Vista is finally here and many of us have opportunity to try it before it hits the consumer market in late January 2007. By all means, the new OS is impressive and it will definitely be a success. Still, a question has been bugging me lately: is Vista going to be the swan song of traditional desktop-style, client-side operating systems from Microsoft or is just another step ahead? Clearly, the Redmond giant is moving full-steam ahead, with profits raising constantly. But others (like Google or Apple) also have a strong wind in their sails. And it is clear for every one that the winds of change are on the rise inside the giant from Redmond. Having this question in my mind, I found a very good article in BusinessWeek Online named "The Soul Of A New Microsoft". The article is located here and I definitely recommend you to read it because it contains a very good analysis on how the new Microsoft might look in a few years from now.

We're finally there! Vista is available for download by MSDN subscribers, as well as Office 2007. .NET Framework 3.0 can be downloaded from here (32 bit) and here (64 bit). The RTM for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is available here, and the trial version for SharePoint Server 2007 here.

There are also many other very interesting resources for SharePoint 2007:

• Enterprise Content Management blog for SharePoint (http://blogs.msdn.com/ecm/)
• Enterprise Content Management Starter Kit (http://blogs.msdn.com/ecm/archive/2006/10/10/ECM-Starter-Kit-for-B2TR.aspx) - this one is still for Beta 2TR, but you can recompile the samples and most of them will work without a problem
• The SDKs for WSS (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=05E0DD12-8394-402B-8936-A07FE8AFAFFD&displaylang=en) as well as for MOSS (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6D94E307-67D9-41AC-B2D6-0074D6286FA9&displaylang=en). Both are for Beta 2TR, but a recompile will do the trick for most of the samples
• Understanding workflow in SharePoint (http://blogs.msdn.com/pandrew/archive/2006/08/29/WorkflowInOfficePaper.aspx) - this is an excellent whitepaper written by David Chappell, a must for everyone starting to work with workflow on SharePoint 2007

During the past couple of weeks there has been a lot of discussion around the announcement of a set of business and technical collaboration agreements between Microsoft and Novell (read here the full press announcement). A few years ago, such an announcement was virtually impossible. Fortunately, many companies (including of course Microsoft and Novell) were able to walk on the very complicated road that leaves behind the narrow-minded, senseless war between proprietary and open source code and leads to a world where, finally, the customer is the most important argument.

Personally, I think it is a huge mistake to think that in the end, closed vs. open source is what really matters for the end user. Actually, the only thing that matters is the quality/price ratio of the software. If somebody (individual or organization) finds out that a certain piece of software (OS, application, component, and so on) together with the required support (consultancy, maintenance, and so on) suits the needs and fits into the budget, that particular piece of software will be acquired. In our sometimes very limited world of developers, we can go on and argue for ever that closed source is better that open source or viceversa. My question is whether this endless (and in a sense pointless) argument provides any advantage to the ones using the software we write...

Despite extreme positions like this, I think Microsoft and Novell are doing the right thing by burying the hatchet and providing a better context for the consumer's choice. One can only hope that Microsoft and Novell are only the first from a long series of companies that realize we are sometimes too loud arguing about the closeness or openness of our solutions and we are actually covering with our voice the ones that matter the most: people who actually use the software we write.

Our RD Program Manager Kevin challenged the Regional Directors from all over the world to participate in a very interesting contest. We were basically required to create a photo including a minimum of three items: one piece of RD in standard gear :), a laptop running Vista and some Office 2007 apps, and a landmark of the region we are coming from. The photo was supposed to be accompanied by a quote regarding the developer experience on Vista and Office 2007.

TechEd Developers 2006 brought two huge surprises to me. The first one came in the preconference day when we were participating in our RD side meeting and it turned out that I won one of the big prizes for the best quote! This prize contains among other things an XBOX 360.

  Here you can see the picture I created for this cool contest. The quote, well... it sounds like this:

Why will Windows Vista change my life as a developer? Because for the first time in my professional career I will be able to deliver applications having the kind of super cool user interface I was dreaming about since my first contact with extraordinary stories like Star Wars and Dune. Combined with Office 2007, it will also change my life as a developer because it is the first time that I feel I am in total control while planning and implementing software solutions on Windows. It just feels great to be a developer these days!

But the second surprise was even bigger than the first. During his keynote at TechEd Developers, Eric Rudder, Senior Vice President at Microsoft, used some of our photos in one of his slides to show the coverage of the RD program worldwide. He also took a moment to thank all RDs for their extraordinary efforts. If I remember well, this actually was the very first time when one of Microsoft's senior officials thanks the RDs during a TechEd keynote! I really felt very proud that I am part of this extraordinary bunch of people who are commonly refered as Microsoft Regional Directors.