So day one of PDC 2008 is coming to an end, I’ll be going to the “Show Time” special session in a few minutes, then check if there’s a party around. What did that first PDC day bring me exactly? Well, I can now put a name on something obvious that had to come from Microsoft: Windows Azure. The cloud finally has a name… a better name, that is. I’m still wondering if they did tie the “Operating System” tag to Azure strongly enough. Because that’s what it really is. I kept saying that Live Mesh had to be more than just synching and remoting. Turns out it is only a part of the bigger Azure picture.
Azure is a good thing for Microsoft. A very good thing, because Microsoft has the developer framework to succeed. They’ll end up doing much better than Amazon or Google, because devs feel very comfortable with the whole Visual Studio echo system.
The down side is: that wasn’t a very exciting day. All this was expected news, obvious news, the normal path MS had to take to consolidate corporate developers they had a little neglected in the past years.
Now, it doesn’t mean the “end user” developer must be neglected now. I’m very eager to see tomorrow if the "Other Windows 7” (Mobile) will have his period of fame. The future of Windows Mobile is much more than simply running Silverlight stuff natively on mobile devices. The interface needs a facelift, and the developer community around Windows Mobile needs more support from Microsoft itself. The other reseller players in the industry are doing terrible damage to Windows Mobile’s image. They suck! It’s great to see more APIs, but Microsoft is not just an API company. Enough ingredients, let’s make some recipes. Let’s bring something like the Apple App Store to Windows Mobile. Only Microsoft can make this happen successfully.