Keeping an Eye on Microsoft: The Windows 10 Reveal Today

["Dennis E. Hamilton" <de...@acm.org>]

I keep an eye on Microsoft mostly as an user but also with an eye to getting ahead of the curve with regard to developing software destined for the Microsoft platform/ecosystem.  I want to get out front more and see how to develop for the newest platform rather than play catch-up from the older platforms (and because I have no legacy code that needs to be sustained/perpetuated).

So I had already been interesting in Windows Universal Apps which are designed to be responsive and to fit all form factors and platforms.  These can be essentially HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript.  There can also be more native/.NET code in the Mix.

I am one of the 1.7 million people running Windows 10 as part of the Windows Insider Program.  (Today I was reminded that there are over 1.5 billion people running Windows computers.)  That is also where I toy with the Visual Studio 2015 Preview too.  Beside the Python and Node support that is there, as well as tools for Universal Apps, there is support for Chrome, the JDK, Android Developer, and even Clang there or coming as secondary installable facilities.

Beside the Universal Apps and the various ways to take them onto multiple platforms, the following information was made available today:

 1. Xbox One will run Universal Apps and Xbox Live comes to Windows 10 in more ways
 2. Cortana will be on Windows 10 and available to Windows Apps, so this includes text to speech, speech to text, text commands, and probably translation (with help from Skype).
 3. There will be Universal Apps of Outlook (Mail and Calendar), and Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel (in addition to Web Apps and the desktop apps).
 4. The holographic imaging and viewing is available to Universal Apps.  

This may be very important as we come to grips with how to deploy Corinthia-based apps into the Windows ecosystem.

 - Dennis

RE: Keeping an Eye on Microsoft: The Windows 10 Reveal Today

["Dennis E. Hamilton" <de...@acm.org>]

The Microsoft Office team just did a reveal on what it will mean to have the Microsoft Office Universal apps on Windows 10 (available on the desktop of you want, as well), along with the fact that the full-up desktop Office 2016 is also underway.

As far as I know, Universal apps are also amenable to porting to Android and iOS, depending on what the native dependencies might be when built for Windows alone.

Is it not valuable to pay attention to all of this in determining feature parity and, in particular, how the standard formats are limited (or not) in cloud interchange and use of web applications and Universal apps?

 - Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Dennis E. Hamilton [mailto:dennis.hamilton@acm.org] 
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2015 16:51
To: dev@corinthia.incubator.apache.org
Subject: Keeping an Eye on Microsoft: The Windows 10 Reveal Today

[ ... ]

Beside the Universal Apps and the various ways to take them onto multiple platforms, the following information was made available today:

 1. Xbox One will run Universal Apps and Xbox Live comes to Windows 10 in more ways
 2. Cortana will be on Windows 10 and available to Windows Apps, so this includes text to speech, speech to text, text commands, and probably translation (with help from Skype).
 3. There will be Universal Apps of Outlook (Mail and Calendar), and Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel (in addition to Web Apps and the desktop apps).
 4. The holographic imaging and viewing is available to Universal Apps.  

This may be very important as we come to grips with how to deploy Corinthia-based apps into the Windows ecosystem.

 - Dennis