I’m really exited about Microsoft Sync Framework. The introductory session this morning, gave a good overview and talked a bit about where they were 
heading. There’s an update on the versions that are available. Visual Studio 2008 will sync with Sync RTM, but that doesn’t include all the providers. If I understood right it will ship with the runtime for Vista, XP and three providers. The FileSync, ADO.net and SSE (Simple Sharing Extensions) Provider. They are working on a CTP for the mobile runtime and further providers.
“Why software sucks” was the title of the lunch session. David Platt was born to present and had the audience rofl’ing. But the message beneath it all was that when we build software we are actually building it without the real user in mind. A lot of examples of software that was engineered to be used by engineers without thinking what the user actually want. Read more about what’s wrong with our software at his blog.
In the afternoon the most exiting session was “Software Licensing and Protecting Service”. Thomas Lindemann is the Head of Marketing for the product and the presentation was tailored for a business audience. But it was interesting to see that Microsoft has licensing services available and it’s a topic I’m going to check out at the Ask the Experts booth. Personally if the services are designed with “we only earn something if you earn something” in mind, making them usable for shareware developers then this is a great new product (it was released in the US about a month ago, and V2 is planned for summer next year).
The rest of the afternoon was spent on our Tech-Ed Microsoft Student Partner meeting, which I’ll blog about later, so I didn’t get a chance to ask some in-depth questions about Sync and SLP at the Ask-the-experts booth, but I’ll do that tomorrow and keep you posted.
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