YAMR = Yet Another MIX Reporter

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Hi...

I don't think I need to repeat what has been announced on MIX 07 (if you don't know just visit www.visitmix.com). So I think I rather describe my insights.

You could call it a Dejavu or to stay with Britney Spears "Ups, I did it again...": With Silverlight Microsoft has once again the best technical architecture out there and will be ahead of the crowed at least when version 1.1 will be available. But this does not automatically lead to acceptance in the market. And Microsoft is well aware of this ;-)

Looking at the products in the queue we made huge steps compared to how it looked last year (when I've been here a the MIX for the first time). The products like Silverlight and the Expression suite feel productive (I say feel because I want to try it on my own first ;-). And the demos showed in the keynote (most of them done within a few weeks) were strong evidence.

But there is something even stronger than that. It is the fact that the architecture is prepared for the future. Look at the next step, the version 1.1. Having a fullblown .net framework in Silverlight brings a programming environment into the web client which I always wanted to see there (see my blog some months ago).

Even I got the message that we need dynamic languages supported there. But JavaScript couldn't be the final answer.

The debugging feature shown during the keynote (debugging client-side code running on the Mac from a Windows box gives me hope ;-)

But as I mentioned just before this all does not guarantee acceptance. Microsoft has the charme of being a techee company. Now we have to evolve ourself and train some muscles new to us. Design and User Experience getting more important. But I don't think we have to rip off our roots. We have to evolve it...

Another important evolvement is the new focus on services. While this concept is not new (and Microsoft is in that business for years) the infrastructure now allows an even broader range of services.

As Ray Ozzie put it: We are a platform company by heart. Maybe the definition of platform changed.

CU

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