, SharePoint Server 2010, Visio 2010, Project 2010, Office Mobile 2010 and Office Web Apps for business customers. The betas can be downloaded at the Microsoft Web site.

The tremendous support behind Windows 7 equates to tangible opportunity for developers on the Windows platform

Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft “Today marks the first time that millions of people can download and experience all the new innovation and capabilities we’re delivering as part of the Office 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010 release,” DelBene said. “As exciting as this milestone is for our customers, I also believe that there has never been a better time for developers to build on the Microsoft platform. With a wealth of features and a single, unified business platform, developers can build rich solutions that take advantage of familiar tools and utilise core features of Office and SharePoint both on-premises and in the cloud.”

Microsoft also announced plans to deliver a new product named Duet Enterprise for SharePoint and SAP. With tens of thousands of joint customers around the world, bringing SAP applications and business processes together with SharePoint creates the opportunity to release a new wave of productivity gains for end users.

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