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Microsoft PDC Is Back On
Microsoft Professional Developers Conference is back on the roster for October 2008 in L.A.
Microsoft PDC is back on the schedule, albeit a year later than previously planned.
The next Professional Developers Conference will take place Oct. 27-30 in Los Angeles, according to e-mail sent Thursday.
Microsoft nixed PDC 2007 that was to have been last October; the announcement came last spring.
The company bills PDC as "the definitive Microsoft event for software developers and architects," so the cancellation raised questions, even though observers criticized Microsoft for event glut in the last few years.
Critics have also slammed the company for failure to deliver on most all of the promises made at PDC 2003, where it had talked up the infamous "pillars" of Longhorn; nearly all failed to appear anywhere near on schedule, and most are being fitted retroactively to run with Windows XP. The last PDC was in 2005.
Since that conference, the company had to split the Longhorn release into the Vista client, launched early this year, and Windows Server 2008, slated to officially debut in February. Both were/are very late.
One of the implicit messages from PDC 2007 cancellation was that Microsoft wanted to make sure there was lots to talk about. By next fall, the company should be well on its way to the next Visual Studio release, code named "Rosario."
In the meantime, developers hope to have had final releases of Windows 2008 and SQL Server 2008 in their hands for several months going into PDC 2008.
About the Author
Barbara Darrow is Industry Editor for Redmond Developer News, Redmond magazine and Redmond Channel Partner. She has covered technology and business issues for 20 years.