PDC 2008 just concluded and there is just too much to talk about (or blog about).  That will happen over a course of time, since I am simply not the kind who blogs reguarly.

I am a big fan of MJF and the tenacity with which she covers Microsoft.  Back in the days when Microsoft Watch was synonymous with MJF (it still is when I mention the name MJF to many people), "watching Microsoft like a hawk" used to really kick me!  I wasn't a Microsoft employee then and MJF was at one time the only way to keep a deep insight on Microsoft.  Of course, that has changed since I am with Microsoft because I have faaaaar more insight that MJF with all her "sources" is able to gather. (Not showing off, just saying that as a regular MSFT employee, you can get a lot more detail into where the company's focused, what we're doing and what will show up when).

I was at the company store at PDC 2008 and was looking at MJF's book "Microsoft 2.0" - almost bought it, but decided I'd buy it back in India.  I did skim through the foreword, which interestingly is written by Mini-MSFT, and one like there (the introductory line actually) gave a kick!  It went to say what does the word "Microsoft" mean to you - how has it changed your life, what do you think of when you hear it, what goes through your mind, etc..

To me, it is a LOOOT of things.. I probably will have to pen that in a multi-part series someday!!  However, this recent post on MJF's blog is ONE of the many reasons I love Microsoft.  This is Microsoft, this is what I adore - this is why I love being in this company more than anything else in this world.  This is also reason why I am part of a company that TRULY belives in changing the world!

Microosft PDC is underway and the keynote address is going on.  I am sitting in the audience and am listening to the tons of announcements and products being unveiled.  Windows Azure is the core of our cloud computing platform that just got announced.

More on all this later – I am not so much into live blogging and missing out on all the cool demos being shown here!!  But you can head over to www.microsoftpdc.com and to http://blogs.msdn.com/cloud, http://www.microsoft.com/azure and http://www.azure.com to keep track of everything.

Do login again to PDC keynote tomorrow – there is another keynote with all of the client platform.

(Note: some of the links might take a while to get working since they are just getting provisioned)

Microsoft announced that Silverlight 2 is now releasing out of BETA and all the development tools and runtime updates will be available for download shortly. 

A new announcement is providing support for the Eclipse IDE, hence allowing Java developers and other Eclipse developers to stay within their familiar development environment while developing with Silverlight 2.  This has been done in collaboration with Soyatec, an international software company and a major Eclipse solutions provider.

The Eclipse tools website (with screenshots) is available at http://www.eclipse4sl.org/ 

If you have still been having your application on Silverlight 2 BETA 2, this is the time to upgrade your application.  There are a bunch of breaking changes and it is important to know that visitors who will auto-update to the latest version of the Silverlight plug-in will end up having a broken experience if your website is still using BETA 2.  Take a look at the breaking changes document and Tim Heuer’s excellent post on what steps developers should take to upgrade their applications.

The official Microsoft PressPass article with more details on the plug-in deployment statistics and features is available here.

Have fun developing!