Attend a keynote at a big Microsoft conference and at some point in the presentation you will hear a musical fanfare followed by a breathless product announcement.
Depending on the show and the time of year the announcements can be hum-drum or spectacular. Do you remember when Microsoft announced a new development framework called .NET a few years ago?
Of course Scott Guthrie’s keynotes tend to be a little more fun.
How to Top Mix08?
Silverlight 3 is going to be the brightest light in the Mix09 marquee this year. Expect to hear a flurry of announcements regarding new features in Silverlight. Silverlight 2 is impressive but Microsoft needs to show improvements in many areas to offset the advantages of their competitors RIA frameworks.
The tools in Expression Suite get little love from Adobe devotees. The designer wars are heating up however and Microsoft will show some startling improvements in Expression Blend. You definitely won’t want to miss the Expression Blend announcements.
WPF and XAML are also gaining significant improvements, some of which will be shown at Mix. I saw a preview of what’s coming in Silverlight, Expression Blend and WPF while at the MVP summit earlier this month. What I saw at the summit was very exciting and I expect it will be thoroughly covered during Mix sessions this week.
I know that there are even more surprises coming, including one super NDA Silverlight secret, so keep your ears open.
Expect live coverage of the Mix event here at the WpfWonderland blog.
[update]
Mix09 is over and the secrets have been revealed.
Tim Heuer has a nice summary of Silverlight 3 features.
http://timheuer.com/blog/archive/2009/03/18/silverlight-3-whats-new-a-guide.aspx
we want silverlight 2 mobile…