finally{}

Written on March 4, 2008 – 7:59 pm | by Joseph Jude |

Today I attended the launch of Visual Studio 2008, Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008, at Rex Theatre, Bangalore.

The whole event was organized and conducted pretty well. The compere was pretty good (I heard that he does some shows in Start Sports). The snacks and the food was good as well.

That was the good part. None of the presentations were on time (both beginning and end) - when people are talking about improving productivity and introducing tools for keeping deadlines, those presentations should ‘walk the talk’!

However, the contents were relevant and showcased the new and improved functionalities. I was pretty impressed with VS and SQL Server functionalities and the way they were presented in a cohesive fashion. I hope that in the near future, I will be able to test these new features and also to use them in some of the (hobby) projects.

That brings another point - One of the ‘exciting’ feature of Windows Server 2008 was Virtualization (I am glad, I’ve started to utilize VMs and thereby getting on to the latest bandwagon). The least MS could’ve done was to offer VPC images - let it be trial versions - of these products. If Linux (and other products in LAMP stack) got to this place, it was because - at least that is what I feel - millions of smart folks were able to download, test, use and contribute back for its improvement. Now that ‘Express’ editions are anyway available for free download, MS could’ve provided the VPCs, there by letting hundreds, if not thousands, of developers to play with these features. May be MS doesn’t need those ‘heroes’!