Microsoft Updates .NET Road Map

Guthrie's blog post updates Microsoft's .NET road map and follows up a November Web development roadmap.

Guthrie sets a superb standard for customer and partner outreach. He is a regular blogger, which isn't typical for Microsoft executives of his stature. While Microsoft has perhaps 5,000 employee bloggers, the ranks for top mangers are decidedly thin. Hell, if Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz can blog, why can't Microsoft's top executives?

As a prominent exception, Guthrie benefits from the outreach. If Microsoft Watch commenters are any indication (and, yes, they are), Guthrie is a popular executive. He has earned loyalty among developers, as well. Other Microsoft executives should learn from his efforts to bring more transparency to Microsoft development tools.

So what's on Guthrie's updated road map:

• Microsoft will release a "new setup framework for .NET that makes it easier to build optimized setup packages for client applications." Estimated time of delivery: summer.
• To improve .NET application "cold startup scenarios," Microsoft will "ship a servicing update to the CLR [client runtime] that makes some significant internal optimizations in how we optimize our data structures to cut down on disk IO and improve memory layout when loading and running applications." Estimated time of delivery: summer.
• "We are also planning to release a servicing update to WPF [Windows Presentation Foundation] that includes a bunch of performance optimizations that improve its text, graphics, media and data stack." Estimated time of delivery: summer.
• New WPF controls are coming: Calendar/DatePicker, DataGrid and Ribbon, among others. Estimated time of delivery: late 2008.
• "We are also planning to release a servicing update of [Visual Studio] 2008 that includes a number of feature additions to its WPF designer." Delivery time unspecified.

Given Guthrie's blogging frequency, he appropriately concludes: "Stay tuned to my blog for more details about each of the above improvements in the weeks ahead."