Thanks to a recent leak which has revealed some interesting information about the next major Windows Phone version, I can now publicly discuss Windows Phone 8 for the first time.

First, a quick recap:

• Windows Phone 7.5 “Mango” came out in the second half of last year and was the launch OS for Nokia’s Lumia phones.
• Windows Phone “Tango” is expected in the second quarter of 2012 and appears to be a minor update focused on low-end handsets.
• Windows Phone “Apollo” is the subject of the new leaks. Some of the details:
• Uses the Windows 8 kernel and other OS components, rather than Windows CE
• Supports multicore processors
• Supports more form factors and screen resolutions
• Preserves compatibility with Windows Phone 7 apps
• Adds BitLocker encryption

I presume this also means that native code development will be supported, as it is for the Windows Runtime (WinRT) in Windows 8.

Date for “Apollo”? The rumour is towards the end of this year, as a close follow-on from Windows 8 itself.

Like many leaks, this one raises as many questions as it answers. While it makes sense that Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 should share the same kernel, it also raises the question of  how they are differentiated. Windows 8, especially on ARM, is designed for small screens and tablets. Windows Phone 8, we now learn, will support more form factors. The implication is that there may be Windows Phone 8 devices that are close in size to Windows 8 devices. Will they run the same apps from the same Marketplace, at least in some cases, in the same way that some iOS apps support both iPhone and iPad?

The Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 era will be simplified in one sense, with a single core operating system across desktop and devices. In another sense though, it ushers in new complexity, with multiple platforms that have subtle or not so subtle differences:

• Windows 8 desktop side, on laptop and tablet (x86)
• Windows 8 desktop side, laptop and tablet (ARM) – rumoured to be locked down for Office and perhaps a few other favoured apps
• Windows 8 Metro side, desktop, laptop and tablet (x86) which should be nearly the same as
• Windows 8 Metro side, desktop, laptop and tablet (ARM) – runs WinRT
• Windows Phone 8 – runs WinRT, plus Silverlight compatibility layer

My guess is that Microsoft will push WinRT as the single platform developers should target, but I can see scope for confusion among both developers and users.

Related posts:

1. Windows Phone 8 will run Windows 8, with Silverlight centre stage?
2. Windows Runtime must come to Windows Phone
3. Windows Phone 7 incompatibility may drive developers elsewhere

There is plentiful evidence of the aggravation this causes, particularly when the new password has to be entered in several places. Smartphones are problematic because email accounts settings can be hard to find. For example:

guess who missed a super important email last night from my most important customer because unbeknownst to me, my smart phone was no longer receiving messages because the password had expired – even though I never selected a 90-day setting when i set up the account and had no idea such insanity was in place. It wasn;t until I logged into my computer just now and was greeted with none of my services working that I figured it out!

Even IT professionals can run into trouble:

My Office 365 account password expired today and, somewhere in the midst of the password reset I managed to lock myself out. As I only have one mailbox on the account (i.e. I am the administrator), that’s a bit of a problem.

Microsoft’s cloud services, BPOS and Office 365, both set automatic password expiry by default. This was a common complaint about BPOS. Originally you could contact support and get password expiry disabled; then Microsoft decided this was too much hassle for it (never mind the users) and made it impossible to change.

Fortunately Office 365 does allow you to disable password expiry. Here is how.

1. Install Office 365 sign-in assistant. Links are here.

2. Install PowerShell cmdlets for Office 365, downloads also in link above.

3. Run PowerShell, type:

import-module MSOnline

4. Next, type:

connect-MSOlService

Enter your credentials for an admin user. For example, user@mydomain.emea.microsoftonline com and the password.

5. Finally, type:

Set-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName TheUserName -PasswordNeverExpires $true

where TheUserName is the account name concerned, for example user@mydomain.co.uk

6. Alternatively you can do this in one shot for all users:

Get-MSOLUser | Set-MsolUser -PasswordNeverExpires $true

Note that with all these commands, no news is good news. In other words, success gets you nothing other than return to the flashing cursor. Errors get you red error messages.

Reference:

http://community.office365.com/en-us/f/146/p/18367/87501.aspx

Related posts:

1. Microsoft’s BPOS password madness driving users to Google Apps
2. Why are web sites still storing passwords? Monster, USAJobs blunder highlights the risks
3. Office 2007: what do you lose by setting binary formats as default?

The survey attracted 3,335 respondents drawn, it says, from “enterprise, SMB and independent developers worldwide.” I have a quibble with this, since I believe the survey should state that these were PHP developers. Why? Because I have an email from November which asked me to participate and said:

Zend is taking the pulse of PHP developers. What’s hot and what matters most in your view of PHP?

There is a difference between “developers” and “PHP developers”, and much though I love PHP the survey should make this clear. Nevertheless, If you participated, but mainly use Java or some other language, your input is still included. Later the survey states that “more than 50% of enterprise developers and more than 65% of SMB developers surveyed report spending more than half of their time working in PHP.” But if they are already identified as PHP developers, that is not a valuable statistic.

Caveat aside, the results make good reading. Some highlights:

• 66% of those surveyed are working on mobile development.
• 45% are integrating with social media
• 41% are doing cloud-based development

Those are huge figures, and demonstrate how far in the past was the era when mobile was some little niche compared to mainstream development. It is the mainstream now – though you would get a less mobile-oriented picture if you surveyed enterprise developers alone. Similar thoughts apply to social media and cloud deployment.

The next figures that caught my eye relate to cloud deployment specifically.

• 30% plan to use Amazon
• 28% will use cloud but are undecided which to use
• 10% plan to use Rackspace
• 6% plan to use Microsoft Azure
• 5% have another public cloud in mind (Google? Heroku?)
• 3% plan to use IBM Smart Cloud

The main message here is: look how much business Amazon is getting, and how little is going to giants like Microsoft, IBM and Google. Then again, these are PHP developers, in which light 6% for Microsoft Azure is not bad – or are these PHP developer who also work in .NET?

I was also interested in the “other languages used” section. 82% use JavaScript, which is no surprise given that PHP is a web technology, but more striking is that 24% also use Java, well ahead of C/C++ at 17%, C# at 15% and Python at 11%.

Finally, the really important stuff. 86% of developers listen to music while coding, and the most popular artists are:

1. Metallica
2. = Pink Floyd and Linkin Park

Wow.

Related posts:

1. Cloud Computing survey: more fog than cloud
2. Eclipse survey shows Windows decline
3. Which Microsoft cloud? Windows Server 8 shows Azure is not everything

So how do you install it? One line on Linux; but I did not want to put it on my web server and I re-purposed my spare Linux machine last year after one of my other servers broke.

I decided to run up a Debian install on a Hyper-V server that has a little spare capacity.

I then followed the setups here for setting up Node.js and npm (Node Package Manager). I also installed nginx which I have been meaning to try for a while. Linux on Hyper-V works fine, though you have to use a “Legacy” network adapter which compromises performance a bit, unless you are willing to tackle installing Microsoft’s Hyper-V integration components for Linux, which do not support Debian though it is said to work. I do not need a GUI and the legacy network adapter is OK for this.

Everything works OK, though I found that nide does not work in Internet Explorer 9. I used Google Chrome, which makes sense I guess since the same JavaScript engine is used by Node.js.

Nide is a simple affair which is essentially a file manager. Projects are displayed in a tree view, and you select a file to view or edit it. The icons at the bottom left of the screen let you create and delete files and folders.

The smartest feature is version management. Files are saved automatically and you can easily compare versions and revert if necessary. The “Go backward in time” button shows that auto-saves are quite frequent.

There is also a GUI for npm built-in. Pretty good for a competition entry, though I had a few problems.

If you are interested in web-based IDEs, another interesting one is Orion, an Eclipse project.  Executive Director Mike Milinkovich says Orion will ship a 1.0 release later this year.

Related posts:

1. Microsoft partners with Joyent to bring node.js server-side JavaScript to Windows
2. Don’t miss Ryan Dahl on Node.js
3. Getting started with VMWare Cloud Foundry

1. Most dramatic moment award: Nokia’s burning platform and alliance with Microsoft

In February Nokia’s Stephen Elop announced an alliance with Microsoft and commitment to Windows Phone 7. In October we saw the first results in terms of product: the launch of the Lumia smartphone. It is a lovely phone though with some launch imperfections like too short battery life. We also saw greatly improved marketing, following the dismal original Windows Phone 7 launch a year earlier. Enough? Early indications are not too good. Simply put, most users want iOS or Android, and the app ecosystem, which Elop stated as a primary reason for adoption Windows Phone, is not there yet. Both companies will need to make some smart moves in 2012 to fix these issues, if it is possible. But how much time does Nokia have?

2. Riskiest technology bet: Microsoft unveils Windows 8

In September 2011 Microsoft showed a preview of Windows 8 to developers at its BUILD conference in California. It represents a change of direction for the company, driven by competition from Apple and Android. On the plus side, the new runtime in Windows 8 is superb and this may prove to be the best mobile platform from a developer and technical perspective, though whether it can succeed in the market as a late entrant alongside iOS and Android is an open question. On the minus side, Windows 8 will not drive upgrades in the same way as Windows 7, since the company has chosen to invest mainly in creating a new platform. I expect much debate about the wisdom of this in 2012.

Incidentally, amidst all the debate about Windows 8 and Microsoft generally, it is worth noting that the other Windows 8, the server product, looks like being Microsoft’s best release for years.

3. Best cloud launch: Office 365

June 2011 saw the launch of Office 365, Microsoft’s hosted collaboration platform based on Exchange and SharePoint. It was not altogether new, since it is essentially an upgrade of the older BPOS suite. Microsoft is more obviously committed to this approach now though, and has built a product that has both the features and the price to appeal to a wide range of businesses, who want to move to the cloud but prefer the familiarity of Office and Exchange to the browser-based world of Google Apps. Bad news though for Microsoft partners who make lots of money nursing Small Business Server and the like.

4. Most interesting new cross-platform tool: Embarcadero Delphi for Windows, Mac and iOS

Developers, at least those who have still heard of Embarcadero’s rapid application development tool, were amazed by the new Delphi XE2 which lets you develop for Mac and Apple iOS as well as for Windows. This good news was tempered by the discovery that the tool was seemingly patched together in a bit of a hurry, and that most existing application would need extensive rewriting. Nevertheless, an interesting new entrant in the world of cross-platform mobile tools.

5. Biggest tech surprise: Adobe shifts away from its Flash Platform

This one caught me by surprise. In November Adobe announced a shift in its business model away from Flash and away from enterprise development, in favour of HTML5, digital media and digital marketing. It also stated that Flash for mobile would no longer be developed once existing commitments were completed. The shift is not driven by poor financial results, but rather reflects the company’s belief that this will prove a better direction in the new world of cloud and device. Too soon and too sudden? Maybe 2012 will show the impact.

6. Intriguing new battle award: NVIDIA versus Intel as GPU computing catches on

In 2011 NVIDIA announced a number of wins in the supercomputing world as many of these huge machines adopted GPU Computing, and I picked up something of a war of words with Intel over the merits of what NVIDIA calls heterogeneous computing. Intel is right to be worried, in that NVIDIA is seeing a future based on its GPUs combined with ARM CPUs. NVIDIA should worry too though, not only as Intel readies its “Knight’s Corner” MIC (Many Integrated Core) chips, but also as ARM advances its own Mali GPU; there is also strong competition in mobile GPUs from Imagination, used by Apple and others. The GPU wars will be interesting to watch in 2012.

7. Things that got worse award: Spotify. Runners up: Twitter, Google search

Sometimes internet services come along that are so good within their niche that they can only get worse. Spotify is an example, a music player that for a while let you play almost anything almost instantly with its simple, intuitive player. It is still pretty good, but Spotify got worse in 2011, with limited plays on free account, more intrusive ads, and sign-up now requires a Facebook login. Twitter is another example, with URLS now transformed to t.co shortcuts whether you like it not and annoying promoted posts and recommended follows. Both services are desperately trying to build a viable business model on their popularity, so I have some sympathy. I have less sympathy for Google. I am not sure when it started making all its search results into Google links that record your click before redirecting you, but it is both annoying and slow, and I am having another go with Bing as a result.

8. Biggest threat to innovation: Crazy litigation from Lodsys, Microsoft, Apple

There has always been plenty of litigation in the IT world. Apple vs Microsoft regarding graphical user interfaces 1994; Sun vs Microsoft regarding Java in 1997; SCO vs IBM regarding UNIX in 2003; and countless others. However many of us thought that the biggest companies exercised restraint on the grounds that all have significant patent banks and trench warfare over patent breaches helps nobody but lawyers. But what if patent litigation is your business model? The name Lodsys sends a chill though any developer’s spine, since if you have an app that supports in-app purchases you may receive a letter from them, and your best option may be to settle though others disagree. Along with Lodsys and the like, 2011 also brought Microsoft vs several OEMs over Android, Apple vs Samsung over Android, and much more.

9. Most horrible year award: HP

If any company had an Annus Horribilis it was HP. It invested big in WebOS, acquired with Palm; launched the TouchPad in July 2011; announced in August that it was ceasing WebOS development and considering selling off its Personal Systems Group; and fired its CEO Leo Apotheker in September 2011.

10. Product that deserves better award: Microsoft LightSwitch

On reflection maybe this award should go to Silverlight; but it is all part of the same story. Visual Studio LightSwitch, released in July 2011, is a model-driven development tool that generates Silverlight applications. It is nearly brilliant, and does a great job of making it relatively easy to construct business database applications, locally or on Windows Azure, complete with cross-platform Mac and Windows clients, and without having to write much code. Several things are unfortunate though. First, usual version 1.0 problems like poor documentation and odd limitations. Second, it is Silverlight, when Microsoft has made it clear that its future focus is HTML 5. Third, it is Windows and (with limitations) Mac, at a time when something which addresses the growing interest in mobile devices would be a great deal more interesting. Typical Microsoft own-goal: Windows Phone 7 runs Silverlight, LightSwitch generates Silverlight, but no, your app will not run on Windows Phone 7.  Last year I observed that Microsoft’s track-record on modelling in Visual Studio is to embrace in one release and extinguish in the next. History repeats?

Related posts:

1. What you read in 2010: top posts on ITWriting.com
2. A year of blogging: another crazy year in tech
3. Embarcadero promises Delphi everywhere: Mac, iOS this year, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone to follow

Now, Microsoft charges OEMs far less for Windows Phone licenses (about $15 per unit) than for full-on Windows licenses (on average, working out to about $56 per unit) …  But for Ballmer and the team, this is the bad news scenario. Only $15 per licence? And even less in profit? Compared to $37 in profit? It’s a money-loser, people.

While I agree that Microsoft has a problem with its business model in the new world of mobile devices, I do not follow this reasoning. There is nothing to stop Microsoft charging more for Windows Phone OS on tablets than on phones if it could get away with it. Nor is it necessarily true that Microsoft will succeed in charging as much for Windows 8 on tablets as it does for Windows 8 on PCs. In fact, that is unlikely to be be true; they will be cheaper, especially on ARM.

If it is not this then, that still leaves the question of why Microsoft has not licensed the Windows Phone 7 OS for tablets.

Microsoft has undoubtedly fumbled tablet computing and this was a costly mistake. Nevertheless, it is a company capable of strategic thinking. I think it goes something like this, in no particular order.

First, I reckon Microsoft is thinking beyond the initial OEM license income for its profits from Windows 8 tablets. It is all about the apps – 30% of the income from every app sold on the locked-down ARM edition of Windows 8. Apps tend to be cheap, and there is cost in running the store, but there is potential for ongoing income that will exceed the initial license sale. Especially if, like Apple, Microsoft insists on a cut of subscription income, in-app advertising income, and so on.

Second, Microsoft is also betting on cloud computing. Windows Phone 7 is marketed mainly as a consumer device, but Microsoft is going to play the “this is the device for professionals” card at some point. You can bet that Windows 8 tablets, and their successors, will be promoted as the ideal client for Office 365, as well as for on-premise Exchange, SharePoint and Lync. Sell a tablet, buy a customer for Office 365. Lock customers into Office 365, and sell them other cloud applications and services. Plenty of opportunity for profit.

Third, my guess is that the Windows team at Microsoft does not consider the Windows Phone 7 OS good enough to be the foundation of its future mobile platform. They respect it enough to borrow its Metro design language, along with many aspects of the development model, but in the end Sinofsky and his team were not willing to hand over the future of Windows on devices to Windows CE and Silverlight.

What we are getting with the forthcoming Windows Runtime is a more deeply thought-through new platform in which .NET, native C++ code, and HTML 5 are equally well supported, and in which developers are forced to use asynchronous APIs that keep the user interface responsive. It will be a better app platform than the current Windows Phone OS; in fact, I fully expect Windows Runtime to migrate to the phone in some future version.

If Microsoft had allowed Windows Phone 7 onto tablets, it would have the difficult task of explaining to its customers how Windows 8 tablets differ from Windows Phone OS tablets as well as from those old Windows tablets from Bill Gates days.

Therefore Microsoft took the decision to wait until Windows 8 was ready. That was a bold decision, and it may be too late, but the reasoning is plausible.

Related posts:

1. Windows Phone 8 will run Windows 8, with Silverlight centre stage?
2. Windows Runtime must come to Windows Phone
3. Windows Phone 7: is it really consumer?

What is it doing partnering with Google? Well, I presume it is because the theme is “how to be safer on the Internet” which is something that I am sure the CAB cares about. However looking at the advertisement it would be easy to conclude that the CAB is somehow promoting Google+, the social networking site that Google hopes will rival Facebook. Intriguing.

The advertisement says:

To find out more about how to manage your information online, pick up a booklet from your local Citizens Advice Bureau or go to google.co.uk/goodtoknow

I wanted to see this booklet, so I looked into the Holborn CAB in London.

I have to say that the aforementioned booklet was not exactly strewn about. In fact, the woman on the desk wasn’t sure if they had any. She went and looked though, and came back with the web address. Perhaps I could go there? I said I was keen to see the booklet the CAB was handing out – did it exist? Eventually I was told that they did not have any, but that the head office in Pentonville Road might. So I went there.

The man at the desk was not sure, but went away for a moment, and came back with one in his hands.

Page one says this:

We have partnered with Citizens Advice to provide tips and advice. You can get free, confidential and impartial help about everything from finances to staying safe online from your local bureau in person, on the phone or online. For in depth information on all of the topics in this booklet and more, visit the Good to Know website.

I think this is a PR triumph for Google, but I reckon the CAB has been sold a pup. It is not that I have anything against Google; but I would go to Google for impartial advice about staying safe online in the same way that I would go to a ferry company for impartial advice on cheap flights.

There is little sign of impartiality in the booklet. Personally I would say that a booklet on “how to manage the information you share online” that does not mention Facebook is in chocolate teapot territory. This booklet achieves this though; in fact the only web site mentioned is … Google.

“Keep your Google Account extra safe,” it says. But how about not having a Google account? No account, no personal details to lose.

This is stealth advertising – except that I am not sure about the stealth.

A substantial portion of the booklet is devoted to explaining why Google having my data is really good for me. “How knowing you better makes your internet better,” it says.

There is no mention of the benefits of using an ad-blocker to avoid sending data to advertisers. Nor does it include advice on simply not putting data online at all, if it might embarrass you or compromise your safety.

The reason is that Google cannot possibly be impartial about managing online information. Google wants your data, as much of it as possible, in order to target advertising. It is as simple as that.

Which is why Google is an uncomfortable partner for the CAB. I think the CAB could do with some impartial advice.

Related posts:

1. Google’s privacy campaign, and three ways in which Google gets your data
2. A great day for Android at Google I/O; not convinced by Google TV
3. Is Google Gears safe?

and a "Blocks Editor” which lets you create program logic using visual blocks:

App Inventor is a great concept but in practice most developers find it easier to use more traditional tools to code their applications. Earlier this year Google said that App Inventor would close, but that the code would be open sourced in partnership with MIT Media Labs. This is a kind of homecoming, since it was Professor Hal Abelson at MIT who proposed it as a project while on sabbatical with Google in 2008.

Google now says, in an email to App Inventor users:

Sometime in the first quarter of 2012, the Center plans to provide an App Inventor service for general public access, similar to the one Google is currently running.

Since App Inventor will continue running at Google until December 2011, this may mean only a short interval during which App Inventor will be unavailable. There will be no migration of projects though, so you have to download any existing projects and later upload them to the new service.

App Inventor is inspired by Scratch, an existing open source MIT project which is used to good effect in education.

Related posts:

1. Google App Inventor – another go at visual programming
2. Rentokil Initial adopting Google Apps – largest deployment yet, apparently
3. Adobe AIR 2.6, MonoMac 1.0, cross-platform is not dead yet

Twilio is not in competition with Skype or Google Voice; rather it offers an API so that you can incorporate voice calls and SMS messaging into web or mobile applications. The REST API lets you provision numbers with various options for what happens to incoming calls (conferencing, forwarding to another number or voice over IP, recording, transcriptions), as well as notifications so that you can get email or SMS alerts.

CEO and co-founder Jeff Lawson came from Amazon Web Services (AWS), and has a similar business model in that twilio targets developers and offers infrastructure as a service, rather than selling complete applications to its customers. Twilio does not own any datacenters, but uses mainly AWS and some RackSpace virtual servers to provide a resilient and scalable service.

The launch partner for the UK is Zendesk, a cloud-based helpdesk provider, which is using twilio to add voice to what was previously an email-based product. Zendesk forms an excellent case study. Using the service, you can provision a support number and have calls redirected to agents, or have a voicemail recorded, using a simple setup procedure. Calls can be recorded and you can have alerts sent when they are received.

What this means is that even the smallest businesses can offer helpdesk support using a pay-as-you-go model.

Lawson observes that twilio is the 6th and 13th most popular API on ProgrammableWeb (he says it is 5th if you combine voice and SMS) and claims very rapid growth in traffic using the API, though he will not talk about revenue. The company has around 60 employees in San Francisco and just one in the UK initially.

The service is also launching in beta for 5 other European countries: Poland, France, Portugal, Austria and Denmark. 11 other countries will be added by the end of 2011, though there are prominent omissions – no Germany or Spain, for example.

I was impressed by the demo and presentation at the press launch. Lawson provisioned a conferencing number and had us dial in during the briefing. He says twilio is engaged in disrupting on-premise telephony applications with a cloud service, in the same way Salesforce.com has done for CRM (Customer Relationship Management). The service is inexpensive to set up; Lawson said that this commodity pay-as-you-go pricing is essential for disruptive technology to succeed, another strategy borrowed from AWS.

There are server libraries for web platforms including Ruby, PHP, Java and C#, and client SDKs for JavaScript, Android and iOS.

Related posts:

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2. Peter Gabriel at Dreamforce Europe
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My favourite among the new apps is Adobe Debut. The problem this addresses: you want to show your client the work you have done in one of the Creative Suite apps like Photoshop or InDesign. A tablet is ideal for handing round at a meeting, but Adobe will not be porting the full Creative Suite to iPad any time soon.

The solution: Debut runs Creative Suite in the cloud and sends down static images to your device. You can even see the separate layers in a Photoshop image.

It seems to me there is a lot of future in this kind of cloud-side rendering. Provided you have an internet connection, it is an elegant and scalable solution. In Debut, it is rounded off by commenting and mark-up features. The simplicity and focus of the app may make it preferable to running the full Creative Suite app locally, though it is not so good if the client asks you to change some detail RIGHT NOW.

Note: I have not actually used the app except in a brief demo.

Related posts:

1. Adobe abandons Project ROME, focuses on apps rather than cloud
2. Adobe declares glittering results as CEO says Apple’s Flash ban has no impact on its revenue
3. Adobe announces Flash Builder for PHP, PhoneGap integration in Dreamweaver