Directions


Live Mesh

Microsoft envisions a world where all the user's Web devices share and synchronize information among themselves, with the Internet as the hub.

Ready for Prime Time?

Microsoft has made changes to SQL Server to make it work in a cloud-computing environment.

Pain Before the Gain

Microsoft makes the right call: make each release more compliant than the last and to make standards the default.

ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions

New and genuinely useful features and keep the pain of upgrading to an absolute minimum in ASP.NET.

The Build for Google's Turf

Will it be boon or bust for Microsoft.

UI Confusion

We have a multipolar world where each application stakes out its own territory and visual identity.

Sync Framework Sunk?

Synchronization between PCs and servers -- if it were easy would have been solved years ago.

ESP Takes Flight

Microsoft is taking the engine from Flight Simulator and turning it in to a platform for developers.

Parallel Lines Meeting

With Parallel Extensions, Microsoft is starting to give developers tools to build applications that can take advantage of the multi-core world.

A Year in Review

Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 are the most important events for developers in the past 12 months.

Changing Course for 'Oslo'

Microsoft's Dynamic IT -- a broad outline for the next versions of several key developer and IT products.

F# Is for Functional

Microsoft Research develops F# to become a full-fledged member of the Visual Studio family.

Better Late than Never

Having the source code for the .NET Framework will be another tool in the toolbox.

A Language Renaissance

A whole new set of program language options options are available to developers.

A Genuine Failure

The servers may have been running, but legal copies of Windows couldn’t be activate -- by any normal definition of the word, that’s an outage.