PDC 2008: What did we learn today?

Every year, PDC sets the pace and the mood for commercial software development over the next 12 months. So has the trumpet been sounded for the great exodus into the cloud? All this week, we've listened for the signs.

LOS ANGELES - The mood at this year's Microsoft Professional Developers' Conference was noticeably changed among both attendees and company representatives -- not altogether replaced, but certainly altered. In nearly each and every venue, there was a palpable energy, but I wouldn't call it "enthusiasm." I would, however, definitely call it "motivation."

First of all, there were significantly more attendees than we've noticed in years past, even on the last day. And they clearly had their interests mapped out; while several sessions overflowed into standby rooms that themselves overflowed, even up until end-of-day on Wednesday, other sessions only garnered a few dozen.

What were attendees interested in? The Oslo SOA platform was much more of a factor than we anticipated, and as a result, we'll start paying much even more attention to it. Microsoft has some intriguing plans for the world of service-oriented architecture, some of which are flying in the face of established standards -- though among many who attended the show, we detected outright gratitude for Microsoft making some bold statements.

It was no surprise at all that the crowd was energized about Microsoft's very serious entry into cloud computing, and CEO Steve Ballmer was right to give developers advance warning of the company's Azure announcement. But there was measurably less of a buzz about Windows 7 unto itself; while some of the new technologies that would be incorporated into Win7 (multitouch and PowerShell v2 among them) drew a lot of attention, the mood about a new client operating system brand was...well, subdued. Not altogether absent, but certainly less than enthusiastic.

Among the Microsoft product managers and project developers, the mood was calmer than in years past, which may not be all that bad. The giddiness over Vista has made way for a steadier, more measured approach to Win7.

But there was also an apprehension about appearing too enthusiastic about Azure; and among those who work directly on Azure, by Thursday there appeared to be a genuine air of indifference about the subject. During no fewer than three Thursday sessions about different aspects of cloud computing -- administration, programming, architecture -- where initial attendance was running well into the hundreds (filling a session on the last day is an amazing accomplishment), the lack of enthusiasm was so palpable that about two-thirds of the attendees left no more than half-an-hour into the hour-fifteen sessions.

It wasn't for lack of interest; in the particular case of Azure, it was for a lack of enthusiasm on the Microsoft managers' part that rose to the level of that interest.

The absence of Bill Gates was very keenly felt. We forget how often a conference keynote speech actually does set the keynote for the agenda, and does set the mood of everyone present. For all his dangling participles, Gates' cool optimism and almost mischievous confidence always put people in a good mood -- even those who mocked the guy more than praised him.

For all his accomplishments, Ray Ozzie is no Bill Gates. For both the Monday and Tuesday portions of this year's keynote (yes, it ran so long it was broken into two parts), Ozzie had about 50 minutes of combined stage time during his opening remarks where he mainly waxed poetic, making sweeping, existential comments that were drained of substance and information by the very weight of their verbiage. He drew a few loud hecklers, including one fellow on Monday who could clearly be heard in the back of the room from all the way up front in the press section, who shouted, "Aw, for God's sake, will you give us the cloud already?"

So giving us all a breath of fresh air during Day 2's keynote was Microsoft's current Windows chief, Steven Sinofsky. He came clean on every issue, including the trouble developers and admins have had with User Account Control in Vista. And he spelled out Windows 7 for what it truly was -- not some pretense that Vista didn't exist or that this was the real Vista, but rather that Win7 will truly be a correction of some of Vista's less well-embraced ideas. As Microsoft evolves its image over the next few years without Bill Gates' direct oversight, I'm hoping it looks more and more like the picture of the world Sinofsky is giving us.

Next: Did we get what we came for?