According to the latest results of Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Data Warehouse Database Management Systems, Microsoft has been positioned in the Leader's quadrant. For me, this is nothing more than a confirmation of what I already know firsthand: SQL Server 2005 rocks! And it seems that experts agree that SQL Server 2008 is going to build on the strength of SQL Server 2005 to deliver and even more advanced platform for mission-critical applications that rely on large volumes of data.

Looking back to those years we spent waiting for the 2005 release of SQL Server, I think it was worth waiting. Although SQL Server 2008 is not going to be as revolutionary as SQL Server 2005 was, it still promises a lot, especially for Business Intelligence solutions. We're heading towards really interesting times, don't you think?

A great announcement about F# was posted yesterday by Soma on his blog. Basically, he lets us know that F# is going to make it into Visual Studio. Being a person firmly rooted in the academic world, I can't say how happy I am with this particular decision. Although things like lambda expressions and LINQ are based on functional programming techniques, a 'pure' functional programming language is not yet available in Visual Studio. It seems that now Microsoft decided on moving the F# project from Microsoft Research to the mainstream of software development. It's just another great example of something that is born inside Microsoft Research and after a couple of years surfaces into a product (just think about those cool data mining algorithms we use today in SQL Server).

Personally, I felt many times during my developer experiences the lack of something as powerful as a functional programing language. At times, things that I was working hard to express using C# for example, could have been done a whole lot easier in the functional style. And remember, I'm a huge C# fan. The thing that F# is going to be one of the available choices in Visual Studio makes my developer personality very very happy. In the same time, my academic personality is equally happy to see that Microsoft is really committed towards making the .NET Framework a great choice for the folks in the academic environment.

As Don Syme mentions on his blog, this marks the "end of the beginning" for F#. So, what can I say? Happy End of the Beginning F#!

After a 23 hours journey through half of the world, I'm attending now (a bit jet lagged I have to admit) an event that's a first for the Microsoft Regional Directors Program: the RD Summit. My expectations for this event were high and, despite it started only a few hours ago, I'm convinced all of them are going to be met. A mix of great folks from Microsoft and the RD program as well as the exceptional location (Aspen, Colorado) are the key ingredients that are going to make this event a great success. They key discussion points are related to upcoming Microsoft technologies as well as to the role Regional Directors will continue to play in the Microsoft ecosystem, so we're all set for a couple of very busy and interesting days.

Microsoft takes a huge step towards being a transparent company. Scott Guthrie just announced they are releasing the source code for the .NET Framework libraries. But wait, there's more! The RTM version of Visual Studio 2008 will provide support for .NET Framework debugger symbols from a web server hosted by Microsoft. All in all, this means more support for .NET developers and I dare to say, on the long term, a much more stable and robust .NET Framework.

What's important to understand is that the release process is going to be gradual over the next months. It seems in the first wave we'll get Base Class Libraries, Windows Forms, ASP.NET and WPF. The first wave will be followed gradually by other releases in 2008.

All in all, this is great news for .NET developers!

Microsoft Romania is organizing a very interesting competition for Romanian developers. The task at hand is the development of Windows Live or Windows Vista Sidebar gadgets and the prizes are very very cool. So, if you're a Romanian developer, go get the prize! The deadline for registration is October 31, 2007 and the official site of the competition is http://www.gadgetcompetition.ro.

In about 10 hours from now, Scott Guthrie will make an announcement on his blog about something that will radically change the way we develop with the .NET Framework. Stay tuned ...