<p>First of all, <a href="http://sessions.visitmix.com/?selectedSearch=keynote">it</a> <sup><a href="http://alcidesfonseca.com/blog/321#fn1" title="footnote 1" class="anchor">1</a></sup> was an excellent keynote! Not that b.o.r.i.n.g keynote I&#8217;ve seen in TechEd Barcelona (Somasegar simply doesn&#8217;t have that charisma it needs to make an hell of a presentation!). And I deeply liked this keynote. Not that always-the-same keynote Mr Jobs does all the time<sup><a href="http://alcidesfonseca.com/blog/321#fn2" title="footnote 2" class="anchor">2</a></sup>! They really called people to show interesting stuff made in their technologies.</p>

<p>From Ozzie&#8217;s talk, you get one thing: Microsoft is definitely moving from a software products to software services. I see them in 8&#8211;9 years to let go Office (the desktop app) and provide Office Online only. It has not been talking, but it&#8217;s a great solution against the piracy their been experimenting.</p>

<p><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2059/2315515750_5e190cce9c.jpg?v=0" alt="Not that impressed by IE8 :(" /></p>

<p>They did the right thing for standards, that&#8217;s true. However I will never forget that they did it one version later. IE7 would be the perfect version to make the move.</p>

<p>Improved scripting performance. That just the natural evolution, no big deal. It&#8217;s around the same values as the last firefox and webkit.</p>

<p>They also fulfilled one item of my <a href="http://alcidesfonseca.com/blog/319">ie8 wishlist</a>, the HTML5 partial rendering. That&#8217;s the only nice thing I&#8217;ve seen.</p>

<p>Built-in developer tools. Everyone <span class="caps">LOVES</span> firebug. That&#8217;s just a copycat.</p>

<p>WebSlices. Have you heard of Safari&#8217;s WebClip? No special markup needed! They wanted to get in the microformats world, but I don&#8217; think it was the best way.</p>

<p>Activities. This is the one point they wanted to integrate the social web in the browser. Although WebServices/Activities have a nice and easy spec, that&#8217;s again the wrong approach in my opinion. Search is already handled by OpenSearch and all the interactive context should be handled by microformats. Which I haven&#8217;t heard of in the entire keynote (and hSlice doesn&#8217;t count!).</p>

<p>Microsoft talks all the time about innovation, but the truth is I haven&#8217;t seen any in IE8. Has anyone noticed that the interface is exactly the same as IE7? <a href="http://brunosilva.net/internet-explorer-8-beta/185/">Even the searchbox is the same!</a> I really hope that changes until the Gold.</p>

<p>Just bare with some quick notes about SilverLight2. They&#8217;re focusing it in video, that&#8217;s what I learn from the news. They also showed some <span class="caps">RIA</span> examples, but does anyone see any real advantage comparing to Flex? Apart from being .NET? Me neither. The only thing I really wanted from Silverlight is years away: 3D. Is even any Silverlight Papervision3d clone around?</p>

<p>Oh wait, there was one lovely thing I predicted: Silverlight went mobile and also for Nokia&#8217;s. That&#8217;s the only way I&#8217;m gonna be using Silverlight for now.</p>

<p class="footnote" id="fn1"><sup>1</sup> <small>Silverlight apps have the same problem as Flash. You cannot easily have a direct URI for each page. Microsoft should have made it better for Mix Sessions!</small></p>

<p class="footnote" id="fn2"><sup>2</sup> <small>Before you zealot guys start to call me a Microsoft clone, I proudly own a macbook, and I wouldn't trade it for any other laptop running XP or Vista!</small></p>