Beyond Binary

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."

Microsoft is set to announce on Monday that it is ready with a second beta version of its Visual Studio 2010 and .Net Framework 4.0 developer tools. Both products are set for a final release on March 22, Microsoft said.

"Microsoft has reached the home stretch for Visual Studio 2010," said Dave Mendlen, a senior director in Microsoft's developer division. "This is probably the biggest release we've had in many years."

Among the product's features is a Tivo-like recording feature that Microsoft has now dubbed "IntelliTrace."

"That's our time machine," Mendlen said. "We're very proud of that."

Other features new to the 2010 release include support for Windows 7 and Windows Azure as well as tools for building on top of Microsoft's Sharepoint product.

With Visual Studio 2010, Microsoft is also taking the opportunity to scale back the number of different versions it sells, cutting the number of subscription options from seven to three. In a telephone interview, Microsoft Vice President S. "Soma" Somasegar said that move came from customer requests.

They told us "one place you can do better is making it simpler how you package your products," Somasegar said.

Under the new plan, myriad Visual Studio options will be consolidated into Professional, Premium, and Ultimate. Microsoft is planning an "ultimate offer" promotion that will give many current subscribers access to the next-higher version of Visual Studio as well as 750 Windows Azure compute hours per month. Next year, the company plans to change that to offer varying amounts of Azure compute time based on the level of the Visual Studio subscription.

Updated 9:56 a.m. PDT: Added screen shot and a link to Microsoft's Visual Studio 2010 page.

Airplanes are equipped with recorders that capture both cockpit audio and flight data, so in the event that something goes wrong, investigators can try to determine the source of the problem.

Microsoft is aiming to give software developers the same kind of access. In the next version of its developer tool suite, to be known as Visual Studio 2010, Microsoft plans to include the ability to record the full screens of what testers are seeing, as well as data about their machine. When a test application crashes, the technology will enable developers to see the bug as it occurred.

In an interview last week, Microsoft Developer Division Director Dave Mendlen said the feature is designed to avoid the all-too-frequent conflict that occurs when a software tester finds a bug that the developer says it can't reproduce. Internally, the feature has been called "TiVo for debuggers."

Visual Studio Team System 2010 will offer tools for managing test cases and execution, and will boost support for filing actionable bugs.

(Credit: Microsoft)

LOS ANGELES--Microsoft brought out former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw on Wednesday to kick off the launch of Windows Server 2008.

In explaining his appearance at a server launch, Brokaw said he was trying to redeem himself after his recent Saturday Night Live appearance, in which he was interviewed by Will Farrell as Anchorman character Ron Burgundy.

Tom Brokaw speaks at the outset of the Windows Server 2008 launch.

(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET News.com)

"I'm not here to write new code, to design new apps," Brokaw told the crowd at the tony Nokia Theater in downtown Los Angeles. Instead, Brokaw spoke for several minutes on the radical transformation of society being brought about by technology.

Brokaw pointed to an NYU doctor that will soon program remotely a cochlear implant for a child in East Africa and a farmer in America's heartland that tracks global commodity prices from his computer in order to ensure he can produce a profitable crop.

He also talked about the limits of technology, saying that we can't hit delete to end global poverty or backspace to erase the effects of global warming.

"Technology alone is not the answer," Brokaw said. "It will do little good to wire the world if we short-circuit our conscience."

Microsoft is using the event to formally launch Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008, although that last product's release has been pushed back until the third quarter of this year.

The software maker also detailed several other server products including its version for computing clusters, Windows HP Server 2008, which is slated for the second half of the year and Windows Storage Server 2008, also due out before year's end.

Microsoft wants more students using its software tools and it thinks it has hit on the right business model.

It's going to give away its software.

Starting this week, college students in 10 countries will be able to get Microsoft's Visual Studio and several other programs for free as part of an effort dubbed DreamSpark. Over the next year, Microsoft plans to offer the program worldwide for college and high school students.

In addition to giving away its Visual Studio tools, Microsoft is also providing no-charge access to its Expression Web design tools and its XNA studio for developing Xbox 360 software. Microsoft already provides discounted academic versions of its software, as well as a free "express" version of Visual Studio. Students can also get free copies of Windows Server and the developer version of the SQL Server database.

"You can go build software applications," said Joe Wilson, Microsoft's senior director of academic initiatives. "You can go build Web sites. You can do a really cool Facebook application...There are a lot of possibilities that comes with this small list of products.

Included in those initial 10 countries are the United States, the United Kingdom, China, France, and Germany.

Clearly, Microsoft has a couple of goals here. One is to get more students who have enough design or science aptitude to enter the software field. The other is to get them using Microsoft's tools early.

"That next generation and future generations of technologists, they are vital to any industry leader like us," Wilson said. Wilson said his goal is to be able five years from now to spot businesses that got their start because a student used Microsoft's tools for free.

"I expect that to happen," Wilson said. "Maybe it's hundreds or thousands of companies."

Bill Gates is set to discuss DreamSpark Tuesday in a speech to students at Stanford University.

Microsoft has reached another milestone on the road to the release of Windows Server 2008.

On Wednesday, the company made available the Release Candidate 1 version of the software and promised the final version will be ready in time for the product's February 27 launch. Microsoft plans to launch the product, along with SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008, at an event in Los Angeles.

The event is themed "Heroes happen here" and is planned as a love fest celebrating all the work done by the IT crowd. The software maker also said it will spend more than $150 million worldwide to help market and build demand for the new products.

"This is the largest enterprise launch in our history, and both Microsoft and many of our industry partners are making a significant investment in a worldwide rollout," Microsoft Vice President Andy Lees said in a statement.

Microsoft originally planned to have the operating system completed by the end of the year, even pulling out some key virtualization features to try to meet that deadline. However, it announced in August that the product would not be finished until early 2008.