Microsoft Hosts Mix for Web Developers, Designers

Microsoft has opened registration for its Mix07 conference, which is aimed at bringing Web developers, designers and the advertising community together to look at new business opportunities around Microsoft’s next-generation Web technologies.

Mix07 will be held at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas April 30 to May 2. The conference will be Microsoft’s second Mix event; the company hailed last year’s Mix06 as a “conversation” with Web developers and designers. Interested parties should go to http://visitmix.com to register for the event.

“Mix is a forum for discussing ways to bring technologies such as ASP.Net AJAX (formerly code-named “Atlas”), Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere (WPF/E), Media Center Edition, Internet Explorer, and the Expression suite together in a way that enables developers and designers to deliver rich Web experiences that drive business results,” the Microsoft Mix site said.

The Mix07 keynotes will be Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie and Scott Guthrie, a general manager in the Microsoft Developer Division, according to Tim O’Brien, director of platform strategy at Microsoft.

Last year at its Mix event, Microsoft launched the Go-Live preview of its AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) tool, then known as Atlas.

“At Mix06 we re-engaged with a big segment of the Web community that did not have a lot of familiarity with Microsoft,” O’Brien said.

With Mix07, Microsoft hopes to maintain a “consistent set of interactions” with Web developers, the design community and advertisers, O’Brien said. And the conference will indicate how Microsoft has acted on the exchanges the company has had to date with the various communities, he said.

The updated Mix07 Web site has the link for registration, along with descriptions of about 30 of the sessions that will be held at the event, although there will be more than 50 sessions overall, O’Brien said.

Microsoft’s laptop giveaway rubs some the wrong way. Click here to read more.

Microsoft will also discuss its increasing emphasis on promoting and adhering to industry standards in the Web development and design space and making AJAX development easier, he said. In addition, the company will give updates on its tools and runtimes, such as Microsoft’s Expression suite of tools for designers, ASP.Net AJAX, Internet Explorer, WPF/E, .Net 3.0 and others.

“We’ll be talking about technology we’re currently shipping as well as about future directions,” O’Brien said.

Microsoft’s goal is to use its heritage of meeting the needs of the developer community as a foundation to reach the designer community, O’Brien said. Mix07 is just one way to extend that.

“In general, maintaining a two-way interaction with the community we’re trying to serve on an ongoing basis” is of major importance to Microsoft, O’Brien said.

As for developers and designers, “the first order of business is to get these two groups integrated from a workflow perspective,” which Microsoft is doing with the Expression tools and the underlying XAML (Extensible Application Markup Language) technology that boasts support in both Microsoft’s core developer tools and its newer design tools.

A key point Microsoft hopes to push, according to O’Brien, is that there is a linkage across the three primary areas of focus—developer, designer and advertiser—and that is “the business focus for all three,” he said. “The connection across these makes Mix unique.”

O’Brien said that one-third or more of the sessions at Mix07 will be headed by non-Microsoft speakers, including speakers from competitors and Microsoft skeptics. And Microsoft partners will also be heavily represented in the speaker ranks, he added.

Check out eWEEK.com’s for Microsoft and Windows news, views and analysis.