DevTopics

Microsoft has launched a new WebsiteSpark program for independent Web developers and companies that build Web applications and Web sites for others.  The program enables qualified developers to receive FREE software, support and business resources from Microsoft for three years.  The purpose is to help independent Web developers expand their business and build great Web solutions using ASP.NET, Silverlight, SharePoint and PHP.

WebsiteSpark provides the following free software licenses:

• 3 licenses of Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition
• 1 license of Expression Studio 3 (which includes Expression Blend, Sketchflow, and Web)
• 2 licenses of Expression Web 3
• 4 processor licenses of Windows Web Server 2008 R2
• 4 processor licenses of SQL Server 2008 Web Edition
• DotNetPanel control panel (enabling easy remote/hosted management of your servers)

The only two requirements to join the program are:

1. Your company builds Web sites and/or Web applications on behalf of others.
2. Your company currently has less than 10 employees.

If you meet these requirements, visit the WebsiteSpark website to enroll in the program.  As part of the enrollment process, you can pick either a network referral partner (for example: a Web host or an existing Microsoft partner), or enter a referral code that you have received at an event or from a Microsoft employee.  Or you can send an email to webspark@microsoft.com to get a referral code quickly.

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Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates decided to weigh in on Gizmodo’s ‘79 Celebration:

“I read those 1979 stories all last week, and it put me in a nostalgic mood, so I wanted to offer my own memory to add to the collection.

“In 1979, Microsoft had 13 employees, most of whom appear in that famous picture that provides indisputable proof that your average computer geek from the late 1970s was not exactly on the cutting edge of fashion.  We started the year by moving from Albuquerque back to Bellevue, just across the lake from Seattle.  By the end of the year we’d doubled in size to 28 employees.  Even though we were doing pretty well, I was still kind of terrified by the rapid pace of hiring and worried that the bottom could fall out at any time.

“What made me feel a little more confident was that 1979 was the year we began to sense that BASIC was right on the verge of becoming the standard language for microcomputers.  We knew this could be the catalyst that would unlock the potential of the PC to democratize computing and create the right conditions for an explosion in programs and applications that would lead to really rapid growth of the PC market.”

Read the rest of Gates’ story at Gizmodo

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Microsoft is applying its Community Promise to the C# programming language and Common Language Infrastructure (CLI).  This means that anyone can freely build, sell, distribute or use programs with C# and the CLI without signing a license agreement or otherwise communicating to Microsoft.  This applies to all distribution models including open source and GPL.  Under the Community Promise, Microsoft will not assert its Necessary Claims.

In other words, build all you want with C# and .NET, Microsoft won’t sue you for copyright or patent infringement.

Specifically, this announcement applies to the ECMA 334 (C#) and ECMA 335 (CLI) specifications.

“The Community Promise is an excellent vehicle and, in this situation, ensures the best balance of interoperability and flexibility for developers,” said Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President for the .NET Developer Platform.

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Dealing another significant blow to the Microsoft Silverlight web development platform, the New York Times is abandoning Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).  Rob Larson from the New York Times writes:

Next week we’ll be introducing Times Reader 2.0. This version is powered by Adobe AIR and will run equally well on Windows, Mac and Linux computers.  With this latest release, Times Reader resembles the printed paper even more closely, and it updates every five minutes with the latest news from the Web.

The timing is awkward to say the least, with Microsoft actively promoting its New York Times Silverlight Kit.  This toolkit enables developers to use the Times’ APIs with little or no coding, instead using mostly XAML.

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Major League Baseball handed Microsoft some very bad news by reverting back to the Adobe Flash player after just one year with Microsoft’s Silverlight browser plug-in.  This season, baseball fans will watch live and on-demand video at MLB.com via the Flash player.  MLB.com offers the Web’s most successful subscription service with over 500,000 subscribers.

The trouble started last November when Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM) — the league’s technical group — announced it would discontinue using Silverlight after less than a year.  The decision has impact far beyond baseball, as MLBAM also handles CBS’ webcasts of the NCAA Basketball Tournament and the 2009 Masters golf tournament.

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Microsoft announced plans to open its own chain of branded stores to catch up with rival Apple and its successful foray into retailing.  Microsoft did not reveal how many stores it planned to open, when they would open, or which products it would sell in the stores.

A little humor on the subject by Jimmy Fallon:

“Despite the recession, Microsoft is planning to open stores to compete with Apple.  The Microsoft stores will be just like the Apple stores, except the staff will freeze when you ask them any questions.”

Story at Reuters

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Vault is a prototype programming language created at Microsoft Research.  It’s a safe version of the C programming language, with features to record and enforce usage rules associated with interfaces.  The rules control the order in which the interface’s functions may be called and its data accessed.

Download Vault

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Even billionaires are getting slammed by the global economic crisis.  Forbes Magazine found only 793 billionaires for its annual list of the world’s richest people.  This represents a drop of 30 percent from last year and the first decline since 2003.

The total net worth of people on the magazine’s “Richest List” fell 46 percent to $2.4 trillion.  The average billionaire is now worth only $3 billion, 23 percent less than last year.

Despite losing $18 billion in wealth, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates regained the title of world’s richest man with a net worth of $40 billion.  Warren Buffett is #2 with $37 billion.

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Microsoft received its 10,000th U.S. patent earlier this month.  This makes Microsoft one of the leading patent filers, though IBM still files the most patents and in 2008 became the first company to issue 4,000 patents in a single year.

“Logging the 10,000th patent really is a testament to all of the innovation that has been taking place,” said Microsoft chief patent counsel Bart Eppenauer.  Although Microsoft maintains its patents are mostly for defense, its huge patent portfolio hasn’t kept it out of the courtroom.  The number of patent lawsuits filed against Microsoft has actually increased significantly in the past few years.

“That increase has come almost entirely from entities that do not produce products,” Eppenauer said.  Most of the patent suits come from “patent trolls” whose primary business function is acquiring patents and suing for royalties.  In those cases, having a large patent collection is of little use since the patent troll has no products of its own for which it can be countersued.  But Microsoft’s patent portfolio has other uses such as licensing its technology to companies such as Novell or bullying Linux.

Microsoft’ has become so prolific filing patents that it dedicated a staff of 100 people including 40 attorneys that focus solely on the 2500-3000 U.S. patent applications the company files each year.

This news bodes poorly for independent software vendors, for whom it is nearly impossible to create original software without violating literally thousands of patents.

Story at CNET

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Want insight into the design and development of C#?  Then check out these blogs by key members of the Microsoft C# development team:

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