REDMOND,
Wash. – At its Professional Developers
Conference (PDC) 2010, Microsoft laid out its plans for how developers can
build applications for the cloud.
Microsoft
CEO Steve Ballmer and the company’s tools president Bob Muglia showed how
Microsoft is enabling developers to build cloud apps and how the Microsoft
platform spans mobile devices, desktops and the cloud.
“Microsoft
is combining the power and reach of the cloud with both Web and local device
experiences," Ballmer said in a statement. "There has never been a better time
for developers to bet on Microsoft.”
Meanwhile,
Muglia said with Microsoft’s Windows, developers can use existing skills to
build new Web and enterprise apps.
“Only
Windows Azure delivers general purpose PAAS
[platform as a service], which allows developers the breadth of services needed
to allow them to focus on their applications and not the underlying
infrastructure or virtualizing machines,” Muglia said in a statement. “Imagine
having all of the IT infrastructure, hardware, OS and tools you need to support
an app just a few mouse clicks away – it opens up so many possibilities
worldwide. We are looking forward to seeing the amazing things our customers
will build with our PAAS offering.
Muglia
announced two new Microsoft capabilities for Windows Azure: Windows Azure
Virtual Machine Role and Server Application Virtualization. Windows Azure
Virtual Machine Role gives users the ability to run an instance of Windows
Server 2008 R2 running in Microsoft’s cloud, making it easier for developers to
move applications to the cloud. Server Application virtualization gives
developers the ability to transfer application images to Windows Azure, using
the underlying management of the platform.
Microsoft
also announced several Windows Azure services for developers. Microsoft
announced the Windows Azure AppFabric Composition Model to speed the process of
assembling services by providing application development and management
capabilities. Microsoft also announced the Windows Azure Marketplace, including
DataMarket (formerly “Project Dallas”), offering premium and public
demographic, financial, mapping and entertainment data and other content,
Microsoft said.
Meanwhile,
during his keynote at the PDC, Ballmer underscored Microsoft’s commitment to
HTML5, noting how developers can fuse the full hardware acceleration and
site-centric design in Internet Explorer 9 to tap into the power of the PC
hardware, transforming their Websites to feel more like native Windows
applications.
“HTML5
is the glue that holds all of this together,” Ballmer said.
Dean
Hachamovitch, Microsoft’s general manager for Internet Explorer, said Microsoft
has seen more than 10 million downloads of IE9 since the beta was released six
weeks ago.
Hachamovitch
also announced that Microsoft has delivered Internet Explorer 9 Platform
Preview 6, which features better performance and more standards support. The
new preview is available at http://www.IETestDrive.com.
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