Microsoft's developer platform gets some promotions

Congratulations to S. Somasegar and Scott Guthrie, two of the people who are most visible in Microsoft's developer division and have been in a lot of ways leading the Silverlight/WPF initiatives at Microsoft. According to Mary Jo Foley both of them got new titles/promotions as part (or before) the announced reorganization. From my vantage point both of these guys have been doing a very good job and I think this is an indication that the rich Internet application platforms continue to be a big part of Microsoft's future.

Now is probably a good time to reflect on what Microsoft embracing experience has meant for everyone. There's a lot of digital ink wasted on the competitive landscape between Adobe and Microsoft. Undoubtedly there are some big implications here and in some ways it's a very, very competitive time. But over the past year and a half rich Internet applications have taken absolutely huge leaps in both functionality and style. A number of 3rd party vendors have jumped into the space like Curl and Appcelerator. There's a lot of innovation from every angle and ultimately, I think customers are really starting to see the fruits of competition.

I'm really excited to see our internal pace at Adobe. We're pushing our platform in a number of different ways and we're continually innovating on tools and services like Buzzword. That's in no small part to the surge in interest and excitement in rich Internet applications. I'll also be at MIX early next month and I'm looking forward to see some of the things Scott and Soma have been doing to get promotions. RIAs are here to stay and it's only going to get better.