Microsoft previews Live Platform development services
At Mix '08 Web conference, company to offer look at development platform it's working on for writing Web applications that tap into data on Microsoft services.
The head of Microsoft's Windows Live Platform Services group offered late Wednesday an early description of services and tools that Microsoft will release at next week's Mix '08 Web conference.
Dave Treadwell is part of a team assembled by Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie and chartered with building a development platform for writing Web applications that tap into data on Microsoft services.
Last year, Ozzie described the cloud computing infrastructure that Microsoft is constructing to deliver services, which touch everything from user identification to applications like Windows Live Messenger.
Treadwell said Wednesday that Microsoft's updated Live development platform has expanded application programming interfaces (APIs), including an API for getting contact information from a social-networking site.
He also said Microsoft is boosting support for the Atom Publishing Protocol by providing Atom interfaces to some of its hosted services.
Finally, Treadwell said that Silverlight Streaming by Windows Live, a hosted service for delivering video to Web sites launched last year at Mix, is now in beta and includes 10GB of free storage.
For a thorough summary, check out LiveSide.net and Programmable Web.