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WPF Everywhere

WPF/E is a subset of WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) technologies from Microsoft. Microsoft is expected to make WPF/E available on wide platforms apart from Windows, including Mac OS, Mobiles and more.

When WPF/E was announced earlier this year in Mix ’06, I was little skeptical on how far Microsoft will go to make it ubiquitos and useful. With the Dec CTP release of WPF/E I guess I will have to eat my doubts :-) .

I downloaded and played with the Dec CTP (Community Release) version of WPF/E for last few days. The Dec CTP is small (1MB download), works in Windows and MacOS. The WPF/E browser plug-in works in both IE and FireFox – WPF/E works as a browser plug-in just like Adobe Flash. For me, WPF/E looks like a very promising technology for two reasons: 1) It is based (subset) on the same XAML specification – instead of making developers learn a new model, this is a good move. 2) It works as a browser plug-in, can make it ubiquitous.  For WPF/E to complement Flash in a big way, MS has to come out fast with versions for as many platforms as possible, keep the XAML subset as close to as possible to the full-blown .NET Fx 3.0/WPF.

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Who is a MS Regional Director?

I have been a Microsoft Regional Director from 1999. Everyone I get introduced to first ask me what is Microsoft Regional Director Program and who can be a RD?. So far the best way I could describe was by saying “RDs are not Microsoft Employees. They are third party technical evangelist who are passionate on Microsoft Technologies”.  

This week one of my fellow RDs, Jonathan Goodyear has written this piece on “Who is a MS RD” in ASP.NET Pro Magazine. Thanks Jonathan.