Here are some little words that I have found about the progress of some of the most Exciting Software Development Stories.

First of all, the most awaiting Operating System, Windows Vista has reached the RC1 Milestone. After the Beta1 and the recent Beta2, the development process has got “branched” to the RC1 Root. The Built number now has reached 5504.16385.vista_rc1. According to sources, this has taken place exactly on the 4th of August 2006, which means that we can have an RC Built in our hands by the end of August. We can also expect a CTP built, either within the following days, or at the end of August, if they do not give us an RC Built. Changes are new icons, gadgets for the Sidebar and UI Enhancements (for the Start Menu).


Great news for those awaiting .Net Framework 3.0. According to internal sources at Microsoft, NetFX (was WinFX) will be RTMing in 2 months. Accordingly, it should be within the end of September or beginning of October. Currently, they are more involved in correcting bugs and solving performance issues. One note however, .Net 3.0 will not be release in parallel with “Orcas”, as the later is still in development.

The Opera Browser is going onto the 10.0 release. According to last comments:

“Opera 9 is the first salvo towards IE 7. We're trying to give a user-friendly experience and eliminate problems."

"We will be unleashing developer tools, which are still in the planning stages. We want developers to use Opera as a web development platform, using open standards. We need to keep the web ready for open standards."

They are planning developer tools. The greatest enhancements to Opera 9 was Widgets. So we must be expecting to see Developer friendly tools that will help us to create high end Widgets, for the Opera Platform. However, I don’t want them to concentrate only on eliminating Internet Explorer. They should simply be making the best browser that should exist.

Wow! That’s all I know, as soon that I have some more information, I will update it here.