Beyond Binary

LOS ANGELES--After spending much of Tuesday in the clouds, the second day of the Professional Developers Conference on Wednesday is expected to be far more grounded.

On tap is a discussion of the Office 2010 beta as well as the first details on Internet Explorer 9, although Microsoft is not providing code. Microsoft is also talking about Silverlight 4 and releasing a beta of that product.

8:30 a.m. PT: Windows unit president Steven Sinofsky takes the stage.

Sinofsky said that Microsoft approaches Windows 7 like building a movie theater. Microsoft's job is to provide "great seats, great sounds and maybe a concession stand" while developers make the actual movies.

Although developers were interested in hearing about IE 9, the most popular part of Steven Sinofsky's talk was when he announced that paid PDC attendees were getting a free Windows 7 laptop.

(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET)

8:35 a.m. PT: Sinofsky is talking about the Windows 7 development process from before the code was publicly released through beta testing and release.

He's hitting on familiar refrains--trying to be more predictable, talking about features only when they are fully baked, and all of the "telemetry" Microsoft uses to get automated feedback.

Sinofsky is talking about the different mechanisms Microsoft uses from Windows Error Reporting, or Watson, to its Software Quality Monitor. Sinofsky notes that the monitoring tools require the user's permission in the final versions of Windows.

During the beta process, though, "we opt you in automatically," he says. (Not to quibble, but technically that's known as opt-out.)

Semantics aside, the shift to automated feedback has had a major impact on the way Windows is developed. In the past, Sinofsky said, bugs got fixed, in large part, based on "whoever screamed the loudest."

Sinofsky said it was basically "testosterone-based bug fixing."

With automated mechanism, Microsoft can see which problems are affecting the most people most often.

8:40 a.m. PT: Sinofsky is sharing some numbers about the Windows 7 beta.

Microsoft got 1.7 million feedback reports, or one feedback report every 10 seconds in the first two weeks after beta. There were 8.1 million installations of the beta, including 4.3 million installations of the release candidate.

There were 10.4 million error reports, which resulted in 4,753 code changes. The start menu was clicked 514 million times in the past six months, while the new Aero Snap and Shake features were clicked 46.4 million times during the same period.

8:45 a.m. PT: Sinofsky is talking about usability studies Microsoft does to test new features, and showing some examples of user feedback on the User Account Control dialog box.

First up, is a mother of a 5 year old who said that when she finally gets time to sit at the computer she'd rather not be interrupted. Instead, she suggested it would be better if there was a place she could go to find all the messages (not too different from the action center eventually included in Windows 7).

Now he's showing some testing of the Aero Snap and Aero Shake features that help manage multiple open windows.

"Get on down... I like that," said one user.

8:50 a.m. PT: If you haven't already, check out CNET's Ray Ozzie interview that posted this morning.

8:53 a.m. PT: Sinofsky brings out Mike Angiulo, who heads up Microsoft's dialogue with the "ecosystem"--folks like PC makers, software, and hardware developers.

He shows off Sony's super-thin, super-light Vaio X. I'm playing around with a demo model of this machine. People are really amazed with this computer. It's so light, some of the people I've shown it to could barely believe it was real.

Microsoft thought it would be good to learn how a laptop is made. It worked with Acer to build a 3.79 pound laptop with multi-touch, preloaded Office, etc.

"It was great for us as members of the ecosystem," Sinofsky said. The best news for those at PDC-- they are making the laptop available to paid PDC attendees for free.

That got the crowd excited. "Not this one, this one is mine," Sinofsky said, clutching the one he is showing off.

The laptops won't be ready for pick-up until 12:30 though. I encourage you to stay here for the rest of the talk."

9:08 a.m. PT: Talk shifts to Internet Explorer.

"There's a balance between standards and real-world," Sinofsky said.

Sinofsky talks about where Microsoft is headed with Internet Explorer 9.

We're about three weeks into the Internet Explorer 9 development, he says.

Sinofsky acknowledges some areas Microsoft needs to do better. One is the Acid 3 benchmark, IE 8 got 20 out of 100 on that test, while IE 9 is at 32 out of 100.

Performance, particularly JavaScript performance, is another area. He shows WebKit.org's SunSpider benchmark which shows IE 9 in the same ballpark as test versions of other leading browsers. Earlier versions of IE performed much worse on SunSpider than other browsers.

"We're getting very close to basically being a wash," Sinofsky said.

9:14 a.m. PT: Sinofsky shows another feature of IE 9--the ability to easily do rounded corners.

More importantly, the IE 9 rendering engine will shift text and graphics rendering to the graphics chip. That allows smoother text and faster performance. Although some browsers shift a bit of 3D work to the graphics processing units in PCs, Microsoft says IE is the first to tap hardware acceleration for standard text and graphics.

Sinofsky shows a few examples, including Bing Maps, where unaccelerated graphics rendered 14 frames per second, while hardware acceleration in IE 9 allowed upwards of 60 frames per second.

Geek detail: The IE logo on the taskbar for IE 9 was gray, as opposed to the blue logo of IE 8.

9:26 a.m. PT: Developer Division head Scott Guthrie on stage talking about Silverlight and Silverlight 4.

Priorities for the next version include improved media features, such as access to Webcams and microphones on a PC and output protection for those with premium content.

Developer Division head Scott Guthrie followed Stephen Sinofsky on stage on Wednesday, showing off some of the features of Silverlight 4.

(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET)

Guthrie demos a photo booth application, including video and still capture as well as different pixel shader effects, such as a crayon filter. The technology probably allows a lot more, but Apple fanboys would be right to point to the photo booth application on the Mac (though this is a concept app and Silverlight 4 is browser-based technology, not a desktop application).

Another focus for Silverlight 4 is improving Silverlight outside the browser.

9:37 a.m. PT: Guthrie's having a little trouble with some of the Silverlight demos, showing IIS server's support for creating iPhone-capable video.

"If someone is backstage and wants to kick the browser, feel free to," Guthrie said. "We'll try one more time."

9:40 a.m. PT: Guthrie is talking some of the technical features of Silverlight 4, including a new text editor that supports Roman fonts, as well as Arabic, Hebrew, and Kanji, among other alphabets.

9:45 a.m. PT: Guthrie shows a Silverlight-based video jigsaw puzzle. Turns out it is a video of the infamous Rick Astley video. "You've all been rickrolled," Guthrie said.

Also, for those who want to see the IIS smooth streaming on iPhone demo that Guthrie struggled to get working, it is on the Web here.

9:50 a.m. PT: It's getting code-heavy now, as Microsoft demos how to create Silverlight stuff in Visual Studio 2010. Meanwhile, there's some more detail on Microsoft's IE 9 plans in this blog post.

9:55 a.m. PT: Microsoft hasn't started talking about the Office 2010 beta yet, but it looks like you can start getting it from Microsoft's Web site.

10:04 a.m. PT: Still no Office talk on stage, but the beta is live and Microsoft has posted an article noting that Office Mobile 2010 is also in beta and available for Windows Mobile 6.5 phones via the Windows Mobile Marketplace.

The beta also adds an Outlook Social Connector, which allows users to bring in Windows Live and other social networking feeds into Outlook. LinkedIn is the first that will take advantage of it--early next year--but there is a software development kit for others to do so.

10:15 a.m. PT: The beta of Silverlight 4 is now available for download, Guthrie says. The final release is due in the first half of next year.

10:17 a.m. PT: Office unit senior vice president Kurt DelBene is introduced to talk about Office 2010.

10:20 a.m. PT: DelBene talking about efforts to bring Office not just to the desktop, but also via hosted services.

By the way, while I've been live blogging, we've also posted a story and photo gallery looking at the Windows Azure data center container that is on display at the PDC show floor.

10:35 a.m. PT: DelBene notes that the Office 2010 beta is now available, as are betas of the Office Web Apps for businesses as well as office Mobile for Windows Mobile 6.5.

"I hope that you will all download (Office 2010)," DelBene said.

As I note in my story on the Office 2010 beta, though, the Web Apps remain in their current Tech Preview form on Windows Live. There's no time frame for when they will get updated to the beta versions, which include Word editing and the OneNote Web app.

10:45 a.m. PT: Lots of Sharepoint demos. Lot's of coding. I'll spare you the details.

The beta of Office 2010, expected this week, is now available to developers who are part of Microsoft's MSDN and TechNet developer programs.

Members of the public are also expected to get access to the beta this month, with the announcement likely to come on Wednesday as Office executive Kurt Del Bene gives his keynote speech at the Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles.

As noted by ZDNet blogger Mary Jo Foley, Microsoft has already set up public Web pages for downloading the beta, although clicking on the download links returns a message that the beta is not yet available.

(Credit: CNET News)

In addition to the desktop applications, the beta would appear to include the browser-based Office Web Apps (although I am still checking the details on that one).

Also expected at the PDC is the formal launch of Windows Azure, Microsoft's cloud-based operating system as well as demos from the Seadragon and Live Labs teams, among other announcements.

Microsoft is already making some news at PDC. The company said on Monday that it is making available as open-source code its .Net Micro Framework.

Two pieces of the framework, though, its TCP/IP stack and its cryptography features are not included in the open-source release. In a blog posting, Microsoft's Peter Galli said that Microsoft is expected to remain involved in the development of the .Net Micro Framework, working alongside the community.

CNET News will have live coverage of the show, including Ray Ozzie's keynote speech, on Tuesday.

When Ray Ozzie first landed at Microsoft in 2005, he found a company with lots of good ideas. He also found things were getting in the way of innovation, everything from businesses that weren't thinking about the broader company strategy to the way Microsoft stationed each of its workers in their own office.

As the new chief software architect set out to work on Microsoft's cloud-based strategy, he also started doing his part to shift that corporate culture. To house his team, Ozzie had Microsoft tear up its typical floor plan. Instead of tons of hallways and offices, Ozzie wanted lots of common space and whiteboards everywhere. Once a notable oddity at Microsoft, such work areas have become increasingly common in recent years.

Ray Ozzie, chief software architect,
Microsoft

(Credit: Microsoft)

Ozzie also quickly set to work on changing Microsoft's product development, first detailing his plans publicly in a 2005 memo, titled the "Internet Services Disruption."

In the missive, Ozzie talked about the emergence of advertising as a business model for software, new ways of delivering software, and the need to make things simpler in an era where users are inundated with technology choices. Ozzie and company Chairman Bill Gates talked about a wave of "Live" software that would extend Microsoft's products with new Internet-based services.

Ozzie challenged the company that it was faced with new challenges and aggressive competitors that threatened its cash cows, but was careful to only rock the boat so hard.

"In assessing where we are and where we need to be, some new efforts will surely require incubation," Ozzie wrote in 2005. "But in many areas we have 80 percent of the product and technical infrastructure already built--we just need to close the 20 percent gap."

The extent to which Ozzie has managed to reshape Microsoft's product and culture since then will be on display this week, as Microsoft hosts a major conference for its developers in Los Angeles.

Azure, Office unveilings
At the Professional Developer Conference, as the event is known, Microsoft is expected to announce the commercial launch of Windows Azure as well as a beta version of its Office 2010 software. Ozzie is set to speak on Tuesday, while office unit senior vice president Kurt DelBene will be part of Wednesday's keynote address.

(Credit: Microsoft)

The arrival of those two products shows just how much has changed since Ozzie's memo.

Shown for the first time at last year's PDC, Windows Azure is the operating system re-imagined for the cloud computing era. Instead of controlling a local PC or server, Azure is designed as a platform where developers write programs that run from inside Microsoft's massive data centers. Microsoft and customers have been testing Azure since then as part of a free technology preview. Starting in February, though, Microsoft plans to start charging based on how much computing resources a customer is using.

Office, while one of Microsoft's core products, is in the midst of a major shift. Amid competition from Web-based rivals such as Google Apps, the product is morphing into a number of different forms, everything from the traditional desktop suite, to a hosted Web service, to free browser-based applications.

Showing off other wares
Beyond Azure and Office, Microsoft will also be talking about other topics ranging from identity systems to developer tools.

It will also be showing some new technology coming out of its labs--highlighting some closer ties between the company's research unit and its product groups.

Live Labs head Gary Flake is scheduled to show off "a new approach to exploring information on the Web."

Meanwhile, Microsoft's Seadragon unit is showing off a couple new projects. Seadragon is known for a "deep zoom" technology that allows a user to dive into an image, going from a wide angle to the finest grain of detail.

One of the group's new efforts--Snapdragon--is designed as a new concept approach to image search. "Snapdragon utilizes Flickr images to prototype what image search would be if, instead of searching, we allowed users to explore images and the relationships between them," Microsoft said on its Web site.

The other is a collection of work by artist Chris Jordan. Jordan's work is particularly well suited to Snapdragon's deep zoom since it uses thousands of everyday objects to create a broader image. In one picture, for example, Jordan uses thousands of cigarette packs to recreate Van Gogh's smoking skull portrait. In another, Jordan uses soda cans to recreate a Seurat painting.

But more than any one product or technology, PDC will serve as a chance to check back and see what impact Ozzie has made with that 2005 memo and in the years since.

For some groups, Ozzie's memo was a codification of what they were already doing. Corporate vice president Dave Thompson, who was running Microsoft's Exchange team at the time, said his group was already moving in that direction--having already bought FrontBridge and PlaceWare--acquisitions that became Live Meeting and Exchange Hosted Services. Plus, Microsoft had started its pilot program with Energizer to see what other sorts of services it might be able to take on for large businesses.

"When Ray sent his memo, it was a broad call-to-action that was a great affirmation and a rallying point for the efforts already underway," Thompson said in an e-mail interview.

But Ozzie acknowledged that the shift to services--and the transition from Bill Gates' style to his--was more jarring for others.

"My engagement style is far different from Bill's," Ozzie said in a recently published interview with analysts from Gartner. "For a number of groups, that has worked out really well. With others, there are challenges. Some people have a different style or a different view of how they want to take it."

Ozzie says that Gates was supportive of the places that his successor wanted to take the company, but also said that neither he nor Gates really knew how to get there.

"In those days, I had conversations with Bill and he'd say, 'Well that's pretty dramatic or radical in terms of what you are trying to accomplish. It's the right thing to do and if you do it, that will be great,' " Ozzie recalled in the Gartner interview. "And I said, 'How?' And he'd say, 'I don't know. It starts with a memo, and I don't know what happens after that.'"

Nonetheless, Ozzie says, Microsoft has gotten where he hoped the company would get. "When I look back and I read the memo, so many of the things that I had written have come to pass, not because I drove them to make it happen, but because the organization made it happen. It may have happened a little differently here or there, but it happened. So, I'm very pleased about that."

Of course, CNET News will be on hand to see what else Ozzie and team have in store, so check back throughout the week to catch our live, ongoing coverage of the event.

Those who can't wait until next week for the beta of Office 2010 can apparently find the code already on torrent Web sites.

According to Neowin, the beta code has popped up on peer-to-peer sites in recent days.

Meanwhile, another enthusiast site has posted screenshots of what it says is the beta of Office 2010 and its source--Microsoft itself. Craving Tech said that it got the code on a flash drive from the software maker, and the site has posted a number of screenshots.

Microsoft is widely expected to release the updated test version at next week's Professional Developer Conference in Los Angeles. Microsoft has said that it will have a beta of Office 2010 this month and has hinted on its Twitter feed that it will have big Office news next week, all but guaranteeing the release of the beta.

The beta is an update to the technology preview of the software that was released in July. That version also leaked to the Web ahead of its official release.

In addition to the desktop versions of Office 2010, Microsoft is also prepping browser-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. It has released a preview version of the Web apps (except for OneNote), but it is unclear if those will see an update next week.

For its part, Microsoft is staying mum. "We have not officially released the beta code of Office (2010)," a representative said. "We recommend that people do not download code from unauthorized sources."

Among the features of Office 2010 is a "paste preview" function that lets people see what different options will look like before they paste text from the clipboard.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft has decided that its Office Accounting product just doesn't add up.

The software maker said on Friday that it plans next month to stop distributing the accounting product line, ending the latest in a series of efforts to take on market leader Intuit.

The accounting product line was launched in 2005 amid some fanfare, but failed to grab much market share and was later pulled from retail shelves in favor of online-only sales.

"We continually evaluate our business strategies to make sure we're working to meet the needs of customers, partners and shareholders," Microsoft said on its Web site. "With that in mind, we have determined that existing free templates within Office used with Excel was a better option for small businesses, and the Microsoft Dynamics ERP products were appropriate for mid-range organizations."

The software maker said it will stop distributing its free Office Accounting Express as well as all of the paid Office Accounting product in the United States and United Kingdom.

Microsoft has been paring back a number of the efforts at the periphery of its product line, including mainstays such as Microsoft Money, which had long been second fiddle to Intuit's Quicken. The company has also discontinued its Windows Live OneCare security software.

Microsoft plans to continue supporting the Office Accounting product, although a number of related services are ending.

"Online sales from eBay and credit profile from Equifax will no longer be available after December 15, 2009," Microsoft said. "However, your customers will still be able to pay e-mailed invoices directly through PayPal. In addition, credit card processing services and the ability to order compatible checks and forms will still be available."

Those who have bought the product in the last 30 days can return it for a refund.

Microsoft on Monday is announcing that it will release in November a public test version of Office 2010.

The software maker released a limited technology preview of the software in July and plans to release the final version next year. It also started testing of the browser-based "Office Web Apps" in September.

Microsoft, which is making the announcement at its SharePoint conference, is also detailing some of the features of the next version of its portal software, which will also enter beta next month.

The new version, SharePoint 2010, includes Office's Ribbon user interface as well as enhanced support for video, audio and Silverlight. Programmers will also be able develop Sharepointl sites using the next version of the company's Visual Studio, which is going into a second beta this week.

SharePoint is an important product for Microsoft as it is one of the company's fastest growing large businesses. Last year it brought in more than $1.3 billion in revenue, up 20 percent from the prior year.

"SharePoint 2010 is the biggest and most important release of SharePoint to date," CEO Steve Ballmer said in a statement. "When paired with Microsoft Office 2010, SharePoint 2010 will transform efficiency by connecting workers across a single collaboration platform for business."

In addition to the bare-bones Office 2010 Starter that will come bundled on many new PCs, starting next year, Microsoft looks to have another low-cost option up its sleeve.

As part of the announcement of Office Starter on Thursday, Microsoft said consumers will be able to go to retailers and get a "product key card" with a code to upgrade to a full version of Office, such as the Home and Student, Home and Business, and Professional versions.

(Credit: Microsoft)

If you look closely at the image for the Office Home and Student card, it says "for one preloaded PC only." Now, typically, Office Home and Student is licensed for up to three PCs. That means that this card, which is good for only one PC, has the potential to be cheaper than the standard retail package, which includes a DVD copy and is good for three computers.

Microsoft isn't talking licensing details yet for Home and Student, but I'm told by those in the know that my logic is correct. Office 2010, in all its versions, is set to debut next year, with a beta test version of the product due later this year.

The software maker is clearly looking for as many ways as possible to put the latest version of Office in the hands of those willing to be legitimate users. In addition to the client-based Office 2010 versions, Microsoft also plans its Office Web Applications, browser-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. Those products will be free and ad-supported for consumers, offered as part of Windows Live.

The other interesting part of Thursday's announcement is the "click to run" download method, which allows users to download Office over the Web but quickly get started before all the code has run. That method uses application virtualization. A side benefit is that such an installation can constantly be checking for updates and keeping itself current.

Although Vice President Takeshi Numoto told CNET yesterday that Microsoft had nothing new to announce on the subscription front, the click-to-run approach would seem an excellent technology to use to power a subscription version of Office (or any other Microsoft product, for that matter).

There was a subscription version of Office 2007, dubbed Equitpt, but that product also came bundled with Windows Live OneCare and was scrapped, as Microsoft discontinued OneCare.

Microsoft has spent years looking for new ways to sell Office, exploring everything from ad-funded software to prepaid cards good for a certain number of months of Office use.

Microsoft said Thursday that it has finalized the code for Exchange 2010, the next version of its e-mail and communications server.

Exchange 2010, which has been ahead of the rest of the Office family in development, becomes the first of the Office 2010 wave of products to be finished.

"Our senior leadership team has signed off on the final code, and it has been sent to our early adopters for one final look before its public release.," Microsoft said in a blog posting.

The product will become broadly available in November, Microsoft, said with a launch planned for the TechEd Europe conference, which runs Nov. 9-13 in Berlin. Other parts of Office 2010, such as the new versions of Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Outlook, are not due until next year, with a beta slated for later in 2009.

Among the features in the next Exchange is an ability to ignore a particular e-mail conversation, as well as "MailTips," which offers warnings when one might be about to commit an e-mail faux pas.

Microsoft developed Exchange 2010 as a service first, using it to power its Live@edu mail service and then worked to create the server version of the software--a reversal of the past way Exchange and other products have been created.

Aiming to turn more new PC buyers into Office users, Microsoft has announced plans for several new ways to obtain the software, including an ad-supported "Starter" edition that can come loaded on new PCs.

In a blog posting Thursday, Microsoft said the starter version of Office will have limited features and include only Excel and Word. The starter version will be part of the Office 2010 family, due out next year, and will only be available on new PCs.

"Office Starter 2010 will provide new PC owners with immediate exposure to the Office 2010 experience on new PCs right out of the box," Microsoft said, adding that it can be upgraded to one of several full versions of Office with a new upgrade card to be sold at retail stores.

The product is a replacement for Microsoft Works, which was Microsoft's low-cost option for PC makers that wanted to include basic productivity software. Microsoft had also quietly tinkered with a free, ad-supported version of Works in recent years.

Office Starter, as opposed to Works, will have full file compatibility with Office as well as features like the 'Ribbon' user interface.

"It really is a replacement for Works," Microsoft corporate vice president Takeshi Numoto said in an interview on Thursday. "It is not a mere renaming of Works. It is an Office product."

Microsoft is trying several ideas to better compete with free rivals such as Google Docs. With Office 2010, Microsoft will also offer a free, ad-supported version of Office that runs in a Web browser. That product, which went into a technology preview last month, requires connection to the Internet at all times.

"It's a way for us to reach customers who may have not experienced Office before, (for them) to get a taste of it," Numoto said.

For years now, Microsoft has grappled with new ways of selling Office, which, along with Windows, is one of the company's two main profit engines. Although Office boasts half a billion users, there are lots of folks that use pirated copies of the software or don't have Office at all.

Several years back, as part of a ThinkWeek paper seen by CNET News, Microsoft workers recommend that the company scrap Works in favor of an ad-supported product, saying Microsoft only got a couple dollars of revenue per PC when Works was included.

Numoto would not go into financial details for Office Starter, but did say that it is a "royalty-bearing" product for Microsoft, as Works was. In the past, though, PC makers have had an opportunity to earn back money if customers upgrade from a trial version of Office to the full version. Numoto wouldn't detail how that might work with Office Starter.

Microsoft is also trying out a new method for those that already have a PC to try out Office 2010, once it is available. Called "Click to Run," it brings the notion of streaming to software. Instead of waiting for the whole product to download, users can click a button and start using the software as soon as some of the basics are downloaded. The rest of the product then gets downloaded over time.

Microsoft has already seen the Web increase as a means for getting its software. Numoto said that in the last fiscal year some 23 million downloads of the Office trial, nearly double the number from a year earlier.

Still, he said, downloading a big file means a long wait. "We know we could do a lot better to streamline that experience," he said.

An additional benefit of the Click to Run installation is that it is done through application virtualization. That allows the code, even though it is still being run locally, to run side-by-side with an existing version of Office. That would allow, for example, a user to run a trial version of Office 2010, without getting rid of their existing Office installation.