Tech Industry Seeks Novelty at DEMO, VSLive

Hot new technologies (and no doubt, novel spins on old technologies) will be showcased next week at two conferences: DEMO, the computer industrys exclusive winter gathering in the desert, and VSLive, a developer event sponsored by Fawcette Technical Publications.

Dubbed DEMO@15! this year in honor of its fifteenth anniversary, Network World Events & Executive Forums DEMO conference gives venture capitalists, industry execs and distributors a chance to see forthcoming products, presented quickly.

More than 70 quick demos are slated for the two-day event held in Scottsdale, Ariz. Many common consumer and enterprise technologies and products have been launched at the conferencing, from the Java language to the Palm PDA.

While the details of what will be demonstrated is a secret, the conference sessions look to tackle both client and server security architectures, the latest developments in search-engine technology and new forms of Web content distribution through RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and Weblogs.

/zimages/4/28571.gifMobile blogs, or moblogs, were a hot topic at last years DEMO conference.Click hereto read more.

Reporters will be on the spot to bring readers inside coverage of the DEMO show.

Meanwhile, Microsoft will push smart clients and connected systems at VSLive in San Francisco.

Microsoft has been beating the “smart client” drum for more than two years now. But the pounding mostly seems to have deafened developers and customers.

But Microsoft isnt giving up. At the conference, S. “Soma” Somasegar, corporate vice president of Microsofts developer division, is on tap to talk smart clients during the shows opening keynote.

Somasegar will highlight the tools available for developing smart clients, such as Windows Forms, Visual Studio Tools for Office, Information Bridge Framework, the .Net Compact Framework and InfoPath. He also is on tap to explain Microsofts recommendations on when to use “thin” (Web) clients and when to use “fat” (smart) clients.

/zimages/4/28571.gifTo read a recent interview with Somasegar,click here.

Running parallel to the main VSLive track will be sessions dedicated to the themes of “Windows Anywhere” and Indigo. The Windows Anywhere track will be aimed primarily at ISVs that Microsoft is encouraging to develop for the Tablet PC platform. The Indigo track will be all about the Windows communications subsystem that Microsoft is developing to run on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Longhorn.

Microsoft is not expected to provide the eagerly awaited Visual Studio 2005 “Whidbey” Beta 2 bits at the conference. But company officials are expected to commit to delivering Whidbey Beta 2, SQL Server 2005 Beta 3 and a first CTP (community technology preview) build of Indigo by March 31.

Keep checking eWEEK.com and Microsoft Watch for the latest news and analysis from the VSLive conference.

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