Current Buzzwords

Avalon

Although more famous as the island where King Arthur was taken after his last battle, the home of The Lady of the Lake and Morgan le Fay, or maybe a bloated pile of Detroit Iron, Avalon was also Microsoft's interval code name for what is now called the Windows Presentation Foundation or WPF. It is the graphical subsystem of .Net 3.0 (formerly called WinFX) and the current version 3.5. WPF provides a consistent programming interface, separating the user interface (UI) from the business logic and brings together various graphical subsystems in attempt to become the de facto standard for business applications. WPF programs are compatible with Windows desktops and web browsers. Silverlight is a subset of WPF for the Web.

Centrino®

Intel's Trademark for on-board wireless (802.11b 10 megabit) connectivity on a portable computer. Read Intel's explanation here.

Itanium®

Intel's name for their new 64-bit chip, co-developed with Hewlett-Packard. Visit Intel for a description of the latest Itanium2 processor here.

Longhorn

An internal code name for Microsoft's next desktop operating system, now expected to ship sometime in 2006 under the name "Vista". The name reportedly came from some bar.

Indigo

Indigo is a the internal code name of a new programming model developed by Microsoft to replace object oriented programming with SOA (Services Oriented Architecture). It will be available on Longhorn.

Sparkle

A new graphics and animation program rumored to be part of the new Windows operating system ("Vista") due in 2006. Sparkle would provide the functions of Macromedia's popular "Flash" and "Director" programs.

Whidbey

The code name of the next version of Microsoft's Visual Studio Development Program set, now officially called "Visual Studio 2005".

Orcas

The version of Visual Studio after "Whidbey".

DCML

Data Center Markup Language, find out more here.

UPnP

Universal Plug and Play

IPv6

Internet Protocol Version 6

UWB

Ultra Wide Band

Stinger

Newest version of IBM's DB2 database

SOA

Service Oriented Architecture - Newest proposed solution to integrate incompatible applications and technologies.

BTX   

Balanced Technology Extended - New motherboards designed to replace ATX. Code name was "Big Water".

ATX

Advanced Technology Extended - Current motherboards used in most computers for the last 10 years.

SOAP

Simple Object Access Protocol - "If XML is the language, SOAP is the grammar." Simply put, SOAP enables machines to talk to one another through Web Services. 

WSDL

Web Service Description Language - Describes the functions and interfaces of a Web Service.

UDDI

Universal Description Discovery and Integration - provides a directory to list services provided by Web Services.

WS-I

Web Services-Interoperability Organization - founded by Microsoft and others to promote standards of interoperability among web services created on different platforms and with different languages.

DIME

Direct Internet Message Encapsulation

VOIP

Voice Over Internet Protocol - Describes the practice of transmitting phone calls over the internet rather than private telephone company networks. The advantage, of course, is that it is much cheaper and more feature-rich. The disadvantage is the variable sound quality.

WiMax

Think WiFi, only with a range of 20 MILES!

WiFi

Wireless Fidelity, an attempt to create a recognizable trademark to increase public acceptance of products built around the IEEE 802.11a, b, and g standards for wireless connectivity. The next group of WiFi products will be built around the 802.11n standard, with data rates of 300 megabits per second.

WiMedia

Why

UWB

Ultra Wide Band

RTM

Release-to-Manufacturing or Release-to-Market, Microsoft's designation for the first "official" release of a product.