<![CDATA[Microsoft trial balloons Web strategy?]]>Ahh, the prepare-for-Ray Ozzie’s-speech-at-Mix-7 events have already started. Adam Sohn (he was the PR guy in our group when I started at Microsoft) is quoted on Redmond Developer saying that Microsoft is preparing a Live Development Platform. Ahh, an API that’ll do it all? Hmmm. I’m worried about the boil-the-ocean approach. Web developers like small, discrete APIs (I was just over at Redfin today and saw how they are using Microsoft’s Virtual Earth maps) that don’t take dependencies on other things (which is why Windows Vista itself was so late). Oh, and they like to see lots of iterations, er, small improvements in the service over time that demonstrates a team’s commitment (Virtual Earth got dozens of little, and some major, improvements over the past three years).
Translation: Microsoft is still not speaking the Web’s language. It’ll be interesting, though, to see what Ray does say when he comes out of seclusion.
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