Software estimation is a famously inexact business. Web-hosted software provider
Planix hopes to change that with its Planix estimation solution, which draws
on established best practices and proprietary methodologies to refine build-and-test
phase project planning and estimation.
The tool lets users generate outcome scenarios, ranging from worst and best
cases to most likely. Managers can also craft what-if scenarios. As a hosted
app, Planix doesn't impose the usual up-front deployment and licensing costs,
which means busy dev shops can immediately benefit.
More
Posted on 02/28/20070 comments
Everyone knows that an MSDN subscription can slash licensing costs and provide
discounted access to Microsoft support. But Microsoft provides a host of other
services and avenues for getting enhanced support, services and insight. Whether
it's signing up for beta and other pre-release product programs, tapping into
partnership programs that nurture fledgling ISVs, or working to obtain certification
for your firm or MVP status for a key employee, there are plenty of ways to
get more out of Microsoft.
More
Posted by Michael Desmond on 02/21/20070 comments
It wasn't so long ago that a lot of folks were wondering if the Borland Developer
Tools Group had any future at all. After all, Borland was unable to meet its self-imposed
Q3 deadline for announcing a buyer for its tools group. Instead, in November,
Borland opted to spin the group out as a wholly owned subsidiary, called
CodeGear
.
Now the firm is delivering its first new products as an independent entity.
And the releases follow through on earlier promises by CodeGear CEO Ben Smith
to make an entrance into the hyperactive arena of dynamic languages.
More
Posted by Michael Desmond on 02/21/20070 comments
Every April, millions of Americans show up late for work, late for church and
late for life. That's because Daylight Saving Time (DST) moves the clock forward
at 2 a.m. Now, thanks to the U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005, that dislocation
is going to happen several weeks earlier than normal -- on March 11, to be exact.
Intended to help conserve energy by reducing nighttime use of lighting and
other energy resources, the policy also impacts
applications and software that employ date and time stamps or otherwise
track, manipulate or act upon data based on the time of day.
More
Posted by Michael Desmond on 02/14/20070 comments
Everyone likes to tease Microsoft for its painful product branding practices,
especially when you get late-inning name changes
like
those to SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition
.
In his blog Capricious Optimism, Microsoft Software Design Engineer Chris Smith
wrote about some of the best
Microsoft code names, and we can't help but think there might be an inverse
relationship at work here. The more dramatic the code name, quite often, the
more opaque the final product name. So the menacing and exotic Tarantula becomes
Internet Information Server, the playful Zamboni becomes C++ v4.1, and the promising
Nemesis ends up as Windows Media Encoder 7.0. More recently, Windows Presentation
Foundation was Avalon, Windows Communication Foundation was Indigo and the euphonious
.NET 3.0 Framework was WinFX.
More
Posted by Michael Desmond on 02/07/20070 comments
A rebranding will happen soon, but for now Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere
(WPF/E, for short) remains the most awkwardly named, anxiously awaited technology
since Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Second Edition (VSTO 2005
SE). I mean, you can't make this stuff up.
The future Adobe Flash killer and Web-savvy platform for slick 3D, video and
vector graphics got a fresh debut earlier this week, with the CTP release of
the WPF/E software development kit. The SDK lets developers build animation,
video and audio-laced content for the Web, using standard AJAX and XAML. The
SDK includes documentation, code samples and tools for getting down to work.
You can download it here.
More
Posted by Michael Desmond on 02/07/20070 comments
Microsoft announced last Tuesday that it has shipped the ASP.NET AJAX development
tools. The toolkit, codenamed "Atlas," consists of a server-side framework,
a client-side JavaScript library and a controls toolkit. The package adds AJAX
(Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) support to ASP.NET 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005.
Microsoft had originally planned to ship the software with Visual Studio "Orcas"
later this year. The runaway success of AJAX development, however, left Microsoft
little choice but to get the tools out to developers right away. AJAX began
beta testing in late October after several community technology preview (CTP)
releases.
More
Posted by Michael Desmond on 01/31/20070 comments
Microsoft research fellow Jim Gray has been a major player in the area of database
development and transaction processing. A Turing Award winner who helped create
many of the foundation technologies at the heart of modern database and transaction
processing systems, Gray founded and managed the Microsoft Bay Area Research
Center.
Now it appears that Jim Gray, 63, may have been lost at sea during a solo day
trip he took from a San Francisco marina on Sunday morning.
More
Posted by Michael Desmond on 01/31/20078 comments
Question: When is an OS launch not an OS launch? Answer: When the retail launch
of Microsoft Windows Vista occurs a full two months after code had shipped to
volume license customers.
That detail didn't prevent Microsoft from pulling out the stops in New York
City on Monday, as it unveiled the long-awaited client operating system to the
public. Redmond Channel Partner Editor in Chief Scott Bekker was in New York
and describes
the "orchestrated hoopla," including billboards sporting Vista
and Office logos and staged live outdoor events. Further afield, Bekker writes
that Microsoft "held a beach festival in Brazil, fireworks at the Eiffel
Tower in Paris and arranged for ice sculpture displays in Sweden and Canada."
More
Posted by Michael Desmond on 01/31/20070 comments
Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you know that Microsoft has been working
overtime to position its Office OpenXML (OOXML) file format specification as
a standard document format. Much of this activity has been spurred by the OpenDocument
Format (ODF) promoted by the open source OpenOffice suite and its commercial
branches like Sun StarOffice.
How high are the stakes? In Massachusetts, a years-long effort to require that
all documents be stored in an open, industry-standard format resulted in intense
lobbying and opposition from Microsoft. It also helped drive the activity around
OOXML as a viable standards-based alternative to ODF.
More
Posted by Michael Desmond on 01/24/20070 comments
First there was the Notebooks for Bloggers imbroglio, where Microsoft gifted
prominent bloggers with tasty Windows Vista-based laptops. Now the company has
been
caught
in a dust-up with Wikipedia
.
The whole thing centers around Microsoft's effort to hire a technical writer
to review and edit a pair of Wikipedia entries. One titled "OpenDocument"
about the OpenDocument File format standard, and the other titled "ECMA
Office Open XML" about Microsoft's competing standard file format.
While Wikipedia is famously open to edits and contributions from individuals,
the organization is adamantly opposed to any sort of pay-for-play activity on
the site.
More
Posted by Michael Desmond on 01/24/20070 comments
The context-sensitive UI of Microsoft Office 2007 got a name the other day, and
developers got a deal in the process. The
newly
minted Fluent UI
boasts all the bells and whistles that garnered Office 2007
so much attention last fall, including the innovative ribbon interface and context-aware
controls.
More important, Microsoft is making the Fluent UI available for developers
to use in their applications, royalty free. The licensing program will let developers
build applications that boast the look and feel of Office 2007 applications,
including the context-aware ribbon controls. A Design Guidelines document provides
what Takeshi Numoto, Microsoft general manager of the Office Client, describes
as "a roadmap for developers implementing the UI."
More
Posted by Michael Desmond on 01/24/20071 comments