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There has been a fair share of speculation and rumors around the upcoming Build conference lately, nobody can deny that. As of writing this blog post (Thursday, September 8th) Microsoft has managed to sell out a conference only just recently letting attendees know that there will in fact be two keynotes, Big Picture Sessions, and a few get-togethers. Folks are excited, excited about Windows development, and this is a good thing for everyone. Yup, that’s right—a Silverlight MVP is excited about what comes next.

“Why?” You ask. Well, because I work with some very smart people. “Who?” You ask. For starters, way back in July we had an article by Stephen Forte, Telerik CSO, titled “Silverlight is Dead, Long Live Xaml”. It’s a great read, I definitely encourage you to check it out, specifically the point about Xaml being the future and moving inside of the Windows organization (this is a very good thing). I especially liked the part about Build being “Silverlight and XAML’s graduation party”. Fast forward a bit to August and Todd Anglin, Telerik Chief Evangelist, took us through a brief lesson in the history of the Windows platform that includes an interesting take on how the technology and the vision have finally come together and that this is a good time for both HTML(5) and XAML developers. Skip ahead two more days and Vassil Terziev, Co-CEO of Telerik, gave straight talk from the top on how the strategy at Telerik has not shifted, but rather we’re staying the course of commitment to what has come before and what will come next.

Am I looking for a raise by highlighting my bosses? Maybe, but to be perfectly honest it makes me confident to know that these are the people directing Telerik operations day-to-day and ensuring that the decisions we make on a company-wide level are intelligent ones with regards to the continued growth and development of Telerik.

Let’s Talk History

Speaking of Telerik, I’ll take you on a quick walk down memory lane considering I’m on the eve of my third anniversary with the company. A decade ago a company was formed around a single control. Today, that company employs over 400 people across more than a handful of countries, working towards a common goal of making developers lives better. In that decade we rolled out support for ASP.Net and Windows Forms, providing our own proprietary Ajax framework until Microsoft rolled out MS Ajax – which we quickly adopted with our controls. We supported WPF and Silverlight from the beginning (that’s right, we rocked Silverlight 1 controls), offered support for Windows Phone even before its official launch (and just so happen to be the most widely used 3rd party vendor in the Marketplace). We’ve been there through ASP.Net MVC 1, 2, and 3, adopted jQuery before it was the next big thing, have supported Azure before most businesses knew what “the cloud” was besides a buzz word – and on a very important note, have been up to speed with every Microsoft release in the last few years with compatibility in our own tools.

Not only have we been committed to being there soon, Telerik has a track record of being there first—with quality tools that develop with the platform and based on the feedback from our enterprise partners and developer community. If it is new, hot, exciting, or just a version upgrade, Telerik has had you covered with the type of quality and support that is unparalleled in the industry.

Remember What Stephen Said?

In the post referenced above, Stephen mentioned the rumor of the XAML team moving into the Windows organization, signaling a long, bright future for XAML. Skip ahead a month and a half and Steven Sinofsky, of Windows Division fame, put up a post to introduce the developer community and the world at large to the Windows 8 team. Scroll to the bottom of that list and you’ll find a XAML team. Now remember, I’m a Silverlight guy, so shouldn’t this scare me?

Not in the least. I believe that the best part of Silverlight, WPF, and Windows Phone is the common ground – the XAML. If Silverlight 5 is the last version we’re calling Silverlight and what comes next in the XAML world is Jupiter, Immersive UI, or who-knows-what, the best parts are being saved, and not only that, but they’re a part of Windows now. Life is good my XAML-loving friends!

So… What Comes Next?

We’re all going to find this out together. The week of Build is going to prove to be pretty mind-blowing as a lot of information is going to be thrown at us, developers and mere mortals alike. Quite frankly it sounds like for those of us developing for current technologies (ASP.Net Ajax, Winforms, ASP.Net MVC, Silverlight, WPF, WP7, HTML5) will have a home and tools available from a partner that has been there for you for a decade and counting. As far as what comes next, rest assured that our developers and engineers are hard at work to ensure that once you are ready to start developing for tomorrow, you’ll have the quality and dependability that Telerik provides. We've got a small army of Telerikers coming to Build including senior management and some of our top engineers in the organization, we'll be at the next VSIP summit in Redmond, and regardless of what gets released at the upcoming Build conference, Telerik will have your back 100% to help ensure a smooth transition to the future of Windows development.  Just like we always have in the past.

See you all at Build!


About the Author

Evan Hutnick

works as a Developer Evangelist for Telerik specializing in Silverlight and WPF in addition to being a Microsoft MVP for Silverlight. After years as a development enthusiast in .Net technologies, he has been able to excel in XAML development helping to provide samples and expertise in these cutting edge technologies. You can find him on Twitter @EvanHutnick.

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