By Andrew Horne
In a leaked internal e-mail following the unexpected departure of executive Kevin Johnson, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer outlined company objectives for the year ahead: growth of Windows, the development of software plus services, and an improved user experience.

Work on both software and software plus services is on the docket for 2009. Ballmer announced a campaign to promote Vista, now that several problems in the system appear to have been ironed out. He also mentioned the disturbed computing ‘Cloud’ architecture as a major area of interest going forward. Look for more details to coincide with October’s Professional Developers Conference.

Despite the great emphasis on new rich client interfaces like Silverlight, Ballmer promised to “redefine the meaning and value” of established Windows clients. He urged more WPF-style development. Microsoft alone will not secure the growth it hopes for in the operating system, he said. “We also have to drive developers to create rich applications for Windows.”

The Ajax interface has proved an interesting animal. Many people trace asynchronous JavaScript use back to Microsoft’s early Outlook Web clients, but it was not promoted by Microsoft much until open-source AJAX [for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML] as used by Google became popular about three years ago. Then, Microsoft embraced it wholeheartedly, creating its own ASP.NET Ajax version of AJAX, and saving some trouble for its developer legions. Yet, third parties still have a role to play in moving ASP.NET Ajax forward, as SearchWinDevelopment.com’s Vendor roundtable series can attest.

ASP.NET Ajax Roundtable Part 1 - Browser Compatibility

ASP.NET Ajax Roundtable Part 2 - Resurgence in JavaScript

ASP.NET Ajax Roundtable Part 3 - Open Source

SearchSoftwareQuality.com survey on Agile processes is out. The Web site asked its readers a series of questions on team-oriented development issues.

The take-away: Requirements gathering is still hard; waterfall methods are still as prominent as Agile methods; and Use Cases are here to stay despite a push toward User Stories for requirements modeling.

Take a look at the SearchSoftwareQuality.com Agile Trends 2008 Survey and related articles and you will see what the overall team thinks about these compelling trends. Tell us what you think.  Happy Fourth of July!