Windows 7, Microsoft Office through a browser, Live Services and Live Mesh, Visual Studio 2010 & .NET Framework 4.0

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Microsoft officially announced today (Tuesday 28th October) at the PDC how Software + Services vision will continue to evolve with new products and technologies.


  • Windows 7 (pre-beta build): The first pre-beta copies of Windows 7 were given to PDC attendees, and Microsoft advised that the full Windows 7 beta will be available early next year. For further informationvisit the Windows 7 Website, Windows Team Blog, and Engineering Windows 7 Team Blog
  • Microsoft Office Live - Web versions of Office Applications: Lightweight versions of Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote that are used from within standard Web browsers. It allows anyone to use all of the Web, phone, and PC versions of Office to edit the same rich document, switching among them seamlessly with lossless file compatibility. This new offering will be compatible with familiar Web browsers from Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. Microsoft will release a private Technical Preview of Office Web applications later this year (2008). In the meantime, customers interested in learning more about the upcoming beta availability are encouraged to sign up for Microsoft Office Live Workspace at https://www.workspace.officelive.com
  • Live Services (including Live Mesh) for Seamless Client-Cloud Experiences: Microsoft demonstrated many capabilities of the Live Services platform, including how developers can build rich applications and experiences that can be extended to over 400 million users of the company’s Windows Live services such as Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger. Microsoft demonstrated many aspects of Live Services including Live Mesh. Live Mesh is a service for synchronizing any user’s documents, media, files and application data across multiple PCs and devices, and is available as an open beta at https://www.mesh.com for Windows and Windows Mobile.
  • Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0: In terms of software development, Microsoft highlighted how it continues to help make it easy for developers to use their existing skills to build applications from the Web to the desktop, through both the recent Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 service packs, and the forthcoming Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 releases. Building on earlier announcements that Visual Studio and the .NET Framework will make it easy for developers to create applications for the new Azure Services Platform, Microsoft revealed that Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4 innovations will help developers build next-generation applications for Windows 7 and take advantage of new features in Windows 7, such as the Ribbon and support for multitouch enabled interfaces. Several other areas of improvements in Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 were shown, with a focus on Win32, C++, ASP.NET, Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation.

For further information read the official press announcement