Microsoft has long viewed the software world through Windows. Now, it's hoping to prove that it understands the growing popularity of Web technologies beyond its own operating system.
Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman, delivered a keynote speech on Monday at Mix '06 in Las Vegas, the first edition of a Microsoft conference aimed at developers building online applications that combine Web and mobile access.
The Microsoft chairman said, in essence, that the development world has changed with the advent of new Web technologies that give people any-time, any-place access to their data — a far cry from the PC-centric world of the past. "Everything we do now, we have to be user-centric, not device-centric," he said.
Gates also pledged to bolster the company's development efforts on Internet Explorer, which he said has lagged in recent years.
"In a sense we're doing a mea culpa, saying we waited too long for a browser release," Gates said. "I expect us to move very very rapidly there because we see great opportunities."
Gates said that Microsoft is already working on the next two versions after Internet Explorer 7, which is due later this year with Windows Vista.
On Monday, Microsoft released several product updates, including a "refresh" of the Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2, and Microsoft's Atlas AJAX Web development kit will have an updated licence allowing customers to run Web applications built with Atlas.
The term AJAX was coined last year to describe a combination of Web technologies, including JavaScript and XML. More and more developers are using these tools to build more capable Web applications that can replace older generations of desktop systems.
This week, Microsoft executives will explain in more detail the company's full arsenal of software and Live hosted services for building Web applications on a range of devices including desktop PCs, mobile phones, gaming devices and Media Center PCs.
The expansion of Web-connected software to a larger group of consumers is something that can't be ignored, the company says. "More and more activities are happening online. Whatever industry you look at, that's where people are spending time," said Charles Fitzgerald, general manager for platform technologies at Microsoft. "Our latest Web technologies [can be used] to drive better customer connections online."
Moreover, the popularity of mashups, services created by developers combining and actively displaying information from two disparate sources, has driven a new way to look at Web sites. Increasingly developers can think about Web sites as "components" in their applications, Gates said. "This is a powerful idea whose time has come, and we're really just at the beginning."
Gates on Monday also discussed the changes to Web usage that will come from the broader adoption of RSS and related Microsoft-led initiatives, including Simple Shared Extensions for sharing calendaring information and Live Clipboard.
"You can think of RSS as the start of the programmable Web. As Web sites start exposing their APIs, amazing things happen," said Gates.
Microsoft intends to build deeper RSS support in Windows Vista and Internet Explorer 7, allowing people to subscribe to Web pages as well as podcasts and photos.
The Mix '06 conference is also an effort by Microsoft to attract more Web developers and designers to Microsoft products.
The company's Expression line of designer tools is being built to foster better collaboration between technical programmers and designers. The tools are expected to be released later this year.
Overall, Microsoft is hoping to prove to developers that it understands the new realities of online development, ranging from things like AJAX to software-as-a-service development, pioneered by rivals such as Salesforce.com.
Adam Gross, vice-president of developer marketing at Salesforce.com, noted that Microsoft has been very successful with traditional Windows developers. But it has not been as successful reaching Internet developers.
"Until now, Microsoft tools have been very Microsoft-centric. I'd like to see how they are really going to approach the Internet as a development platform," Gross said.
Talkback
This is all fine and well, but will MS become WC3 compliant? Realizing there is a world beyond Redmond is one ting. Actually responding to real world desires (like compliance with standards) is another thing.
I am concerned about this whole software-as-a-service thing. paying monthly to use crappy software is not a service IMHO. MS (and apple) has failed in recent years to produce anything I would pay 200 usd per copy, let alone a fixed ammount a month. As a business it is obsured to pay a monthly fee for software (yearly lisencing is bad enough).
This will drive more people to Open Source products like Linux, Firefox, and Open Office- all solid and compliant with standards.
Good for MS to waking up to the internet. However this is probably bad news for the rest of us.
It looks like Bill finally got around to reading Tim O'Reilly's 'What Is Web 2.0' article.
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html
Sorry why would Microsoft want to make its browser WC3 compliant?.
To aid its competitors?, your average user wants to load his browser than comes with his PC, which will be IE and view a web page.
99% of them couldnt care less if its 'compliant' or not.
Microsoft writes software to make money, as does any decent programmer.
Any business that designs is product to aid's its competitors deserves to go bankrupt
AJAX is useful and the applicaions that come out daily are changing the face of the web. It does take effort to make everything work with all the browsers, but that is just part of the price for the next evolution in web. MS always enters market late, but thats smart.
www.sslbridge.com
Betting on a single horse (company) time and time again is the most sure way to end up broke in the end.
And if you think that Microsoft is big on the Internet. Think again. Do some real research for a change.
For the vast majority of people Microsoft isnt just a big player on the internet it IS the Internet
Same as AOL is what people use to connect to it despite the geeks mocking it
The future of the Internet will not be decided by geeks, it will be decided by marketing campaigns and what is pre installed on PC's by large manucfacturers
Subscribing to, and using software and tools, on the internet makes a lot of sense. But, to allow everyone to
connect equally there has to be standards. You can't allow one company to control the entire internet just because they author the most unstable, insecure, OS.
That's what makes the internet so appealing, anyone,
anywhere can get the same information, in the same format, and with the same security, as everyone else.
Everyone doesn't have to be running the latest version of windows, one company should not be allowed to
force all to use their products.
A vast majority of people are disappointed in Microsoft. They are also disappointed in the Internet because that is what gives them virusses, spyware, adware, requires them to install monthly patches, etc in their view.
So basically, in their eyes, Microsoft made a mess of things. And they would be right about that.
The only reason that the Internet itself is still surviving all that onslaught though is because it's anything but Microsoft.
Jon, you simply have no idea what you are talking about.
AOL might be big in America, but it's insignificant everywhere else and with good reason - it's browser is based upon the most insecure of them all - Internet Explorer, and it's content provision is laughable.
Now: "why would Microsoft want to make its browser WC3 compliant?" this is possibly the most stupid question I have ever heard in Talkback.
For a start it's W3C not WC3 - furthermore it is essential to adhere to standards to ensure everone can enjoy the web regardless of disability or platform.
Then you say:"For the vast majority of people Microsoft isnt just a big player on the internet it IS the Internet"
Microsoft HATE the internet, they always have because it's out of their control. Gates famously berated it in 1993, round about the same time MS were trying to set up their own controlled version of the internet called The Microsoft Network - remember those irritating icons on your windows '95 desktop inviting you to set up MSN?
MSN is nothing but the bastard offspring of an earlier attempt to control 'an internet'.
So to say MS IS the internet is in complete contradiction to the truth.
At every turn MS have tried to hamper the development of the internet from the Java sabotage to HTML sabotage right through to web standards sabotage. Ask any web designer how easy their job has been over the last few years, they'll say something like this:"It would be a piece of cake if it wasn't for Microsoft and blinkin' Internet Explorer."
Jon - I'm sure you'll post back here having a go at me with some more of your meaningless durge - I don't mind, just try to educate yourself a little on the subject first. By the way, the command line is alive and well thank you.