MIX07 - Let's Light Up The Web

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MIX07 057MIX is underway here in Vegas.  Ray Ozzie is on stage as I type this.  The event looks great so far.  It's packed - completely sold out (rumour has it that we are even over-sold!).  It's nice to see that we have a great goodie-bag (including a copy of Vista Ultimate and Expression Studio)

We have a great group from the Canadian Team here at MIX.

  • Myself
  • John Oxley (Director - Community Team)
  • Ryan Storgaard (Online Business Strategy Manager)
  • Jerome Carron (Platform Strategy Advisor)
  • Daniel Shapiro (Designer Audience Marketing Manager)
  • Paul Laberge (Partner Advisor)
  • Qixing Zheng (Designer Advisor)

If you are here at the event, please say hi.

There are (we estimate, because privacy rules prevent us for knowing for sure) about 75 Canadian customers and partners here at MIX07.  We also have 5 members of the Canadian press with us and they will be covering the event. 

So far we have announced:

  • Microsoft Silverlight 1.0 beta availability. Optimized for the Web, Microsoft Silverlight enables developers and designers to easily use existing skills and Visual Studio and Expression Studio tools to deliver media experiences and rich interactive applications. Silverlight works with any back-end Web platform or technology, seamlessly integrating with existing infrastructure and applications, including Apache and PHP, as well as JavaScript and XHTML on the client. Beta 1.0 includes a go-live license, which means customers can deploy their Silverlight applications in production. Final availability of Microsoft Silverlight 1.0 is scheduled for summer 2007.
  • Microsoft Silverlight 1.1 Alpha availability. Based on the .NET Framework, Silverlight 1.1 Alpha offers broader tools and language support. It enables developers to take advantage of support for powerful .NET features including ASP.NET AJAX and Language-Integrated Query (LINQ) language, with full IntelliSense® editing enabled for client and server code; powerful cross-platform debugging capabilities; and rich language support for JavaScript, Visual Basic®, C#, Python and Ruby.
  • Expression Studio now shipping. Expression Studio, Microsoft’s end-to-end tools for creative designers, boosts collaboration with developers in the delivery of next-generation user experiences for Windows, the Web and beyond.
  • Microsoft Silverlight Streaming. Silverlight Streaming is a new companion service for Silverlight that makes it easier for developers and designers to deliver and scale rich media as part of their Silverlight applications.
  • Windows Live Platform Terms of Use. Microsoft is enabling the developer community to take advantage of the Windows Live™ services infrastructure and gain access to all the APIs through a simple, consistent set of terms that address multiyear supportability, scale, cost structure and commercial use of the platform. In addition, Microsoft announced new APIs to support programmatic access to Windows Live Spaces, Windows Live Contacts and Windows Live Messenger.

Scott Guthrie is up now, digging into the technologies a little more deeply.  We are watching the Netflix demo as we speak.  (Very cool - video streaming, DVD-like controls, interactive elements)

On Sunday, we went to Hoover Dam.  Interesting "web 2.0" twist on the visit.  Like all tourist locations, the Dam offers a visitor centre and a tour.  While not it's expensive, the web may have made these tours somewhat obsolete.  Instead of paying for the tour, I simply went to Wikipedia and downloaded the Hoover Dam entry to my Mobile.  We had ALL the info we could want and created our own "educational" tour of the Dam.....

MIX07 051

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