the case against .NET

Microsoft is currently staging its PDC in Los Angeles. To say I’m underwhelmed would be an understatement.

PDC stands for Professional Developers Conference (sic), but most of the news seems to be about a cute new toolbar design for Microsoft Office. If this is a developers’ conference, where’s the information about how to use this stuff in our own apps? Why is this eye candy a feature of Office, rather than a feature of the Windows platform (or maybe Microsoft wants us to think of Office as the platform)?

After Office 12, there’s lots of stuff about yet another Konfabulator rip-off.

By far the most interesting (best?) news concerns Microsoft’s recent love affair with RSS. Having embraced RSS, let’s hope they can refrain from the urge to extend it.