Microsoft Launches Expression Studio 4

Microsoft today at the Internet Week Conference in New York City announced the official release of Microsoft Expression Studio 4, the latest version of the company's Web design and rich user interface (UI) development tool. Targeted at digital designers and at Visual Studio developers designing rich application UIs, Expression Studio 4 adds more robust visual tools that eliminate the need to work with Extensible Markup Language (XAML) code and provide enhanced SketchFlow functionality for enabling interactive, prototype apps.

The latest release comes just nine months after Microsoft launched Expression Studio 3. Microsoft is allowing current owners of version 3 to upgrade to Expression Studio 4 at no charge.

Dave Mendlen, senior director of Developer Marketing at Microsoft, said the company is anxious to get the message out with this version of Expression Studio.

"We think of it as a suite of professional design tools to enable designers and developers to create and enable amazing user experiences," said Mendlen. "I think we haven’t done the right level of communication to the critically important audience of developers."

The Expression Studio 4 suite consists of four modules. Expression Blend is a visual UI builder for XAML-based WPF and Silverlight apps, and includes the SketchFlow app prototyping module. Expression Web is a site designer and HTML editor, while Expression Design is a graphics design application. Expression Encoder is a digital video encoding application.

Of these, Expression Blend 4 is of greatest interest to Visual Studio developers, enabling them to manipulate working XAML code using rich, visual interfaces.

Developer Experience

Mendlen said Expression Studio appeals to two classes of developer experience: those who are working with a professional design department and must provide prototype software to kick start the design process, and those without design support and are left to create application UIs themselves. In the former instance, developers in Visual Studio and designers in Expression Blend can work on the same XAML code, passing it back and forth between them without the need for translation or conversion. Mendlen said the process is far superior to the status quo, where designers mock up interfaces as static images, which they "throw over the wall" for the developers to work against.

John Harris, senior product manager of Expression Studio at Microsoft, said his team looked at the products in the Expression suite and made what he called "obvious bets."

"With Blend we really focused on integrating into the workflow that Dave described earlier," Harris said. He singled out efforts to better integrate Expression Blend into traditional design work, as well as Blend's updated support for Visual Studio 2010 projects. He also said Blend 4 offers enhanced support for Model-View-ViewModel development, critical for Silverlight dev shops seeking to decouple UI and business logic.

Harris also said that Blend 4 provides enhanced support for robust, data driven UIs, eliminating the need to work with XAML code to create dashboard like functionality. In Blend 3, he said, "you'd have to really get into the code and do a lot of stuff."

Another important update is to the SketchFlow prototyping engine for Blend, which allows developers to quickly create working, wireframe applications to demonstrate application behaviors and interactions. Harris said the SketchFlow functionality in Blend 4 is optimized to manage feedback to the dev team.

"What we've done is integrated [SketchFlow] into SharePoint and SharePoint handles versioning of the prototypes and acts as a conduit for handling feedback to and from the development teams," Harris explained.

Beyond Blend

Expression Studio 4 continues to cater to a broader market of Web site designers and media producers, with streamlined Web site building tools and enhanced browser compatibility testing that lets designers preview their work as it would appear on different browsers. A new search engine optimization engine scans Web site projects and provides suggestions for improving your site's performance with search ranking engines.

The Expression Encoder 4 application adds support for efficient h.264 format video. It also provides real-time digital rights management (DRM) support for streaming video, said Harris. "We are able to encode video live and stream live and apply DRM to that live stream as it is being encoded in the stream."

Expression Studio 4 is available in three SKUs, with Web Professional, Premium and Ultimate editions. MSDN subscribers will receive the SKU of Expression Studio 4 corresponding to their Visual Studio 2010 license. "If you are a Visual Studio Premium customer you will get Expression Studio Premium, and if you are a Visual Studio Ultimate customer you will get Expression Studio Ultimate as part of your MSDN subscription," Mendlen explained.

Web Professional includes the Expression Web, Design and Encoder applications. Expression Premium adds the Blend dev/design package, while Ultimate adds the SketchFlow prototyping feature.

All three SKUs of Expression Studio 4 are available as part of an MSDN subscription. Retail versions of Expression Studio 4 Ultimate ($599) and Professional ($149) are also available.

SharePoint’s Secret Sauce: Business Connectivity Services

SharePoint Tools Vendor Idera Acquires iDevFactory

Looking to bolster its portfolio of SharePoint administration tools, Idera has acquired iDevFactory, a supplier of security administration software.

Idera, a division of BBS Technologies Inc., announced the acquisition of the closely-held company at the annual TechEd North America 2010 conference, which kicks off today in New Orleans. In addition to offering SharePoint administration tools, Idera supplies administration and management software for Microsoft's SQL Server database and Windows PowerShell.

Despite its tight focus, Idera, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, says it has 7,000 enterprise customers ranging from small to the very largest of shops. The addition of iDevFactory gives Idera a tool that will give administrators and systems auditors a view of the security of the SharePoint environment, according to Rick Pleczko, Idera's president and CEO.

"It allows you to manage the rights, managements and permissions to documents and content stored in SharePoint," Pleczko said of iDevFactory's software in an interview. "It can create reports that tell who can have access to what and what can be accessed by whom and then it allows you to do audit checking to make sure your permissions are correct. It also can do things like find dead accounts from people who have left the company. It's a fairly rich product."

Known as the iDevFactory Universal SharePoint Manager, Idera is renaming it the Idera SharePoint Security Manager. In conjunction with the acquisition, Idera is launching a new release to support SharePoint Server 2010, which shipped last month. The new release adds support for multiple forms management and the ability in SharePoint Web parts to delegate functions to end users. For example, a help-desk worker can determine who has access to specific systems, said Julia Hall, an Idera director.

The new release starts at $4,995. Pleczko said the team of iDevFactory, which consists of "less than 10" employees, will join Idera. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The deal is the second recent acquisition for Idera, which also acquired the Sonar performance management tooling from Binary Wave Ltd. in October. The latter company is a SharePoint consultancy. Pleczko said Idera will continue to shop for companies or software that fit its mission of addressing the market for administration of SharePoint, SQL Server and PowerShell management.

New Agile Project Management Tools Announced

Windows Embedded Compact 7 CTP Released

Microsoft today rolled out a community test preview (CTP) version of Windows Embedded Compact 7.

This componentized operating system -- the successor to Windows CE -- supports both consumer and enterprise hardware devices. It allows original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to select what they need for products such as smartphones, media players, ruggedized handheld devices and medical devices. The OS runs on either x86 or ARM silicon.

Windows Embedded Compact 7 even supports consumer slate devices. However, the full Windows 7 operating system is also a possible choice for OEMs building such tablet computers.

The point that Windows 7 can be used for slate devices was made by Steve Guggenheimer, corporate vice president of the OEM Division at Microsoft, who spoke at Computex Taipei on Wednesday. The reason to use the full Windows 7 OS is to enable users to produce "creative content" on their tablet devices, Guggenheimer explained.

He showed off a number of Windows 7-based tablet prototypes (but no products) onstage at Computex Taipei. The prototypes included the Sierra Expo slate, an FIC device, the Hanban system from China and a Vila device from Korea. Taiwanese companies Asustek Computer Inc. and Micro-Star International Co. plan to sell tablet computers using Windows 7, according to a Wall Street Journal story.

Missing in action in Guggenheimer's presentation was the HP Slate tablet PC. Back in January, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had unveiled an HP Slate prototype device running on Windows 7 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. However, since that time, Hewlett-Packard has been mum on its tablet development plans using Windows 7. HP also has since bought Palm and announced plans to build a tablet computer using the Palm webOS.

Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO at Nvidia, told reporters at the Computex Taipei event that "Windows is too big and it's too full featured for smartbooks and tablets," according to an account by PC World. Instead, Huang touted the Google-developed Android OS as ideal for tablet PCs.

Guggenheimer acknowledged that equipment makers were "experimenting" with Android, but he expected that Windows 7 would eventually be seen as more valuable for tablets, according the Wall Street Journal's account.

As for OEMs using Windows Embedded Compact 7 for slate devices, Guggenheimer described some electronic-reader devices, including a Hanban book reader, Q Reader, a Toshiba device and a MiTAC Mio. Microsoft also showed a photo of the Asus Eee Pad EP101TC 10, using Windows Embedded Compact 7, in a press release.

The CTP of Windows Embedded Compact 7 comes with a set of developer tools, according to David Wurster, senior product manager of the Windows Embedded team. Those tools include the Visual Studio integrated development environment, Platform Builder (a Visual Studio plug-in), the Expression Blend tool for designers and various OS components, such as Internet Explorer, Flash, Media Player and DLNA. DLNA is an industry standard protocol for transferring media between devices. Another synchronization component is Microsoft AirSync, which allows developers to access information from Microsoft Outlook, such as calendar data, Wurster explained.

It's up to OEMs to create the user interface for their devices, so OEMs using Windows Embedded Compact 7 won't necessarily produce devices with the Windows 7 look and feel. Wurster said that by using Silverlight for Windows Embedded, OEMs can customize the experience for their target users.

The CTP of Windows Embedded Compact 7 is publicly available now for developers and can be accessed here.

Microsoft plans to move from CTP to a release-to-manufacturing version of Windows Embedded Compact 7, skipping a beta, according to Wurster. The RTM version is expected to be available sometime in the fourth quarter of this year.

Windows Embedded Standard 7 Released

New Agile Project Management Tools Announced

Parasoft Corp. and TeamDynamixHE recently released new project management tools for Agile software development.

A new release of Parasoft’s Concerto tool can be used with Agile, Scrum, Extreme Programming or hybrid methodologies, the company said, adding that it “integrates project and task management with Automated Defect Prevention and end-to-end QA testing.” Concerto integrates with any development environment and toolset, it said.

Parasoft offers a virtual applicancce that can be used with Concerto and other development infrastructure components for software development life cycle control and improvement.

The new release, dubbed Parasoft Concerto 4.0, includes pre-configured templates for medical device, safety-critical and outsourced/distributed software development. It also supportsВ FDA General Principles of Software Validation, ANSI, ISO and other standards.

TeamDynamixHE, meanwhile, announced version 6.5 of its Web-based project and portfolio management software focusing on the education market. The new release “supports Agile software development and ITIL best practices and provides reporting to track Agile project performance,” the company said. It includes “an Iteration Manager to build iterations, then drag tickets into each iteration to make stories or back to the backlog to manage them.”

Other enhancements reportedly include new resource pools for departments or groups, a business case-style project request/portfolio planning system, support for custom authentication schemes and improved analysis capabilities.

TeamDynamixHE said its tools are used by customers such as The Ohio State University, Carnegie Mellon University and Syracuse University.

Report: IBM, MKS Have Best Agile Management Tools

Windows Use Said To Be Restricted at Google

Using Windows requires approval at the CIO level at Google, according to unnamed employees cited in an FT article. New employees have the choice of using the Mac operating system or Linux. The restriction was described as a security measure in response to attacks on Google headquarters by Chinese hackers in December.

The attacks on Google and other companies were traced to a flaw in Internet Explorer 6 running on Windows. In February, Google reacted by pulling support for IE 6 on its Google Docs and Google Sites portals.

A spokesperson for Google today would not confirm that Google has such a restriction on Windows use by its employees, nor did he confirm that security was the issue.

"We're always working to improve the efficiency of our business, but we don't comment on specific operational matters," the Google spokesperson stated on Tuesday via e-mail.

Google is currently working on its own operating system, called Google Chrome OS, which will be capable of connecting to the Internet without relying on another operating system, according to descriptions by company officials. Netbooks running Chrome OS are scheduled to be available "towards the end of the year," a Google spokesperson told Wired.

The security of Chrome OS is one of the aspects touted by Google. Users will not be able to install binaries on the machines as all applications will be accessed through the Internet. The file system will be read only and Google will check on bootup that the system is running what it's supposed to be running, according to descriptions by Google officials.

Report: Windows 7 Gaining Corporate Adoption

Microsoft Releases Service Pack 2 for App-V 4.5

Microsoft this week released Service Pack 2 for its App-V 4.5 application virtualization solution.

This new service pack fixes problems described by customers using App-V 4.5 SP1. Still, the issuance of a new service pack for App-V 4.5 may seem somewhat confusing because Microsoft announced App-V 4.6 as part of its Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) 2010 set of tools back in late February.

By the way, for those using App-V 4.6, Microsoft just published a white paper on using application virtualization with remote desktop services via Windows Server 2008 R2.

A Microsoft FAQ (Word doc download) explains the reason for the backtracking to App-V 4.5 SP2. Microsoft still recommends that customers move to latest App-V 4.6 version, which features application virtualization support for Office 2010. However, some organizations can't make that move. Consequently, Microsoft released App-V 4.5 SP2 to fix some issues on the server side while also providing support for organizations wanting to virtualize Office 2010.

App-V 4.5 SP2 is available from Microsoft's Volume Licensing Service Center here, the Microsoft Download Center here, or Microsoft Update. An evaluation copy can also be accessed via Microsoft's MSDN and TechNet portals. Microsoft plans to include the SP2 version in the "next scheduled MDOP refresh," according to the FAQ.

Microsoft is touting the high availability and "enhanced failover protection" enabled with App-V 4.5 SP2. Those capabilities are supported through SQL mirroring, which also helps in disaster recovery scenarios and allows maintenance tasks to be performed using server recycling. Microsoft recommends separating the management server from the database to optimize this SQL mirroring capability.

Additionally, App-V 4.5 SP2 now allows data replication across geographies. That capability can help when recovering from site-wide failures.

The release notes to App-V 4.5 SP2 are available here. This service pack is considered "cumulative," meaning that users don't have to install SP1 first.

Microsoft Releases Forefront Protection 2010 for SharePoint

Microsoft Reshuffling Server and Tools Org

Microsoft plans to enable closer ties between its systems management and endpoint security teams. In addition, Microsoft will move its identity and federation security efforts closer to its online services efforts.

Effective on July 1 (the start of Microsoft's fiscal year), Microsoft's Forefront team responsible for endpoint security protection will become part of the System Center development team. Specifically, the endpoint protection team will be part of the STB's Management and Services Division overseen by Brad Anderson.

Anderson was promoted to corporate vice president of the Management and Services Division in July of last year. However, Microsoft's bio now lists him with a different title: Corporate vice president of the Management and Security Division. The change, announced on Wednesday in a Microsoft blog, is a little confusing since Anderson is still described in the blog post as leading the Management and Services Division.

At the 2009 Microsoft Management Summit in Las Vegas, Anderson described what the Management and Services Division does and the technologies involved.

"You should think about our group as responsible for all of the manageability and all the management technology that comes out from Microsoft," Anderson said, in a keynote talk transcript. "So the underlying technology in Windows, that's PowerShell and WMI and WS management, group policy, Windows update, all the desktop optimization pack and System Center. We think about this as one cohesive set of capabilities."

The endpoint protection team is currently led by General Managers Amnon Horowitz and Vinny Gullotto. This team has been working on integrating Microsoft's Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 product with its System Center Configuration Manager solution. Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 checks for security threats at the file, application and network layers within a Windows environment.

Microsoft plans to release Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 in the second half of this year. A beta is expected to appear in the third quarter of 2010, but Microsoft plans to describe more about the product at its June Tech-Ed North America event, according to this blog.

Microsoft also plans to bolster its STB efforts by moving the development team associated with identity, access and application security to the STB's Business Online Services Group. Lee Nackman, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Identity and Security Division, and his development team will join the Business Online Services Group. That group is led by David Thompson, corporate vice president of Microsoft Online.

This latter organizational move aims to address the use of identity and federation technologies with Internet cloud-based services, according to Thompson.

"Security and identity are core to Microsoft's efforts to help customers realize the benefits of cloud computing," Thompson explained in Microsoft's announcement. "Today's changes better align our engineering teams so customers get better experiences with Microsoft online services."

The announcement of the organizational changes was attributed to Bob Muglia, president of Microsoft's STB.

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