Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
's Professional Developers Conference (PDC) was a series of conferences for
software developers; the conference was held infrequently to coincide with beta releases of the
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...
operating system, and showcased topics of interest to those developing hardware and software for the new version of Windows.
In 2011, PDC was merged with Microsoft's
web development conference
MIX to form the
Build Conference.
Events
* July 1992 -
Moscone Center
The George R. Moscone Convention Center (pronounced ), popularly known as the Moscone Center, is the largest convention and exhibition complex in San Francisco, California. The complex consists of three main halls spread out across three block ...
in
San Francisco, California
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
** Known as Win32 Professional Developers Conference
** First demonstration of the Win32 API and first mention of "Chicago", which would eventually become
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturi ...
** Estimated attendance of over 5,000 developers
** Windows NT 3.1 Preliminary Release for Developers (build 297) was sent to all conference attendees
* December 1993 -
Anaheim Convention Center
The Anaheim Convention Center is a major convention center in Anaheim, California and is the largest exhibition facility on the West Coast of the United States. It is located across from the Disneyland Resort on Katella Avenue. The original com ...
in
Anaheim, California
Anaheim ( ) is a city in northern Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a population of 346,824, making it the most populous city in Orange County, the 10th-most ...
** Windows "Chicago"
** Win32 and
Object Linking and Embedding
Object Linking & Embedding (OLE) is a proprietary technology developed by Microsoft that allows embedding and linking to documents and other objects. For developers, it brought OLE Control Extension (OCX), a way to develop and use custom user i ...
version 2
** Estimated attendance of over 8,000
**
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...
public demonstration, including the Object File System
* March 1996 -
Moscone Center
The George R. Moscone Convention Center (pronounced ), popularly known as the Moscone Center, is the largest convention and exhibition complex in San Francisco, California. The complex consists of three main halls spread out across three block ...
in
San Francisco, California
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
** Microsoft demonstrated the power of new tools, renamed ActiveX
** The ActiveX demos were impressive despite occasional technical difficulties. Microsoft and other industry leaders presented VBScript, an implementation of OLE Scripting; ActiveX Controls, for embedding OLE Controls into HTML documents; ActiveX Conferencing, which enables sharing data as well as applications over TCP/IP; the Internet Control Pack, allowing developers to make their applications Internet aware; and numerous other ActiveX technologies.
* November, 1996 -
Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California.
Incorporate ...
November 3–7, 1996
* September 1997 -
San Diego Convention Center
The San Diego Convention Center is the primary convention center in San Diego, California. It is located in the Marina district of downtown San Diego near the Gaslamp Quarter, at 111 West Harbor Drive. The center is managed by the San Diego ...
in
San Diego, California
San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United Stat ...
** First demonstrations of
Windows NT 5.0, release of Beta 1 to developers
** Estimated attendance of 6,200
* October 11–15, 1998 -
Colorado Convention Center
The Colorado Convention Center (CCC) is a multi-purpose convention center located in Downtown Denver, Colorado. At 2,200,000 square feet (total space) it is currently the 12th largest convention center in the United States. It opened in June 1 ...
,
Denver, Colorado
Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...
**
Windows NT 5.0, the release of Beta 2 to developers.
**
Windows DNA technology announced, including
COM+
2000-2009
* July 11–14, 2000 -
Orange County Convention Center
The Orange County Convention Center is a convention center located in Orlando, Florida. Opened in 1983 as the Orange County Convention and Civic Center, it is the primary public convention center for the Central Florida region and the second-lar ...
in
Orlando, Florida
**
.NET Framework
The .NET Framework (pronounced as "''dot net"'') is a proprietary software framework developed by Microsoft that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It was the predominant implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) until bein ...
and
Visual Studio .NET announced, initial beta release given to attendees
**
C# programming language announced and demonstrated
**
ASP+, the successor to
Active Server Pages
Active Server Pages (ASP) is Microsoft's first server-side scripting language and engine for dynamic web pages.
It was first released in December 1996, before being superseded in January 2002 by ASP.NET.
History
Initially released as an a ...
was announced; this was renamed ASP.NET later in the year
**Announcement of the end of the
Windows 9x
Windows 9x is a generic term referring to a series of Microsoft Windows computer operating systems produced from 1995 to 2000, which were based on the Windows 95 kernel and its underlying foundation of MS-DOS, both of which were updated in su ...
line, culminating with a planned 2002 release of a new operating system, "Whistler"
**
Internet Explorer 5.5 was released
**Estimated attendance of 6,000 developers
* October 22–26, 2001 -
Los Angeles Convention Center
The Los Angeles Convention Center is a convention center in the southwest section of downtown Los Angeles. It hosts multiple annual conventions and has often been used as a filming location in TV shows and movies.
History
The convention center, ...
in
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
**Release candidates of the
.NET Framework
The .NET Framework (pronounced as "''dot net"'') is a proprietary software framework developed by Microsoft that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It was the predominant implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) until bein ...
and
Visual Studio .NET were announced during
Bill Gates
William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...
' keynote.
**
Windows XP
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...
was officially released.
**Introduction of
Tablet PC
A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being comput ...
, including a software development kit.
**.NET My Services (codenamed
HailStorm
Hail is a form of solid precipitation. It is distinct from ice pellets (American English "sleet"), though the two are often confused. It consists of balls or irregular lumps of ice, each of which is called a hailstone. Ice pellets generally fal ...
) announced.
**
.NET Compact Framework
The Microsoft .NET Compact Framework (.NET CF) is a version of the .NET Framework that is designed to run on resource constrained mobile/embedded devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), mobile phones, factory controllers, set-top box ...
introduced.
**First discussions of
Internet Information Services
Internet Information Services (IIS-pronounced 2S, formerly Internet Information Server) is an extensible web server software created by Microsoft for use with the Windows NT family. IIS supports HTTP, HTTP/2, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, SMTP and NN ...
version 6.
**
Counting Crows
Counting Crows is an American rock band from San Francisco, California. Formed in 1991, the band consists of guitarist David Bryson, drummer Jim Bogios, vocalist Adam Duritz, keyboardist Charlie Gillingham, David Immerglück, bass guitarist M ...
performed at the PDC party at the
Staples Center.
* October 27–30, 2003 -
Los Angeles Convention Center
The Los Angeles Convention Center is a convention center in the southwest section of downtown Los Angeles. It hosts multiple annual conventions and has often been used as a filming location in TV shows and movies.
History
The convention center, ...
in
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
**Windows Longhorn revealed - Avalon, Aero, Indigo, WinFS
* September 13–16, 2005 -
Los Angeles Convention Center
The Los Angeles Convention Center is a convention center in the southwest section of downtown Los Angeles. It hosts multiple annual conventions and has often been used as a filming location in TV shows and movies.
History
The convention center, ...
in
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
**Windows Vista build 5219 handed out to attendees
**Internet Explorer 7 demoed
**Office 12 demoed with ribbon bar
**.NET 2.0
* October 27–30, 2008 -
Los Angeles Convention Center
The Los Angeles Convention Center is a convention center in the southwest section of downtown Los Angeles. It hosts multiple annual conventions and has often been used as a filming location in TV shows and movies.
History
The convention center, ...
in
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
.
**First demonstration of
Windows 7
Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...
as well as
Office 14 for the Web .
**Introduction of
Windows Azure, Microsoft's data center hosting platform.
**Outlook to .NET 4.0, Visual Studio 2010 and a new .NET Application Server (codenamed "Dublin").
**Release of
Microsoft Surface
Microsoft Surface is a series of touchscreen-based personal computers, tablets and interactive whiteboards designed and developed by Microsoft, running the Microsoft Windows operating system, apart from the Surface Duo, which runs on Andro ...
SDK and first demonstration of SecondLight, a next generation Surface prototype.
* November 17–20, 2009 -
Los Angeles Convention Center
The Los Angeles Convention Center is a convention center in the southwest section of downtown Los Angeles. It hosts multiple annual conventions and has often been used as a filming location in TV shows and movies.
History
The convention center, ...
in
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
**Vision of ''Three Screens and a Cloud''
**Emergence of
Windows Azure with billed, commercial service to begin in February 2010.
**Many back-end announcements:
***Microsoft AppFabric, based on the earlier .NET Application Server and the caching technology (formerly codenamed "Velocity").
***Microsoft SQL Server Modeling Services (SSModS) released (formerly codenamed "Oslo")
***BizTalk Server 2009 R2 announced with new features like an improved mapper for early 2010 release
**Many front-end announcements:
***Release of first public betas for Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft Silverlight 4
***Early revelations about Microsoft
Internet Explorer 9 and its objective of better
Acid3
The Acid3 test is a web test page from the Web Standards Project that checks a web browser's compliance with elements of various web standards, particularly the Document Object Model (DOM) and JavaScript.
If the test is successful, the results ...
performance and
HTML5
HTML5 is a markup language used for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web. It is the fifth and final major HTML version that is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation. The current specification is known as the HTML ...
/
CSS3
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language such as HTML or XML (including XML dialects such as Scalable Vector Graphics, SVG, MathML or XHTML). CS ...
compliance.
**A special "PDC 2009" Acer 1420p Multi-touch Tablet PC was given out to all attendees (the BIOS referencing MSFT in the 'about' information.)
* October 28–29, 2010 -
Microsoft Campus
The Microsoft campus is the corporate headquarters of Microsoft, located in Redmond, Washington, United States, a part of the Seattle metropolitan area. Microsoft initially moved onto the grounds of the campus on February 26, 1986, shortly before ...
in
Redmond, Washington
** Announced new Platform Features for Cloud Computing
** VmRoles announced to port existing on-premises Applications to the Cloud
** Microsoft "Dallas" renamed to Windows Azure Marketplace DataMarket
** Windows Azure Marketplace Applications announced
** An unlocked Windows Phone 7 smartphone was given out to all attendees
** Microsoft limited the number of attendees to 1,000
** Many public viewing events all over the globe (e.g. Tokyo, London, Cologne, Vienna)
Other Microsoft developer conferences
*Dev Connections
*
Microsoft TechEd
*
Mix
*
PASS
Pass, PASS, The Pass or Passed may refer to:
Places
* Pass, County Meath, a townland in Ireland
* Pass, Poland, a village in Poland
* Pass, an alternate term for a number of straits: see List of straits
* Mountain pass, a lower place in a moun ...
*
SQLBits
*VSLive!
See also
*
Windows Hardware Engineering Conference
The Windows Hardware Engineering Community (WinHEC) is a series of technical conferences and workshops, where Microsoft elaborates on its hardware plans for Windows devices.
The WinHEC from 1992 to 2008, which stood for Windows Hardware Engineerin ...
(WinHEC)
References
External links
Professional Developers ConferenceVideo Archive Of KeynotesBuild Windows
{{Microsoft
Microsoft conferences