McFilter

The second panel session was another Q&A round, this time answering questions from the audience about technical issues. The panel comprised:

• Marck Pearlstone of BrainStorm Software
• Michael Lehman of Microsoft's Project Glidepath
• Sinan Karaca of InstallAware
• Thomas Wetzel of Wisco
• Marcel Hartgerink of Wibu Systems

How do l get Vista support from Microsoft?

Michael: If you get stuck, email me and I'll find someone to help. Once it ships then there'll be more manpower available.

Tony Wieser: Are Microsoft going to help with software protection for .Net?

Michael: As far as I'm aware, there's nothing available at present. He's working with .Net team but their focus is more enterprise at the moment.

Which versions of Vista are aimed at who?

Michael: He don't know details of marketing side; or which version OEMs will ship.

Web 2.0, web apps... will they converge with desktop, or replace the desktop, or... what?

Sinan: You'll have both still, but they'll integrate more.

Thomas: People won't trust putting their data online. Some will move, most won't.

Marck: Doesn't want to do stuff online. Horses for courses. Web2.0 won't go away, but won't overrun the desktop.

Marcel: Web2.0 apps don't allways make sense - e.g. for deployment in environments such as hospitals, etc.

Michael: Different approach to building apps, to match environment - desktop/web/mobile/etc. but desktop not going away.

Original Questioner: Expects convergence, but not one replacing other.

Tony Wieser: How do we make money from China?

Marck: if fired nicely, you can sell it down the market...

Marcel: Embryonic. They have an office there but not many sales.

Thomas: We have 2 users in China.

Michael, are you focused on .Net and Vista or will you help Win32 developers?

Michael: He evangelises micro-ISVs but is also on Vista evangelism team. Will help find the right people if you can't find them yourself.

Is Win32 a long term platform?

Michael: new technologies like WPF, etc. are targeted at .Net, so I wouldn't start a new app in C++ today. A few Win32 things are now restricted for security purposes.

Simon Murphy: Is security a market?

Thomas: Biggest market but but lots of competition.

How do we get hold of RTM [Release To Market - final, shipped version] Vista and Office 2007?

Michael: MSDN.

Sinan: With the Empower programme you can get a good discount on the MSDN for a year or two. $300/yr.

Michael: Everyone should join partner programme as it's free. Empower doesn't quite include all server stuff etc.

Installer question. Is there a way to generate different installers for affiliates?

Sinan: Yes. Lots of ways it could be done, and they wouldn't require building lots of different but nearly identical installers.

Can I get the .Net runtime installed from Microsoft rather than from my website?

Sinan: We can compress .Net 1.1 better than Microsoft, and can make it an optional component downloaded automatically but only if it's needed.

Michael: .Net 3.0 will ship with Vista, so should solve this problem once and for all.

Thomas: why is Office 2007 not managed code?

Michael: Parts are. Office 2007 has been being written for too long, and they can't convert all the Office developers into .Net developers in time.

Straw Poll

Who's developing in/for...

• .Net: ~1/3 of everyone
• Linux: 2 guys. That's less than last year.
• Mac: 1 guy.
• VB6: a handful.
• C/C++: half.
• Delphi: just under half.
• Windows Mobile: 3 guys.

What will be next great big idea overhyped?

Marck: Web 2.0.

Michael: Intentional/functional thing from Charles Simonyi [link to Seattle Times article about this] (could be the next big thing, or the next big over-hyped thing, not clear at the moment).