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Microsoft Build 2012 Dev Event Slated for October

Microsoft's next Build event, the developer conference for professionals creating Windows 8 applications, is scheduled to take place the week after Windows 8 ships.

This year's conference is slated for October 30 to November 2, at the company's headquarters in Redmond, Wash. The Build event replaced the company's longstanding Professional Developers Conference, starting in 2011.

Windows 8 is expected to become generally available on October 26, 2012, according to an announcement earlier this month by Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live Division at Microsoft. Visual Studio 2012, which is required for Windows 8 development, is slated to release to the Web sometime during the first week of August.

In addition to showcasing Windows 8 development, this year's Build event will offer sessions on Windows Azure, Windows Phone 8, Windows Server 2012 and Visual Studio 2012, according to Microsoft evangelist Tim O'Brien, who announced Build 2012 event dates in a Channel 9 blog on Wednesday.

Last year's Build conference in Anaheim, Calif. marked the unveiling of the Windows 8 developer preview release, with attendees getting Samsung tablets with the new operating system loaded on it. That conference was designed to get traditional Microsoft application developers and Web developers onboard as the company shifted to a new development paradigm.

The new Windows 8 app model is based on a native Windows Runtime (WinRT), capable of supporting components developed using C++, VB, C#, XAML, HTML/CSS and JavaScript code. This model marked the debut of radical change in the operating system's user interface, which added a Metro live-tile design similar to the UI used for Windows Phone 7.

Windows 8 tablets, using x86 and ARM components, are expected to be released by manufacturers later this year. Microsoft also announced its own Surface tablet hardware running Windows RT (Windows on ARM) and Windows 8 Professional editions. With Windows 8 devices expected to appear in retail outlets starting in late October, Microsoft is anxious to get developers onboard to build Windows Metro-style apps for the Windows Store that can showcase the advantages of the new OS.

Registration for Build 2012 opens on August 8 at 8:00 am PDT. The 8's in the time, month and date are there by design, according to O'Brien.

About the Author

Kathleen Richards is the editor of RedDevNews.com and executive editor of Visual Studio Magazine.

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