Microsoft focuses on apps modeling
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Microsoft on Tuesday is looking to extend visual modeling of applications in its Visual Studio 2005 platform, with an early release of technology to enable developers to author industry-specific modeling tools.
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Microsoft is preparing to release a new suite of applications under the Windows Live umbrella, further upping the ante in its battle to fend up growing competition from the likes of Google and Yahoo. The effort is the next step in Microsoft's transition to software-plus-services.
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U.S. software giant Microsoft  is aiming to get its audio and video software into mobile phones before it is beaten to the 650-million-handsets-a-year market by rivals like Apple.
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Microsoft, IBM and Borland are upgrading their software and offering users new workflow features, support for multiple languages and tools to manage the lifecycle of in-house applications.
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Microsoft's  founder is expected to detail the company's plan for computer management software and announce a long-awaited Windows update tool.
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Beta application is available as part of the new MSN Toolbar Suite.
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Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 offers new features such as graphical systems views and enhanced reporting tools, and has been designed to be easier to deploy than its predecessor.
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Microsoft officials preached the company's Oslo computing vision Tuesday, which encompasses services deployment from the client to the cloud and making models a mainstream part of development.Officials discussed Oslo and related efforts in business process management and SOA at the Microsoft 2007 SOA and Business Process Conference in Redmond, Wash. The intent of the event is to make it easier to build applications that matter to business, according to the company.Oslo features two top-level points, said Robert Wahbe, corporate vice president of the Connected Systems Division at Microsoft. "The first is we're doubling down on services," he said. "We've been working in services and [are] a leader on services and we're extending that from the client and making a huge bet on the cloud." Microsoft will host services itself, he said.?The second main point is making a platform that is fundamentally model-driven. Microsoft officials expounded on a new modeling tool and a repository to break down application silos. A modeling language will be featured that interoperates with other modeling languages such as BPEL (Business Process Execution Language) for Web Services.Microsoft technologies shown included an application composer to map application parts to systems.Also emphasized Tuesday was the company's Internet Service Bus concept for SOA, featuring a hosted platform for building composite applications, connecting disparate systems, and providing communication between end points. Microsoft's Internet Service Bus has encompassed hosted building-block services to connect systems across business units and partners as well as .Net Framework extensions.An attendee lauded Microsoft for finally countering rivals by detailing its SOA efforts."I think that prior to this point, it's been hard using Microsoft SOA technologies in competitive situations with other vendors like IBM and Tibco and now what I see is the kind of vision and platform that we need to have in place in order to implement a full SOA [implementation] on the Microsoft stack," said Sam Gentile, principal consultant with Neudesic, a Microsoft technology platform partner.But an industry analyst was less impressed with Microsoft's Oslo vision."I think it made sense from the aspiration perspective, but I thought there's still a lot of details left to be clarified," said Dwight Davis, analyst with Ovum. One detail Davis wanted was whether the new modeling tool would work with pre-existing tools.Also, some of Microsoft's discussion sounded familiar to the company's Dynamic IT plan, Davis said. (Microsoft has noted in a press statement that Oslo builds on the model-driven and service-enabled principals of Microsoft Dynamic IT.)Microsoft's plan also sounded akin to the company?s Dynamic Systems Initiative for agile businesses, which was not even mentioned today, Davis noted.Microsoft also did not mention its previously discussed SML (Service Modeling Language) technology for modeling complex IT services and systems, Davis said. "Where was SML today?" Davis asked.Oslo will not involve new products but instead incorporates Oslo-based functionality into new products, such as a version of Visual Studio currently referred to as visual Studio "10."
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Borland Software Corp. has laid-out a product roadmap and strategy to better align customers&#39; Application Lifecycle Management processes with their changing business needs, helping deliver what it called &quot;Enterprise Resource Planning&quot; for software.
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The tools, part of an upcoming Visual Studio update, are focused on making it easier to create customized Web applications.
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Microsoft prepares to release a new application for delivering "snippets" of data to Windows Mobile devices at the Mobile World Congress.
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This afternoon at TechEd, Microsoft architect evangelist "Chef" David Aiken (complete with white uniform) demonstrated a component called Visual Studio Management Model Designer.  He described it as an essential component of .NET Framework 3.0 development, though it is probably as official a .NET component at this point as PowerShell was a component of Longhorn as of last year.
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Mobile phones play an important role in Microsoft&#39;s software plus services vision, CEO Steve Ballmer said Tuesday.Microsoft&#39;s software strategy a few years ago revolved around software that was either embedded on devices or burned onto CDs and shipped to users, he said. Today, however, software works in tandem with the Internet, which can back up and update the software.&quot;There&#39;s no better way then the cell networks of the world to make this model happen,&quot; he said, speaking during the opening presentation at the CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment conference in San Francisco. He envisions a time when software is wirelessly updated and works in tandem with services hosted on the Internet.But the software plus services concept won&#39;t be different for the PC and the mobile phone, he said. At the top of Microsoft&#39;s innovation agenda is unifying a variety of devices and applications. Microsoft is focused on enabling developers to create single applications that take advantage of phones, desktop computers, the enterprise environment, and the online environment, he said.Microsoft is enabling that in part by offering a consistent platform that developers can use to create applications for the PC and mobile phones. For example, a developer can write a thin client for mobile phones using HTML, Ajax, and, in the future, Silverlight. Microsoft&#39;s .Net and Visual Studio can be used to write rich applications for mobile phones. Microsoft also offers a compact version of SQL so that developers can write applications for Windows Mobile phones for database manipulation.The phone is particularly important in achieving Microsoft&#39;s unified view, he said. &quot;The PC is the most powerful device, but the phone is the most popular,&quot; he said. Particularly in the developing world where PC&#39;s may be cost prohibitive, cell phones may be more widespread.Microsoft is focused on providing software for partners to use and it is working carefully not to compete with them, he said. Unlike Google, Microsoft won&#39;t be participating in the upcoming 700MHz spectrum auction. &quot;What would it buy us to own a piece of spectrum?&quot; he said. &quot;It would probably do a lot to alienate the telecom industry. It does not do a lot to advance our goal, which is to take some exciting technology and spread it.&quot;Windows Mobile is a big opportunity financially for Microsoft from two perspectives, he said. If Windows Mobile runs hundreds of millions of devices, that&#39;s a great business for Microsoft, he said. &quot;Also, I don&#39;t think we can serve our customers&#39; broad desire to bring together desktops, devices, enterprise, and online if we ignore the mobile area,&quot; he said.
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Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday said it is launching a desktop application that aims to seamlessly integrate e-mail, instant messaging, video conferencing, traditional phone service and Internet-based calling.
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Office, Microsoft Corp.&#39;s collection of programs for business documents and tasks, is fast becoming a software platform unto itself.
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InfoWorld - Microsoft will work with 3D design and visualization software developer Dassault Syst&#232;mes, to add a new dimension to its Virtual Earth mapping and satellite imagery service, the companies announced Tuesday.
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InfoWorld - Microsoft says it will focus on four key areas to improve interoperability between its own software and other vendors' products.