Microsoft's Amazon-like Azure public cloud is four months away from going
live.
The company confirmed Tuesday the widely held supposition that Azure would go
commercial at its Professional Developers Conference in mid-November.
Microsoft also deigned to start explaining what it's going to cost developers
to use it after November 17. Until then the technical preview will continue
to be free to all comers.
Azure will be available on a consumption basis, a subscription basis, and as
volume licenses integrated into existing agreements with Microsoft.
Microsoft's not ready with the subscription prices that are meant to offer
predictable costs or the price discounts that it'll trade for usage
commitment but as a basic utility Azure will run 12 cents an hour for the
computer infrastructure; 15 cents a gigabyte for the storage; and one cent
for every 10,000 storage transactions... (more)
Ray Ozzie, Bill Gates' hand-picked replacement as Microsoft's chief software
architect and the father of the Azure cloud, is leaving the company.
Steve Ballmer sent out an all-hands e-mail saying so Monday. Ballmer also
said Ozzie will not be replaced. Ballmer calls his job "unique." In his
place, Ballmer says Microsoft has "a strong planning process, strong
technical leaders in each business group and strong innovation heading to the
market."
There is no explanation for why Ozzie is leaving or what he will do next.
Ballmer says he has no plans.
When exactly he departs is unclear; apparently he will be sticking around
through a transition and paying some attention to the entertainment space
before he leaves.
Here is the e-mail:
From: Steveb
Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2010
To: Microsoft - All Employees
Subject: Ray Ozzie Transition
This past March marked a signifi... (more)
SEO Journal on Ulitzer
Microsoft hasn't been able to make a dent in Google's top-heavy market share
in search but it appears to be doing a nice job sucking the vital juices out
of its intended partner Yahoo.
According to the latest figures from comScore, Bing, Microsoft's new search
engine, was a breath away from claiming 10% of US searches in October, up a
half-a-point over September while poor consumptive Yahoo at 18%, a new low,
lost eight-tenths of a point.
Yahoo used to be a plumper 20%-21%.
Google like Microsoft was also up a half point. AOL's got a shrinking 2.9%
and it's on the block with Microsoft considered the likely buyer.
According to the Dow Jones blog All Things Digital, the source on goings-on
with Microsoft and Yahoo, the pair is close to finally signing a belated
definitive agreement detailing their convoluted alliance. Maybe by the end of
the wee... (more)
Right now, you can test drive the innovations at the heart of the new
efficiency - free.
• Three Innovations
• Three Free Downloads
Download free trials and demo the latest features.
Windows 7 works the way you work, helping you reduce management costs,
improve productivity, and manage risks through enhanced security and control.
Windows Server 2008 R2 enables dynamic provisioning and management of virtual
workloads, and combines with Windows 7 to make branch offices more
cost-effective and remote workers more productive.
Exchange Server 2010 can simplify administration and deployment of messaging,
improve archiving capabilities, and extend your messaging across multiple
access points.
Download free trials and demo the latest features.
... (more)
Microsoft expects to have a public beta of Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) out
by next month. There won't be any new Windows 7-specific features and most of
the bug fixes have already been released making it a largely ceremonial
milestone that many companies like to pass before they deploy. There will be
some new Hyper-V features apropos of cloud computing and graphics
acceleration widgetry for remote desktops. A public beta of a service pack
for Windows Server 2008 R2 is also due in July. By the way, Windows Server
AppFabric has RTM'd. It's supposed to simplify the development and management
of composite applications by improving speed, elastic scale and high
availability through distributed caching capabilities and new tools.
... (more)
End-user computing devices have followed a trajectory of faster, smaller, and
cheaper for several decades: adding better connectivity, more natural
interfaces, but largely remaining a device with a screen and human input
device. This model is breaking down as computation and connectivity collide
with ordinary real-world things. These things often have existing physical
methods of interacting with them that we culturally don't want to change or
no interface at all.
I've been involved with devices for much of my professional career, starting
with television set top boxes at Microsoft for the better part of a decade,
then working in mobile as part of the Android team at Google, and most
recently in the Internet of Things at Nest Labs before rejoining Microsoft as
part of our platform strategy team. In my current role, one of my focus areas
has been to think about so ... (more)
Well, you may also call this the work of a Virtual Microsoft Evangelist. I am
using virtual evangelist in the sense of not being connected with or paid for
by Microsoft in any way (except my familarity with its products).
In here, I Iist the articles I wrote for a number of years on Microsoft
products and how they connect with third party software.
Articles related to Microsoft technology with Oracle, SQL Anywhere,
ColdFusion, Sun Microsystems and Crystal Reports.
2005
Exploring OLAP Cube with Visual Basic
Crystal Report from OLAP Data Introduction
Using DTS: Import From/Export To a Non-Microsoft Database
2006
Querying SQL 2000 Server with ColdFusion
Connecting to SQL 2005 Server from the Java Studio Creator
JSP Basics with Java Studio Creator 2 for VB Programmers
JSP Consumer for a Visual Studio Created Web Service Using Sun Java Studio
Creator
Migrating an MS Acc... (more)
In the previous articles in this series, we looked at FDCC changes (part 1)
and GUI enhancements (part 2) in PowerBuilder 11.5. In this article, we'll be
looking at the enhancements that were added to PowerBuilder 11.5 that are
specifically related to .NET targets. The one thing we won't be covering in
this regard is the .NET security enhancements that were covered in a previous
PBDJ article: "Applying Code Access Security in PowerBuilder .NET
Applications" by Maggie Lv.
Strong Named Assemblies
The .NET framework allows the author to sign an assembly so that it has a
"strong name." Such signing provides a number of benefits including:
Verification of the integrity of the assembly. The .NET runtime will ensure
that the assembly being loaded has not been modified. Versioning. You can
have several different versions of the assembly installed and each
application will u... (more)
Continuing in our discussion of Silverlight 3 and the brand new update to
.NET RIA Services and the update the example from my Mix09 talk “building
business applications with Silverlight 3”.
You can watch the original video of the full session
The demo requires (all 100% free and always free):
VS2008 SP1 (Which includes Sql Express 2008) Silverlight 3 RTM .NET RIA
Services July '09 Preview
Also, download the full demo files and check out the running application.
Today, we will talk about Rich Data Query.
Rich Data Query
Next up, let’s talk about data query. Nearly every business application
deals with data. Let’s look at how to do this with .NET RIA
Services. We will start out in the web project. For this example I
will use an Entity Framework data model, but RIA Services works great with
any form of data from plain olld CLR objects to an xml file, to web ... (more)
Mini-MSFT is back, with a post about Microsoft turning The Corner. It’s
interesting to contrast his point of view with that of MG Siegler over at
ParisLemon. Given my own perception of Valley bias on the part of Siegler
(he is one of the new voices of TechCrunch after all), it’s great to see
that we’re making progress which is being met with receptivity and not
suspicion. Further, everyone is focused on the most important beneficiaries
- customers.
I have to admit, since returning to the company a little over a year ago, I
have had this sense that things are looking up. Don’t get me wrong,
there’s no shortage of frustrations for me, but that’s to be expected
when you come from a tiny company where you were the founder and CEO to a
large company where you a cog in a wheel.
With the new fiscal year, I have a new role and a new team, and I plan on
making liberal... (more)
Microsoft announced the rebranding of SQL Services to SQL Azure. SQL Server
is the data platform of Windows Server so it made sense to align the name of
the relational database platform of Windows Azure, SQL Azure. SQL Azure is
built on the SQL Server technology foundation which delivers relational
database capabilities in the cloud. The next CTP of now SQL Azure will be in
August. You can, however, get started today with SQL Express. Over the next
days there will be more details about SQL Azure, including posting the first
round of SQL Azure Database documentation to MSDN. Also the SQL Azure prices
will be announced on Monday.
Related posts: Email Archiving in the Windows Azure Cloud Using SQL Data
Services I wrote previously about the potential of SQL Data Services, the...
SQL Data Services. Your Database in the Cloud. One thing in the Microsoft
cloud I find real... (more)