No one was more disappointed in the Longhorn content Microsoft provided at April's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC), but the software giant appears ready to make up for it this September. That's when Microsoft will host its Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2005 in Los Angeles. And with a quick look at the conference tracks and sessions, you can see that it's going to be a much more exciting event than WinHEC.
"PDC 2005 will feature developer-focused presentations, discussions, and technology explorations into the future of the Microsoft platform, including the latest developer news on Windows 'Longhorn' and Microsoft Office [12]," a Microsoft representative told me Tuesday. "The PDC is the definitive Microsoft event for software developers."
Indeed, PDC 2005 appears designed specifically to right the wrongs of WinHEC 2005. Instead of the warmed over look at Internet Explorer (IE) features from Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) that we were tortured with at WinHEC, PDC 2005 will include a session on new developer features in IE 7. Longhorn, naturally, is well represented as well, with sessions on the Longhorn User Experience Guidelines, Longhorn Server, the new PeerNet P2P features, Longhorn client security features, system reliability, ClickOnce deployment, and more. Office 12 sessions will focus on new features in Office 12, the new Office 12 file formats, Visual Studio Tools for Office v3, and the new Microsoft Office System Search Technology.
As you might expect, I'll be at PDC 2005 for the duration--I booked my hotel reservations late last year--and will be providing full coverage of the show, which runs from September 13 to 16 in Los Angeles, California. If you're planning on attending PDC 2005, sign up early. If you're concerned at all about the future of Windows, this isn't an event you're going to want to miss.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/events/pdc/