Microsoft MIX 2007 Keynote announcements
Wow. We just finished up the Microsoft MIX 07 keynote address, and as Ray Ozzie and Scott Guthrie were detailing the latest announcements from the Microsoft dev front, some eyepopping demos and incredible platform announcements were made public. As I took notes, everytime I saw something I couldn't wait to get my hands on, I shorthanded a WOW next to the item. The WOWs are piling up out here:
Without some screenshots, no blog cannot begin to describe how these new apps look. All I can say is that the standard html site, and even the latest AJAX enabled sites will pale in comparision to the new "rich interactive applications" to be created in the coming months.
>> Silverlight 1.1 Alpha is now available, INCLUDING managed code support! All 37 .NET supported languages are supported cross browser. The ability for a designer to create XAML-based designs within Microsoft Expression Suite, sitting alongside a developer referencing the same files within Visual Studio is mind-blowing, as for the first time, the design/dev relationship is now a two-way street. In the past, designers would create and spec out the general project layout, only to have devs mangle the design to the point of no return. No more. To make design tweaks the designer need only adjust his/her XAML files, and return them back to the developer. By the way, Silverlight is STANDARDS based.
Basically Silverlight comes down to three parts
- Robust, even HD-quality, seamless video integration & streaming
- .NET support in X-browser, X-platform web plugin
- A service platform used to evolve "universal web" and "experience first" applications
>> The announcement of Microsoft Expression Suite, which includes Expression Media for video encoding; Expression Design for producing XAML projects managing "assets" (graphics, styles, etc); Expression Blend for combining design and multimedia; and Expression Web, for incorporating these projects into a web-based Silverlight site.
>> Micrsoft Streaming Service: We now have access to 4GB of upload space to host any videos for live streaming into our sites. What a great way for devs without storage space and/or a Windows Server with streaming capabilities to take advantage of all Silverlight will offer.
>> Scott Guthrie's walk-through of the UX for a first time Silverlight visitor was shockingly friendly. A clean XP machine, on first visit to a Silverlight site required one click to install the Silverlight runtime. Assuming the demo was somewhat legit, the entire installation was complete in under 20 seconds, and the app instantly launched.
>> Remote, Cross-browser, Cross-platform debugging: Devs now have the ability within Visual Stuio to attach to a remote machine running a Silverlight application, regardless of operating system and browser. Imagine sitting inside VS, watching remote breakpoints being hit, while tweaking any objects you desire within the immediate window... pretty amazing to see a Mac being adusted on the fly via Visual Studio.
>> Full, open source, dynamic language support, including command line utilities (IronPython, JavaScript, Dynamic VB, IronRuby)
>> SO much more... I have a ton of topics to get to, I'll keep adding as we go...
All downloads are released as of this morning at http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/downloads.aspx