Overdue Updates, Delays Marked Microsoft’s 2005
By Andy Patrizio
January 1, 2006 —
“Punctual” is not a word normally used to describe Microsoft.
Products promised for 2004 finally were delivered in 2005, while other products promised for 2005 slipped into ’06. Visual Studio 2005 shipped on Nov. 7, along with SQL Server 2005, BizTalk Server 2006 and version 2.0 of the .NET Framework.
The SQL Server 2005 upgrade was long overdue, as Microsoft had let its RDBMS go five years and allowed Oracle and IBM to gain ground. But Microsoft did make up for the delay with a lot of features: CLR integration, stored procedures in .NET languages, XML, integration with BizTalk Server and Commerce Server, business intelligence capabilities and more.
Not making it to market in 2005 was the ambitious Visual Studio Team System, Microsoft’s entry into the life-cycle management world. Although Team System had been due late in the year, only portions of it shipped in 2005. The underlying Team Foundation Server slipped to early 2006.
RSS embraced
September saw Microsoft give RSS (Really Simple Syndication) a huge bear hug. The company promised to build support for the multiple versions of RSS into Vista, Internet Explorer 7 and Office 12. RSS is supported on an ever-increasing number of news Web sites, but by and large, the most popular RSS readers have been shareware/freeware. Microsoft has promised native RSS support in Outlook and Internet Explorer 7.
Microsoft also is offering a pair of extensions to RSS, which it will release under the Creative Commons license. One will extend RSS list capabilities to add ordering information to a stream, so an RSS feed could better handle things such as e-commerce purchases. The second is a means of sharing contact and calendaring information between information servers, such as Exchange and Notes.
Office 12, due around the same time as Vista (knock on wood), will include native XML, in theory opening Office data files to use in any application that can read XML.
Collaboration is getting a boost in Office 12 with support for telephony, shared note-taking, Web conferencing, instant messaging, and secure, federated access to public instant messaging networks, such as those of AOL and Yahoo. Microsoft also plans to offer servers for at least some of its applications, starting with Excel. The Excel server will manage documents and offer enterprise content management, as well as document life-cycle management, searching, security, business process and business intelligence.
Microsoft did deliver one product on time, and many consumers wondered if it was worth it. Xbox 360, the second-generation video-game console, hit stores in November, but it was a very rough launch, even by Microsoft standards. Supply was nowhere near demand, resulting in serious gouging on eBay.
Share this link: http://sdt.bz/29073
Most Read Latest News Blog Resources
Zeichick’s Take: Radio moves from analog waveforms to digital packets
Streaming radio highlights the need for streaming applications to be designed to take up as little bandwidth as possible
|
|
Taking enterprise architecture to the business side
Startup Corso is bringing out a cloud-based planning platform that ties into business plans
|
|
Appcelerator Acquires Cocoafish to Add Instant Mobile Cloud Capabilities to its Industry Leading Titanium Platform
Appcelerator Offers Messaging, Social, Location and Storage Mobile Cloud Services to All Mobile App Publishers
|
|
ComponentOne Releases a Collection of 40+ UI Widgets Powered by HTML5 and jQuery
ComponentOne has announced the 2012 release of Wijmo: a kit of UI widgets for HTML5 and jQuery development
|
Taking enterprise architecture to the business side
Startup Corso is bringing out a cloud-based planning platform that ties into business plans
|
|
Top five apps to manage your workload
Web applications offer new ways to track your “to-do” lists
|
|
Not so fast when it comes to testing in the cloud
Developers face outsourcing, virtual lab management and mobile devices as obstacles
|
|
Xceed releases UX-focused suite for Microsoft’s WPF
"Blendables" helps match user experiences to developer visions
|
Are you at risk for burnout?
Burnout is a severe problem and it can strike at any time. Here's how to tell if you are nearing the edge.
|
|
Agility, mom, and apple pie
If we're to evaluate the state-of-the-art in software development, we should start with the values espoused in the Agile Manifesto.
|
|
RIM woos developers with free tablet
How do you get more apps ported to the BlackBerry PlayBook? By giving every developer a free tablet, of course!
|
|
GitHire: Use Headhunters to Find Your Perfect Programmer
Are you a hiring manager tired of scouring the job boards? Check out this new service that will find 5 people interested in your jobs.
|
The Hidden Costs of Software Licensing
Moving beyond paper-based software licensing to more flexible, software-based licensing is a business decision. There is a growing trend tow...
|
|
Case Study: You May Need a Development Mechanic
As a contractor for a major financial player in Germany, SOBEGE, a German-based consultancy specializing in embedded IT and web services, wa...
|
|
Ensuring Software Quality at a Major International Bank
One of the world’s leading international banks has adopted AgitarOne technology for delivering generated unit tests for their Java software...
|
|
Load Testing Adobe Flex Applications
Adobe Flex applications may be different from applications you’ve worked with before. For classic HTML web applications, the server does all...
|