Presentation to the Sela & Microsoft VP R&D forum on news from Build 2013 and subsequent announcements for developers.

1. Sela and Microsoft VP R&D Forum
September 11, 2013
Dev News from Build
Sasha Goldshtein @goldshtn
CTO, Sela Group blog.sashag.net

2. Directions
• RTM August 2013, GA October 2013
Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2
• Continuous delivery, new features/updates every 2-4 weeks
Windows Azure
• RTM in Q4
Visual Studio 2013 and .NET 4.5.1
• Big updates coming in VS2013 and subsequent updates
Going Native (C++)
• In Visual Studio post-2013
.NET Languages vNext

3. What’s New in Windows 8.1?
• Pseudo Start button
• Desktop background as Start screen
background
• Boot to desktop
• Slightly modified default search experience
• Arbitrary proportions in snapped view
Concessions from Windows 8

4. What’s New in Windows 8.1?
• Some more WinRT APIs available to desktop
apps (SMS, sensors, geolocation, scanning,
capture, local toast notifications, …)
• USB, Bluetooth, HID devices (point of sale)
• Scanning
• 3D printing
• Speech synthesis
• Contacts and appointments
• And miscellanea: HTTP client, PDF export,
PlayTo extensions, …
Development Platform
Improvements

5. What’s New in Windows 8.1?
• New and updated controls: date and time
pickers, flyouts, better AppBar buttons, search
box, …
• True WebView control in the visual tree
• Loading WebView resources from dynamic
storage (eBooks, …)
• Multi-monitor DPI awareness
• Enhanced data binding
• Custom navigation stack support
• Performance improvements in startup and
XAML loading
XAML Improvements

6. What’s New in Windows Azure?
Dev/Test Offering
• MSDN use rights
allowed in Windows
Azure
• Per-minute billing for
VMs
• No charge for stopped
VMs
• Super-discounted
dev/test rates for
Windows Server, SQL
Server, BizTalk Server
MSDN Credits Model
• Professional = $50/mo
• Premium = $100/mo
• Ultimate = $150/mo
• Example: $100 = spin
up 80 VMs for 20 hour
load test

7. What’s New in Windows Azure?
Mobile Services
• Custom API support
• Source control
support (Git at this
time)
• Integration with
Notification Hubs
Mobile Notification
Hubs
• Blast out push
notifications to
millions of users
• Unlimited tags
associated with each
subscriber
• Support for all four
major platforms
• Templates so you can
push with a single call

8. What’s New in Windows Azure?
Auto-Scale Preview
• Set up scale rules for
your Web Sites,
Mobile Services,
Cloud Services, and
Virtual Machines
• Based on CPU %
and/or storage queue
depth
• Can set up different
rules for day/night,
weekday/weekend
Alert Rules Preview
• Monitor metrics and
send alerts when they
are exceeded
• E.g., when CPU % for
MyVM goes above 95
for five minutes, send
an email to all
administrators

9. What’s New in Windows Azure?
• Web Sites is GA
• Mobile Services is GA
• SSL for custom domains in Azure Web Sites
• Automatic SQL database exports
• Import Virtual Machines from Open Depot
• BizTalk Services Preview

10. What’s New in Visual Studio 2013?
The Connected IDE
• Haven’t you always
wanted to sign in to
your Visual Studio? 
• Synchronized settings
between machines
• Easier to get started
with Visual Studio
• Automatic TFS Online
integration
• Notification center
Productivity
• Better auto-
completion
• IntelliSense and Go
To Definition for
XAML
• More refactorings
• Code Lens
• Code Maps

11. What’s New in Visual Studio 2013?
New Performance Tools
• Memory and
performance profiling
for JavaScript apps
• Power (energy) profiling
for Windows Store and
Windows Phone apps
• Memory leak analysis
for all .NET apps
• Graphics Diagnostics
for Windows Store apps
Miscellaneous
• Performance
improvements
• Coded UI Tests for
XAML Windows Store
apps
• More themes

12. What’s New in .NET 4.5.1?
• Just like .NET 4.5 and supposed to be
fully backward compatible
In-place Upgrade
• EventSource support (for ETW)
• Explicit LOH compaction during GC
• Edit-and-continue for 64-bit code
• Better async-aware debugging
New Features

13. Going Native?
• Visual Studio 2013 brings us even closer to C++11
conformance and starts introducing C++14 tentative
features!
• Full C++11 conformance probably in 2-3 subsequent updates
• Major features from C++14 will be included first
• New feature sampler:
• Variadic templates
• Initializer lists
• Raw string literals
• C++ REST SDK (Casablanca)
• Better auto-vectorizer and __vectorcall
• Much better IntelliSense and code completion

14. Summary
• Fast and accelerating release cadence from most
Microsoft groups, including Windows
• Some areas seem frozen but there is work under-the-
covers
• The new Microsoft: more open to feedback and integration
with other technologies

15. Sela and Microsoft VP R&D Forum
September 11, 2013
Thank You!
Sasha Goldshtein @goldshtn
CTO, Sela Group blog.sashag.net