Yep, that’s the official name. Thanks to Mary-Jo, we were alerted to Mike Nash’s announcement yesterday.

The official name for Windows 7 will be: Windows 7.

At least they won’t have to change the tag on their PDC agenda site.

Microsoft has announced that Silverlight 2 is ready (and will be available to download Tuesday). Scott Guthrie made the announcement via conference call today (Monday).

Here’s the main features of Silverlight, which Microsoft claims is now on 25% (or more) of PCs worldwide:

Highlights of new Silverlight 2 features include the following:

. .NET Framework support with a rich base class library. This is a compatible subset of the full .NET Framework.

. Powerful built-in controls. These include DataGrid, ListBox, Slider, ScrollViewer, Calendar controls and more.

. Advanced skinning and templating support. This makes it easy to customize the look and feel of an application.

. Deep zoom. This enables unparalleled interactivity and navigation of ultrahigh resolution imagery.

. Comprehensive networking support. Out-of-the-box support allows calling REST, WS*/SOAP, POX, RSS and standard HTTP services, enabling users to create applications that easily integrate with existing back-end systems.

. Expanded .NET Framework language support. Unlike other runtimes, Silverlight 2 supports a variety of programming languages, including Visual Basic, C#, JavaScript, IronPython and IronRuby, making it easier for developers already familiar with one of these languages to repurpose their existing skill sets.

. Advanced content protection. This now includes Silverlight DRM, powered by PlayReady, offering robust content protection for connected Silverlight experiences.

. Improved server scalability and expanded advertiser support. This includes new streaming and progressive download capabilities, superior search engine optimization techniques, and next-generation in-stream advertising support.

. Vibrant partner ecosystem. Visual Studio Industry Partners such as ComponentOne LLC, Infragistics Inc. and Telerik Inc. are providing products that further enhance developer capabilities when creating Silverlight applications using Visual Studio.

. Cross-platform and cross-browser support. This includes support for Mac, Windows and Linux in Firefox, Safari and Windows Internet Explorer.

Source: Microsoft PressPass

That last point is interesting to note. In terms of cross platform and cross browser support, as Mary-Jo notes, Silverlight does work on the Chrome, but not on iPhone (due to Apple’s usual closed wall bullshit licensing).

We don’t think everything Microsoft does or promotes is great, but Silverlight is definitely one they are pushing big time. They will succeed, and it’s only a matter of time (although I do think Joe Wilcox has a point when he says ‘promises are cheap‘). If you are still undecided on Silverlight, then it’s time to reconsider.

The Silverlight site still sports the Beta 2 download, but it is only a matter of hours before the full version becomes available.

Sites were awash with Dublin news today. But what is it really?

To understand Dublin you can start with Steve Martin’s post announcing the new technology, which will be (of course) covered in detail at PDC later this month. Steve’s team heads up the WCF and WF parts of the .NET Framework so he’s in a good position to explain the new Dublin codename.

In a nutshell: Dublin is about letting the next versions of WCF and WF based apps scale better whilst providing easier deployment and management functionality.

How exactly this is enabled is difficult to get a grip on from Steve, which is why we need to head over to the new Dublin site on Microsoft. Here we learn that Dublin is a server (or as Mary-Jo writes, a new distributed application server).

Actually, it’s not exactly a server, rather a ‘set of enhanced Windows Server capabilities.’ that ‘.extend Internet Information Server (IIS) to provide a standard host for applications that use workflow or communications’ (from the Microsoft Dublin site). Stephen Forte probably has the good summary we came across.

It’s getting a little clearer now, but we’re still a little unsure. Thankfully a nice little table in this Dublin Overview document provides a nice little table:

Dublin will be packaged up and made available as a download for Windows Server customers, and of course included in future Windows Server releases.

The keen eyed amongst you will notice that Oslo rears its head (see Tuesday’s post for details on that front) and if you read through the doc you’ll learn that Dublin will be the first server product ot deliver support for Oslo.

But there’s others of course – further in the doc it notes that they’ll be directly supporting BizTalk and Dublin working nicely together.

Other items: Dublin will be backwards compatible and support existing .NET 3.5 WCF and WF applications.

Microsoft are touting Dynamics AX and CRM as the first products slated to support Dublin.

This is a set of online solutions stitched together to help businesses move their IT infrastructure over to Microsoft.

From the BPOS site, here’s the summary:

The Business Productivity Online Suite is a set of Microsoft hosted messaging and collaboration solutions including Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Office Live Meeting, and Microsoft Office Communications Online.

It is part of Microsoft’s Software + Services model.

Mary-Jo Foley over at Microsoft Watch notes that the service suite is expected to be released next month. However, Microsoft Online Services blog post she links to seems to have been pulled.