Microsoft Data Chief Stepping Down

Mary Jo Foley is reporting that  Microsoft Corporate Vice President Ted Kummert is stepping down as of Jan. 31. Kummert was the head of Microsoft's Data Platform Group (DPG), and in this role, as Foley writes, he's the leading visionary for "SQL Server, SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse, Windows Azure Data Services, Windows Embedded and Microsoft's business intelligence and big data offerings."

Posted by Keith Ward on 01/25/20131 comments

Microsoft Unveils a New F# Learning Site

Microsoft has released a new version of its Web site to get developers up to speed on its F# programming language.

To put it in highly technical terms, F# is used for big stuff: huge number crunching, statistics, cloud computing-type scenarios, etc. Here's how Microsoft described the new site in a press release:

"Try F# provides the tutorials, resources and tools needed to begin working with F# right away. This version allows easy learning of the fundamentals of F# through new domain-specific tutorials, and now includes F# 3.0 type providers for information-rich programming and the important abilities to write and share your own F# code in the browser."

Posted by Keith Ward on 01/22/20133 comments

Should Windows Phone Developers Target Both 7 and 8?

What to do about Windows Phone 7? That's a question developers working on the Windows Phone platform are likely asking themselves. They fall into one of two camps:

• They have an existing app on Windows Phone 7 and want to tweak it to work with Windows Phone 8
• They skipped Windows Phone 7 for Windows Phone 8, and have published an app or are currently building one.

If that's you, Microsoft is providing guidance on how to handle the Windows Phone 7 installed base. It comes via a blog posting from Bernardo Zamora. Zamora says if you have a Windows Phone 7 app and want Windows Phone 8 users to be able to use it without upgrading the app itself for Windows Phone 8, you don't need to do anything, since Windows Phone 8 users will see your app (he does recommend, however, testing your app in a Windows Phone 8 emulator to make sure nothing is amiss).

Posted by Keith Ward on 01/16/20132 comments

Visual Studio 2012 RC to Expire Jan. 15

If you're using the release candidate version of Visual Studio 2012, you have one day to come up with an alternative plan.

Starting tomorrow, Jan. 15, your copy of Visual Studio goes kaput. Sayonra. Buh-bye. And there are no workarounds to keep it running, according to Microsoft's Brian Harry, who wanted to soothe the souls of those developers who have been asking him about the looming expiration date for the RC.

Posted by Keith Ward on 01/14/20130 comments

Microsoft: 40 Million Windows 8 Licenses

If developers are looking for a reason to create apps for Windows 8, Microsoft gave them another one today, when the company announced that it's sold 40 million licenses for its newest operating system.

Microsoft's Brandon LeBlanc spread the word on the Windows blog, stating that Tami Reller detailed the numbers at the Credit Suisse 2012 Annual Technology Conference.

Posted by Keith Ward on 11/28/20121 comments

Of Windows Phone 8 and Blue T-Shirts

I buy all my phones at my local AT&T store. Since I live in the sticks, the store serves as a pretty good test case for how well Microsoft is pushing its products. This includes perhaps the most important factor in moving new, non-iPhone or -Android phones: educating salespeople to understand how to differentiate Windows Phone 8 from the competition, and interest consumers into at least considering the platform.

If, for example, Windows Phone 8 has very few models available, or they're tucked away in back of the store, that's a sure sign to potential buyers that it's not a choice they need to take seriously. That's what happened, in fact, with Windows Phone 7 in my local store. So I was interested to see what was happening with Windows Phone 8 when I went in last week -- coincidentally, the kickoff of the crucial holiday shopping period.

Posted by Keith Ward on 11/27/20124 comments

Microsoft Releases SkyDrive SDKs for .NET, Windows Phone 8

Microsoft's making a huge push for its SkyDrive cloud data service. It makes sense, since a cloud backend is critical in the consumer space where customers are used to, for instance, Apple's iCloud service. If Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 are going to compete with iOS and Android, as Redmond hopes, then SkyDrive needs to be as useful as possible.

Toward that end, Microsoft today announced new SkyDrive SDKs for .NET and Windows Phone 8. The post, by Omar Shahine, explains the need for the new tools:

Posted by Keith Ward on 11/16/20122 comments

What C++ Means to Windows Phone 8

What's your favorite thing about developing for Windows Phone 8? Is it the new CoreCLR that replaces the .NET Compact Framework, providing unity across both the smartphone and Windows 8 tablet platforms? Is it the inclusion of the async programming model? Maybe the code generation that now happens in the Windows Store cloud, speeding up app delivery by, potentially, a lot? The fact that the annoying SDK delay is finally over?

Posted by Keith Ward on 11/09/20121 comments

Microsoft Exec: 100,000 Windows Store Apps by January

You'd better get to work. Microsoft is counting on you, dear developer, to write Windows 8 apps at a furious pace.

At least, that seems to be Microsoft's stance, based on an interview with Keith Lorizio, Microsoft's vice president of U.S. sales and marketing, that appeared on Beet.tv. In the interview, currently making the rounds of cyberspace, Lorizio says Microsoft's goal is to have "100,000-plus" apps in the Windows Store within 90 days of Windows 8's release, which would put it at Jan. 26.

Posted by Keith Ward on 10/10/20127 comments

Windows Phone 8, and the SDK, Coming Oct. 29

Microsoft has revealed that it will announce Windows Phone 8 later this month, on Oct. 29. The news comes via the always-reliable Mary Jo Foley, Redmond magazine columnist and ZDNet's Microsoft blogger.

Oct. 29, Foley wrote is not the day the phone will be launched, however; rather, the complete feature set and specs will be unveiled. What's even more important for Windows Phone developers, though, is that the Windows Phone 8 SDK should also be available at that time.

Posted by Keith Ward on 10/06/20127 comments

Microsoft Upgrades Windows Phone Dev Center

The Windows Phone Developer Center, open just a month now, already has its first update. Microsoft's Todd Brix blogged that the Web site has more than 100 upgrades, including reliability, performance and app submission fixes.

One very cool update is the ability to have user feedback on an app translated into a language of the developer's choice. So if you're getting feedback in German, for example, and you don't know German, the dev center can translate comments into English. It does this via the "Microsoft Translator," according to a screenshot on the blog entry.

Posted by Keith Ward on 09/28/20120 comments

Intel CEO: Windows 8 Needs 'Improvements'

Is anyone else bothered by this Bloomberg report that quoted Intel CEO Paul Otellini as saying that Windows 8 isn't ready for release?

Otellini allegedly made those comments to employees at a meeting in Taiwan. "Improvements still need to be made to the software," he was quoted as saying.

Posted by Keith Ward on 09/26/201212 comments