Microsoft Developers Conference Slated For October

Microsoft generally schedules the PDC whenever it reaches a critical mass of momentum and coming technology to offer developers a sneak preview of what's coming down the road. Late last year, Microsoft announced plans for a 2007 PDC, but postponed it in May, claiming that the timing of the event didn't fit with the launch schedule for its next wave of platform technologies.

Many developers and partners were puzzled by this explanation, however, and were left wondering why Microsoft scheduled the show in the first place if it wasn't going to have new technology to tout.

At Microsoft's last PDC in September 2005, Scott Stanfield, CEO of Vertigo Software, Richmond, Calif., saw a preview of LINQ, a set of extensions that adds native data querying to .NET and was part of last month's .NET 3.5 release.

"By going to PDC, we were able to get a two year head start," said Stanfield.

Stanfield speculates that PDC 2008 could include previews of Silverlight 3.0 and the next version of Expression Studio, a set of design and media tools for developers.

"Scheduling the PDC 10 months out seems about right. By the time October rolls around they'll have enough baked and we'll hopefully get a drop of alpha code," said Stanfield.