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Prepare for PDC
PDC 7, better known as PDC2008, marks a return to center stage for the Windows client operating system.
Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference 2008 (PDC 2008), from Oct. 27-30 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, marks a critical point for the company and for its future. Microsoft today faces its greatest challenge since the very first PDC -- then called the Win32 Professional Developers Conference -- was held in 1992 in San Francisco. Microsoft was locked in a bitter struggle with IBM over control of the desktop. Windows' ultimate victory over IBM OS/2 was, in the end, so complete that few today appreciate what an underdog Microsoft was to Big Blue at the time.
Now, 16 years and six PDCs later, Microsoft towers above the IT industry as IBM did then. But just like IBM, Microsoft today faces a growing array of competitive alternatives. None have penetrated Microsoft's armor yet, but they have certainly put a few dents in it. The next few years will be critical, determining if Microsoft will be an even more successful and influential company -- or lose out to others as IBM lost to Microsoft half a generation ago.
Past PDCs
PDC 1 in 1992 was mostly about the Win32 API, the key to developing for the new 32-bit versions of Windows: Windows NT (then still in development) and "Chicago" (the code name for Windows 95). The latter was first publicly discussed at that PDC in San Francisco. PDC 2, in 1997 in San Diego, was about changes related to "Windows 5" (aka Windows 2000). Like the first PDC, it was as much concerned with upcoming versions of Windows as with underlying technology.
In July 2000, at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla., PDC 3 ushered in the third millennium with a major departure. Unlike the two before it, this PDC was not tied to a new release of Windows. It was all about a radically new technology for Windows software development and deployment: .NET and all that came with it -- C#, the Common Language Runtime and the rest. It was about new technology, new tools and better ways to develop software.
PDCs 4, 5 and 6 were held on a two-year cadence, in 2001, 2003 and 2005. Like this year's event, all three conferences were held at the Los Angeles Convention Center, and included direction on further enhancements to .NET Framework and Visual Studio. Like PDC 3 in 2000, they concentrated on underlying technology, not on new versions of Windows. Sure, there was some talk of Windows Vista and updated versions of Windows Server. But .NET and Visual Studio were the real stars of the show.
This was, at least in part, due to Windows "Longhorn." First discussed publicly by Microsoft Group Vice President Jim Allchin in June 2001, this ambitious future version of Windows was to be a radical departure from the past. After many delays and changes to the original project, Longhorn finally -- more or less -- shipped as Windows Vista in January of 2007, albeit without some of the more radical aspects of the envisioned Longhorn product.
Longhorn's Windows Future Storage (WinFS) engine was dropped or delayed. The task-based, "iterative" user interface was scaled back to a still-different but less-radically changed version of the XP task bar and Start menu. Ultimately, it was not Vista but Office 2007 that got the more radical UI makeover.
The result, however, was that changes relevant to developers specific to Vista and Office 2007 came out gradually through this period, leaving room for focus on the basic technologies of .NET and the corresponding enhanced versions of Visual Studio at PDC.
Cut to the Present
PDC 7, better known as PDC 2008, marks a return to center stage for the Windows client operating system. Windows 7 -- Vista's future replacement expected no later than January 2010 -- at press time had been scheduled for 22 sessions on the PDC agenda, second only to cloud services, which will have 26 scheduled sessions.
Certainly, PDC is an opportunity for Microsoft to get some powerful messaging in front of the critical audience of Microsoft-aligned developers. This year, the ample helping of Windows 7 content could help Redmond build momentum as it seeks to distance itself from the troubled Windows OS. Microsoft has struggled to convince corporations to move off of Windows XP for Vista. This year's PDC offers a perfect opportunity to pitch Windows 7 as an attractive post-XP target.
The real Next Big Thing at PDC this year, though, is Cloud Infrastructure Services. Microsoft is building out a massive infrastructure of data centers worldwide as the company seeks to reposition itself as both a services and a software provider. So Microsoft will be promoting not only Windows 7 in Los Angeles, but software development that can make use of Microsoft's computing utility services as well.
If you are expecting to hear a great deal about cloud
services -- and developing software to use those cloud services -- at this year's PDC, you're not likely to be surprised -- or disappointed.
About the Author
William F. Zachmann, born before the modern digital computer was invented, has lived with them (and made his living off of them) all his life. He was director of research for The Forum Corp. in the mid-'70s and senior vice president of corporate research at International Data Corp. (IDC) in the '80s. He has a copy of Windows 1.0 that Bill Gates signed for him the night it was rolled out at Comdex Fall '85. Zachmann is now director of Canopus Research Inc. He programs in C# using Visual Studio 2005 with a focus on ASP.NET and SQL Server 2005.