Written by:
Mihai Moscovici

 

Share / bookmark

New Microsoft products released at the Professional Developers Conference 2009

Microsoft announced the availability of the Windows Azure Platform at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference, thus making Windows Azure and SQL Azure as core elements of the company’s cloud services strategy.

In addition, along with Windows Azure Platform, Microsoft has brought up lots of new technology like the Windows Server AppFabric and Windows Azure platform AppFabric, ASP.NET MVC 2 Beta, Visual Studio 2010, .NET Framework 4.0, and many others.

There is so much new stuff that many developers confessed they are having a hard time to get up to speed with all the new codenames that Microsoft just announced. However, the most important thing we want to focus on is the benefits of the new technology for us and our clients.

First, AppFabric will significantly improve websites’ caching, performance and monitoring capability. It will also improve scalability, reliability and performance of complex applications, regardless of where an application will be deployed. This means our clients' websites will perform better, and will have an advanced level of scalability and reliability.

The newly ASP.NET MVC 2 Beta helps to reuse the code through easier implementation of unit tests, thus increasing websites’ performance by reducing the output HTML. We are already using ASP.NET MVC 2 Beta in projects run at Propeople.

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET framework 4.0 increases development productivity by providing language enhancements and new improved libraries. Also, Visual Studio 2010, specifically Team Foundation Server 2010, will enhance our Application Lifecycle Management with better tracking and reporting tools, as well as improved work item management and integration with third party systems.

This is for the first time when Windows Azure is announced to support deploying of virtual machines. This will help EPiServer and SiteFinity clients to get unprecedented availability and scale up and down performance/capacity on demand depending on their current needs and on a demand-oriented price.

Finally, Microsoft released the Microsoft Office 2010 Beta suite that is available for download today. Propeople will be evaluating the beta in the next few months and we will be ready for the official release in the beginning of next year. This will give Propeople and our clients’ competitive advantage in resource and project planning, and will increase human resources utilization and efficiency.

Photo: netfusioncorporation.com

Comment on this post

Written by:
Mihai Moscovici

 

Share / bookmark

EPiServer Gadget Contest 2009

EPiServer World is currently running its Gadget Contest 2009, awarding great prizes for the most useful and technically excellent EPiServer CMS 6 dashboard gadgets.

All you have to do is to enter your gadgets in the contest by submitting them between October 19 and November 30 to EPiServer World. All entries will be rated and commented by members of EPiServer World, but the final decision will be made by a competent jury. The winners will be announced in a week after the deadline of the contest, November 30, 23:59.

Submitted gadgets must run on EPiServer CMS 6 CPT2 and if the gadget is integrated with external systems, these systems must be publicly available (i.e. anyone using/installing the gadget must be able to set up access to the system).

The best of the best will be awarded based on five main factors: (1) coolness of the overall concept; (2) usefulness, (3) technical quality; (4) openness: submit your gadget as open source; (5) time to market: submit your solution early.

The first prize of the contest is a Samsung 42", Full HD TV, the second prize is a Sony PlayStation 3 Slim, the third prize is an Apple iPod Nano 16Gb, and all runners-up will be awarded a 12-month Spotify Premium subscription.

All details about the contest are available on the EPiServer CMS 6 Gadget Contest 2009 official website.

Happy hacking and good luck!

Comment on this post

Written by:
Mihai Moscovici

 

Share / bookmark

Mobile industry goes open source

Experts envision that The Future of the Web will be rather a combination of mobile, real-time and service oriented solutions. Mobile is already here as big players stepped into the game and made their bets on technology.

Cell phone manufacturers such as HTC, Motorola, Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson, Philips, Dell and others have released their series of Android based devices, and some aiming to compete with iPhone and Blackberry. The Android avalanche and Droid mania are pushing Android OS to become more attractive for developers and users, thus confirming Google CEO Eric Schmidt's statement that "Android adoption is about to explode".

After all, it's not only about Android. Recently Qualcomm announced that it has established a separate wholly-owned subsidiary, focused on mobile open source platforms and to optimize open source software with Qualcomm technology. Funambol reports Top Ten Leading Mobile Companies Choose Mobile Open Source for major, innovative projects, including new mobile devices, cloud services, social networking and 4G apps.

Mobile industry is following the web industry trends in terms of technology, integration and adoption. 2009 was the year of maturity for how open source can be used as a tool for cheaper, faster collaborative software development, which reduces barriers to entry and breeds innovation. 2010 will be the year of open source leadership on the web and mobile. Now is the right time to go open source.

Comment on this post