C# 411Microsoft announced the next version of its developer platform, which will be named Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0. Microsoft said VS10 will focus on five key areas (in marketing-speak): riding the next-generation platform wave, inspiring developer delight, powering breakthrough departmental applications, enabling emerging trends such as cloud computing, and democratizing application life-cycle management (ALM).
Microsoft is apparently tired of being portrayed as a dumpy has-been in Apple’s "Hello, I’m a Mac" commercials. The software giant has just launched a new $300 million ad campaign with Jerry Seinfeld as its celebrity pitchman. Seinfeld will appear in the some of the ads with Microsoft founder and chairman Bill Gates and will receive about $10 million in payment. The ad campaign will debut September 4 and is one of the largest in the company’s history.
The new ads will use the slogan "Windows, Not Walls," which really speaks to me as a computer user because I’m always running into walls and… wait, WTF does that mean? Apparently the point is to break down the barriers that prevent people and ideas from connecting. Hmm, hasn’t Microsoft ever heard of that thing called "The Internet?" As Homer Simpson once said, "Oh, they have the Internet on computers now."
