2012 Roadmap

It’s a chilly January morning and the trees outside are covered with white frost. With a cup of hot coffee and a long day-off ahead, it’s a perfect time to deliberate about the events and results of the last year and plans for the future.

So, let’s recall now what was going on with Microsoft products and technologies in 2011.

2011: Big hopes and disappointments

2011 year brought us many surprises, both good ones and not.

A definitely pleasant one was the presentation of Windows 8 and the Windows Runtime platform that despite its doubtful future for PCs (considering its current implementation) has all chances to sweep the market of mobile devices and probably move to desktops in time.

Fuss surrounding the Silverlight technology can unlikely be counted as a blessed event of the 2011. It all started when Microsoft announced the plan to “shift the strategy with Silverlight” (you can read more about this here) and moreover, later they said that Windows 8 would count on HTML5.

Anyway, by the end of the year with the release of the last version of Silverlight 5 and the announcement to support it till 2021 cleared the situation a little bit. Part of the community calmed down, another part accepted the fact hoping that 2021 is not a mistyping in 2012 number.

However, many developers seriously consider moving to HTML5 as a real but maybe not the most optimal opportunity to continue the cross-platform development. Many of them agree that the development of full-featured RIAs using Java Script is possible, but it is much more expensive.

In any case it is obvious that times and technologies change and we should be flexible and adapt to these changes.

So, what can we expect next year?

2012: Promising prognosis

In 2012, we anticipate several events which will considerably affect the Windows applications market and, consequently will impact on .NET components market.

First of all, it is a release of a beta and probably the final version of Windows 8 and the Windows Runtime technology. Secondly, it is an official release of MS SQL Server 2012 (former 2011) codename denali.

Third, we look forward to the release of Visual Studio 11. Or maybe 2012? To say the truth, Microsoft’s approach to products version numbering puzzles me a little bit… And additionally, the Microsoft Application Store is going to start functioning at full capacity. However, it will be more interesting for our customers, - developers who create applications for final users.

And in the view of future events, I would like to introduce our roadmap for 2012 by each of our products.

After we united all the products under the single brand – SharpShooter, they all will be released at the same time. This year, we plan 4 or 5 new version for SharpShooter line of products and the same number of version of the components for SQL Server Reporting Services.

Ok, finally a short overview of the past and future is complete and we can move forward with announcing our plans for the 2012 year.

Perpetuum Software Products

SharpShooter Collection

In 2011, the product has been considerably improved in terms of usability. Talking about SharpShooter Reports, we improved interface of the designer and viewer components, enhanced work with styles, and added scripts browser with handy navigation and syntax highlighting.

Besides, the SharpShooter Reports line of products was extended with the components for HTML5+JavaScript, and for WPF (currently, WPF version passes the final testing). For all products included into the SharpShooter Collection we updated the Samples Center and for SharpShooter Reports we also added reports descriptions and code samples.

Carrying on the traditions of the last year (which were successful considering feedbacks from our customers) we will continue working on flexibility and customization abilities for the reports and follow new technologies. In January, we release a new version of the product line that, in addition to minor improvements, will include updated export to Excel and a WPF Viewer for SharpShooter Reports.

In next versions, we plan to add the predefined themes for the reports and extend number of export filters. The key changes include new options for data input and large-scale integration to the “cloud” with the SaaS model of reports presentation. Besides, we consider the update options for Web edition of SharpShooter Gauges to enable implementation of dynamic gauges based on JavaScript and HTML5 and increase their performance.

And finally, as the company that declares the «to be on the edge» motto as its strategy, we cannot fail to release a component for Windows Runtime as soon as Microsoft provides enough tools for its implementation in Windows 8 and Visual Studio 11.

Silverlight Viewer for Reporting Services

We continuously work on the improvements of our component for SSRS. Last year we considerably improved interaction between the client and server sides, updated the algorithms of the page location on paper when printing, simplified the primary settings and troubleshooting, added the ability to preview snapshots and much more.

In 2012, we plan to pay special attention to the component integration to the ‘cloud’ including SQL Azure Reporting (if Microsoft provides abilities to add custom rendering extension there). Moreover, we will improve and simplify the mechanisms of UI customization and integration with a system where the component is being embedded. API of the system will be also improved and brought into accordance with standard architectural solutions.

SharpShooter Diagrams

A library of Silverlight components for diagrams building was released in September 2011. Since then the product has sprung into immediate popularity.

The component is the basis for the SaaS application called Grapholite that is intended for drawing, storage and editing of diagrams, schemes, etc.

Current version of the component allows editing standard schemes and supports for BPMN, Flowcharts, SWOT, Cycle diagrams etc.

This year we plan to add new diagrams types (Floor plans, Network diagrams, UML diagrams, organizational charts, etc) which will allow a user to implements any diagram s/he can imagine.

For the developers who integrate Diagrams to their application we will offer a new, improved API. At the same time, the final users will enjoy better interactivity when viewing (drilldown, expand/collapse, etc).

Besides, we plan versions for WPF, WinRT and the HTML-viewer allowing embedding the application into HTML pages.

New Products In 2012 we plan to release several new products. The technology line of SharpShooter Reports will be extended with version for WPF, as we have already mentioned above. We will also release a WPF viewer for SQL Server Reporting Services, and an HTML5 version of the product. All viewers for SSRS will be united into a single product line.

We are not going to put aside the newest WinRT technology as well. The WinRT for SSRS and SharpShooter Reports.WinRT components will be released as soon as the too