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Microsoft Cancels Major Developers' Conference
Kurtz'sKompund writes "Microsoft has cancelled its autumn Professional Developers Conference, citing bad timing in light of the launch of important infrastructure and platform products. This isn't the first time they have cancelled a PDC, for similar reasons."
By the way, who was chairing the conference?
Between the office's ribbon interface and the actual launch of Vista, you'd think that now would be the most important time to have a developers conference. With all the new challenges and the conference still several months away, wouldn't it be wiser to schedule the time now and make sure that critical issues are dealt with early?
Unfortunately, they're all working on their own individual version of a ground-breaking text editor and extensible platform that will eclipse Eclipse.
I only have a couple words...
!developers, !developers, !developers...
My 0.02 cents
> I agree.
.net IE/Windows only crap and see if they are receptive. Explore whether your existing stuff can be run under Wine and fix things until it does work. Then plant a bug in your customer's ear that you AREN'T one of those crappy little vertical vendors who only understands Microsoft. and that if they want to escape you won't be one of the vendors holding them back, that you can support other platforms. If everyone is a passive as you and waits for someone else to go first Microsoft wins.
No. You don't really. You like to bitch and moan once in awhile but you really don't mind taking it up the pooper whenever Microsoft wants to shaft you. Harsh? Yup. Happens to be true though, based on what you are writing.
Because you have KNOWN exactly what Microsoft is and how your fortunes (and you customer, etc) are tied to Microsoft's whims for years (hell, decades now) and I didn't hear you mention the FIRST step towards an attempt to correct a situation you yourself realize is ultimately going to hurt you.
Yes you are right, that you and your customers have become ensnared in Microsoft's trap of dependency. And you are at least toying with the first step of admitting you have a dependency problem. Now you need a plan to break the unhealthy addiction. You really needed to start years back to have a leg up on the smart competitors who already figured it out but perhaps it isn't too late for you to save yourself.
Step one: When you are in a hole that is rapidly filling with water, the first step has to be to stop digging. That means make every effort to avoid adding any new dependencies on Microsoft technologies. That means don't touch Vista or any of any of it's new technologies or APIs. Same for Office 2007.
Step two: Develop a roadmap that will lead you where you want to be tomorrow, not where Microsoft wants you to go. Many find the easy path to be web based apps, especially in this era of AJAX. Pitch your customers a client neutral web based version of the apps you currently push on them as
Step three: start finding and deploying alternatives whenever practical. OO.o instead of Office where it will work, Firefox instead of IE anywhere there isn't a lot of ActiveX BS to snarl things up. Outlook/Outlook Express should be trashed anywhere people aren't already addicted to Exchange stuff. The more of those dependencies you can break, both for yourself and your customers, the easier it will be to open up options down the road. Same for file/print servers. They can make a great first step and let you gain practical experience.
Step four: Explore and experiment, learning what is out there is half the struggle. Microsoft crams their stuff down your craw, the free stuff is often waiting for you to go looking for it.
Step five: Don't just look at Linux. Yes a Mac isn't any more RMS pure than Windows and they want the same power Microsoft has, but Microsoft is the threat to independent developers and users today. And a Mac can run Photoshop/etc.
Democrat delenda est