Downloads, Downloads, Downloads
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This week, Microsoft served up a cornucopia of goodies to test, including a beta—yes, the real deal—of Visual Studio Orcas. |
The biggest beta of the bunch is Orcas. The long-anticipated Visual Studio test build is essential to Microsoft's broader cross-product feature integration strategy—or "Integrated Innovation." Orcas anchors Microsoft's "Smart Client" strategy, where Office is positioned as a replacement for other clients or Web browsers for accessing back-end data or Web services.
Microsoft has put forth that Office's familiarity makes it a more natural user interface for consuming and also creating information stored on servers. However, Office 2007's radically redesigned user interface blows a hole in the familiarity argument.
Orcas also has deep ties to Windows Vista, through .NET Framework. By the way, the beta comes with .NET Framework 3.5. But what the heck is going on with the name! In his blog post announcing the beta, S. Somasegar, corporate vice president of Microsoft's developer division, called the Framework .NET FX 3.5. Microsoft did the renaming last summer, but Framework has been the more common shorthand until now. Microsoft does way too much rebranding.
Silverlight, better known as WPF/E (Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere), is the other piece some developers will want with Orcas. The Silverlight beta is due for release in about 10 days at Microsoft's MIX07. Silverlight is more rebranding action.
The Orcas beta is available as ISO image for MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network) subscribers or as a virtual image.
In conjunction with Unisys, Microsoft is offering a free trial of Exchange Server 2007.
On Wednesday night, I got an e-mail announcing that Windows Home Server CTP (Community Technology Preview) is available. The release means that people testing the software can talk about progress to date. Microsoft continues to accept beta applications. I will more fully discuss the software in a future post.
In the future downloads department, Microsoft is soliciting testers for the next version of Media Center, which presumably would be available with Windows Vista Service Pack 1.
The exhaustive list of downloads would take an afternoon to write up, so we've picked out best of the week. Commenters, please point fellow Microsoft Watch readers to other Microsoft downloads that you think are important. But, please, keep your links to one per comment, or the junk comment filter might snatch it away.
Related Posts:
- Silverlight: What's in a Name?, Microsoft Watch, April 16, 2007
- Microsoft Changes Expression on MSDN, Microsoft Watch, April 3, 2007
- March Orcas CTP Shows Some Expression?, Microsoft Watch, Feb. 28, 2007
- Exchange Server 2007 Roadmap Update, Microsoft Watch, Feb. 26, 2007
- Windows Home Server Reaches Beta 2, Microsoft Watch, Feb. 13, 2007
- Microsoft's Expression Means What?, Microsoft Watch, Jan. 16, 2007
- Windows Home Server Predictions, Microsoft Watch, Jan. 7, 2007
- Microsoft Connects the Den and Living Room, Microsoft Watch, Jan. 7, 2007
- What's Your Exchange?, Microsoft Watch, Dec. 8, 2006
- Gauging Microsoft's Expression, Microsoft Watch, Dec. 6, 2006
Comments (8)
Not sure why you mention Office as a cornerstone as Orcas. The major feature in Orcas is probably the WPF designer and LINQ. Office has nothing really to do with the 'smart client' strategy.
The .NET Framework has been called that since it was announced about 6 years ago. There hasn't been any rebranding. FX is a common shorthand for Framework.
You also call WPF/E -> Silverlight a rebranding, when WPF/E was a codename and was never given as the final name. The Silverlight name was actually decided upon late last year.
There's a lot of confusion around branding and positioning of products from Microsoft. But misreporting only makes the matter worse.
Posted by Joe | April 20, 2007 4:21 PM
You are right Joe. But it seems you are not reading all the posts from Joe in MS Watch, otherwise you wouldn't complain for MIS REPORTING. Actually this MS Watch is something like - Very biased reporting from a looser apple fanboy - kind. Tomorrow he ll also go ahead and say the "Windows" is confusing product name is should be somehing else. So don't worry and keep bashing!
Posted by DD | April 21, 2007 6:50 AM
DD:
Sounds like you're an angry Windows fanboi who's mad that Microsoft is dying. Vista is a flop, 360 sales are down, Office 2007 is a bust, employees are fleeing to Apple and Google...ouch! Enjoy your ancient Win32 codebase, fellas.
Posted by bonch | April 21, 2007 12:22 PM
I'm a huge Microsoft homer, but understand that Joe's job is to call it like he sees it. Microsoft doesn't write his paycheck so I hope he continues to voice his opinions (anti-MS or not) for years to come!
Posted by Spencer Ferguson | April 23, 2007 5:44 PM
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