Learn how the new C# and VB language features make interop with JScript, COM, and Python more natural. Dynamically control the HTML DOM within Silverlight, automate Word and Excel with less code, or access Python libraries, all from your favorite .NET language!

• Alex Turner
  Alex Turner is the Program Manager for the C# Compiler at Microsoft, where he makes sure that C#’s new language features and compiler services become a reality. Alex graduated with an MS in Computer Science from Stony Brook University and has been a speaker at TechEd and TechDays.

In the near future, applications will be developed using a combination of custom application code and online building block services, including data-centric services. In this session we discuss advancements in the Microsoft development platform and online service interfaces to enable seamless interaction with data services both on-premises (e.g., ADO.NET Data Services Framework over on-premises SQL Server) and in the cloud (e.g., SQL Server Data Services). Learn how you can leverage existing know-how related to LINQ (Language Integrated Query), data access APIs, data-binding, and more when building applications using online data.

• Mike Flasko

Learn about the different types of controls in Silverlight, the differences between UserControls and custom controls, and how to customize their appearance through styling and skinning. Also learn how Microsoft Expression Blend can be used to customize the look of controls.

• Karen Corby
  Karen Corby is a Program Manager on the Silverlight team who focuses on control customization and HTTP networking. She holds a MS in Computer Science from Stanford University. In her spare time, Karen enjoys hiking, reading, travel, and photography. Her blog is http://scorbs.com/work.

Hear about the end-to-end architecture that was developed for the 2008 Olympic Games online video broadcast experience. Learn about the capture/encoding process from Beijing, back haul to USA, massively cached CDN delivery, adaptive streaming, and Microsoft Silverlight UI development. Learn how to implement a similar solution and understand how and where to apply Silverlight 2 technologies.

• Eric Schmidt
• Jason Suess

See how Expression Blend can be used to design user interfaces for the desktop and the Web using both Windows Presentation Foundation and Microsoft Silverlight 2. Learn how to design consistently for both technologies and how the resulting XAML provides elegant workflow between developers and designers.

• Douglas Olson
• Peter Blois

Come learn about the new Silverlight Controls that are being launched here at PDC and the plans for more great controls in the future. This talk takes you through the paces of the new controls and shows you how to use and customize them for your applications, demonstrates some great new control skins that are being offered with the controls, and takes a look at the roadmap of the other controls to look forward to and how to get them. And for the WPF users out there, we'll be showing off some of the control work being done for that platform as well.

• Shawn Burke
  Shawn Burke has at Microsoft since 1997, spending all of that time in Developer Division developing UI framworks such as Windows Forms, ASP.NET AJAX, and Silverlight Controls. Shawn is currently the Product Unit Manager of the WPF/Silverlight Controls Team. Shawn holds a Bachelors of Business Administration a Bachelors of Science from the University of Washington in Seattle.

In this deep dive session we pull the covers off of the layout, rendering, and media pipelines to discuss how things work and how to optimize your application. This session covers how to set goals with your designer and developer teams, what happens behind the scenes with control visuals, the underlying mechanisms of our media stack, and how to profile your application.

• Seema Ramchandani

Wouldn't it be super cool if the Silverlight apps you build for the desktop can now run on Millions of Mobile Devices ? If you have been building Silverlight applications and are wondering how to extend them mobile devices, this is just the right session for you. In this session, filled with some very cool demos you will not only learn how to extend your existing Silverlight 2 applications to work on Windows Mobile but also learn how to build rich mobile Silverlight apps that play media, handle simple gestures, have cool animations, and web services. We will also talk about tooling enhancements in Visual Studio that support Silverlight app development on Windows Mobile, what to consider when delivering eye-popping UI on mobile, and help you understand the key differences from developing Silverlight apps for the desktop.

• Amit Chopra
• Giorgio Sardo
  Giorgio Sardo is a Technical Evangelist for Microsoft Corporation. Moving from Italy to the United Kingdom, Giorgio studied at Polytechnic of Turin and successfully obtained a Master of Computer Engineering with distinction. For four years he has been a Microsoft Student Partner Lead, leading a national university community forum. In 2007 he started working in Microsoft UK as User Experience Consultant, delivering stunning solutions based on Silverlight, WPF and Silverlight for Mobile. Later 2008 Giorgio will move to Redmond, to work as Technical Evangelist for Web Technologies (ASP.NET, IE8, ...).

What if you could develop your solutions with the ease pioneered by Microsoft Office Access, deploy them like an Internet application, and take advantage of the power of Microsoft .NET? Learn about an exciting new technology that is all about making business applications for RIA (Rich Internet Applications) much easier to build. In this session, hear how we've made n-tier application development as simple as traditional 2-tier, provided application level solutions to developers, and how we're doing all of this with the same .NET platform and tools on both the client and server.

• Jamie Cool

Come get an in-depth understanding of the compatibility between Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and Silverlight. Learn the relationship between WPF and Silverlight's various subsystems including: XAML parsing and serialization, control instantiation, styling and templating, layout, rendering, and more. Learn how to build applications that fully exploit both Silverlight and WPF.

• Ian Ellison-Taylor
  Ian Ellison-Taylor is the General Manager for Microsoft’s Presentation Platforms and Tools Team (PP&T) which creates technologies that enables developers and designers to build revolutionary next-generation user experiences for the desktop, the web and devices. Currently the group produces the UI framework (known as “WPF”), controls and developer tools for .Net and Silverlight. Ian has been working on various user-experience related platforms at Microsoft for more than 15 years across a variety of products including Windows, Internet Explorer and Visual Studio. He joined Microsoft in 1990 as developer on the Windows 3.1 team having graduated from the University of Durham, England.