MIX 08 Keynote Recap

Day one of MIX 08 is almost in the can and in its wake are a number of announcements from Microsoft. Many of the announcements were simple formalities, confirming what everyone largely knew and expected to become "official" news at MIX. Others were a little more surprising, even for Microsoft insiders like Telerik. You can find many of the announcements in my complete live coverage of today's keynote, but if you're looking for the Reader's Digest version, here is a short summary of what was announced:

• SQL Server Data Services beta launched today (think Microsoft's version of Amazon S3 data service)
• IE 8 Beta 1 available today
• OpenService protocol going to be open sourced (used by IE Activities)
  
• IE 8 WebSlices protocol going to be open sourced
• Silverlight 2 beta 1 available today (non-commercial go-live license)
  
• Microsoft partnering with Move Networks to offer Adaptive Streaming in Silverlight
• Silverlight Advertising Templates shipping with beta (wizard for making ads with Silverlight)
• Microsoft partnering with DoubleClick to enable DC ads in Silverlight (due in Q2)
  
• All built-in Silverlight controls from MS will be released as open source tools with license allowing modification and resale!
• Silverlight 2 Testing Framework shipping with beta
• Deep Zoom (SeaDragon) being included in Silverlight 2 (called it)
• Deep Zoom Composer preview also available today
• WPF "service pack" announced - due this summer
• Silverlight for Nokia S60, S40, and Internet Tablet announced
• ASP.NET MVC Preview 2 available today
  

As you can tell by the length of this list, there were a lot of announcements packed-in to the two and a half hour keynote this morning. I think the Silverlight 2 and IE 8 betas were the most predictable (and very welcome) announcements, while the Nokia and DoubleClick partnerships were the most surprising. What did you think of Microsoft's announcements? Did they leave anything out that you were hoping to see or have they made you even more excited about Silverlight 2?

There's still one more keynote to go- the Ballmernote tomorrow at 1:00 PM. I'll try to provide some "live" blog coverage again for those that don't have access to the video feeds, and hopefully MS has saved some juicy secret for Ballmer to reveal at tomorrow's event. Surely Microsoft wouldn't send their CEO out on stage without anything exciting to announce at MIX! Would they?