Why Wait for Eight?
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Microsoft has opened registration for Mix `08, with the tagline: "The Next Web Now." |
Next year's Mix will be March 4-7 in Las Vegas, so that next Web promise is months away. Microsoft hasn't released many details on the event; CEO Steve Ballmer and Scott Guthrie, general manager of Microsoft's developer division, will deliver keynotes. We offer sympathies to Ballmer, who will be doing more speaking junkets in the absence of Charmain Bill Gates. His move from monopolist to philanthropist is June 30.
The Mix `08 Web site lists 21 sessions, so far, with nothing shocking revealed. Emphasis is on development with tools such as Silverlight, .NET Framework 3.5, Expression Studio and Visual Studio Studio 2008. The ADO.NET sessions are noteworthy because of Microsoft's increasing emphasis on data synchronization.
Data synchronization has threefold importance to Microsoft:
- Businesses with increasingly mobile workforces need it.
- It's a way of extending software relevance to the Web.
- If Microsoft doesn't solve the problem, somebody else (say, Google) will.
By the way, Microsoft's PhizzPop Design Challenge is really smart marketing. The developer contest for interactive, Web and design agencies challenges them to use Microsoft development tools in competition. There are six venues, starting Nov. 30 in New York.
According to Microsoft's PhizzPop marketing Website: "36 teams enter. 1 team leaves." Nicely done.
