Now sitting here at LAX and reflecting over what we have experienced during the PDC 2008 the last few days. We learned a lot about technical stuff and what’s growing up in Redmond, but I think the most important stuff is what’s happening to the software business in large. With Windows Azure as the first large scale service host and with the number of online services that Microsoft will release in the upcoming years we have a real challenge to adapt to these new business models. Not only Microsoft is running this way, just look at Amazon and others, but Microsoft have such an effect on a large number of users.
We are going to see how our business models will be changed in a few years, and it is time to start thinking about this now. Ok, now you say; I know SOA, I can make web services…but it’s not all about that it’s just the technology that will be used. But it’s fine as long as you know the technology you’re right on track. Several of the PDC sessions was about how to architect solutions for the cloud, which is somewhat different than having your services on premise. If you haven’t watched them I urge you to do so.
Another thing that was really evident at the PDC was that the imperative programming paradigm will and can be replaced with more declarative programming and functional programming. This will be painful for a lot of developers, including me. Same here, you better get to start adapting to this. You have no-code XAML workflows, F# and last but not least Oslo to start with. Of course we will have standard old imperative languages for a long time to come, but you should know when to use other approaches, and knowing about this will be a competitive advantage for you.
This is what I have been thinking about since PDC ended and i know I don’t cover it all here, but it’s just to give you a hint of where the winds are blowing…
Now I have to kill a few hours here at LAX before a long flight home to my beloved family. See ya around.