WinHEC and Beta 2
It’s been a big week. WinHEC is wrapping up and we have shipped Beta 2. Beta 2 is awesome (I have been 'XP-free' for several months and love it) and it means we are really headed towards shipping. I stopped by the Beta 2 ship party today here on campus where we had a live band, food and drinks for the entire Windows division (didn’t have my camera so no photos).
Yesterday I was able to catch the WinHEC keynote where Bill announced the trifecta of Betas (Vista Client, Server and Office 2007) and most importantly to see the keynote demo of XPS. It went off without a hitch, although it is so nerve-racking to watch a marketing guy who knows very little about our technology give a demo. We watch with apprehension, but finally, elation once it was over. Great exposure for XPS.
The buzz around XPS, Color and our Web Services for Devices work was outstanding. Lots of people seeing our demos, asking questions and lots of our partners showing off their demos built on our Vista technology. Lots of fun, just walking around the booths and hearing people talk about the technology we are building.
One of the amazing things we showed which probably will fly under the radar of the top-line press, is a demo of high-dynamic range, wide-gamut photo printing using the new imaging pipeline in Windows Vista. We showed a demo of printing from the Vista photo gallery a wide-gamut photograph stored in Windows Media Photo format to an XPS-enabled wide-gamut Epson photo printer. The output was great, you could really see the difference in the side-by-side comparison. The printer was being driven by a print driver put together for us by Software Imaging. For the consumer, the photo printer is able to deliver high quality prints using a wide color gamut without having to circumvent bottlenecks in the OS. With these advances in Windows Vista and with new XPS-capable wide gamut printers, this capability exists right out of the box.
Between Windows Media Photo, the new Windows Color System and XPS, a new level of color quality and fidelity is now achievable. We also had some color demos showing driving >8bpc out to some HDR monitors – stunning results.
We could not have done this without the help of a bunch of our partners. Mainly, Software Imaging, Epson and Monotype Imaging
It continues to be an active week in the press – some more press releases and announcements that cover technology from the D2 team:
Global Graphics continues its great work with XPS
Monotype Imaging to Demo WCS-Compliant Color Profiling Technology at WinHEC
Microsoft Unveils Windows Vista Beta 2
Lots of articles out there about Beta 2 shipping, most make some mention of XPS.
Microsoft presents new photo format for Vista
Play-by-Play of WinHEC Keynote
If you are a gluten for punishment, you car read the minute by minute run-downs of the WinHEC Keynote. The videos are also up on Microsoft.com. Will’s keynote with the XPS demo is here (XPS demo starts at the 10-minute mark).
I’m not familiar with this company, but buried in their press release on their latest financials is a comment about support XPS!