What to Expect From Microsoft Build—and Telerik

Wondering what to expect at Microsoft Build 2016? We share some updates and our predictions, and of course we'll be there too—we'll have many demos to show and parties to attend.

Microsoft /build is just a week away and we are still to see the agenda. The show promises nevertheless to be quite exciting, not only in terms of announcements, but in connecting with fellow developers.

Parties, Connections and Mingling

Build has always been great at connecting attendees over drinks, and this year is no different. We'll be attending all of these, but we will have two special events which deserve your attention—feel free to look us up—we'll be the cool guys with the Telerik t-shirts. Here is our party agenda:

Telerik Party—Free Drinks

March 29th, 7:30-10pm at Thirsty Bear Brewing Company
661 Howard Street, San Francisco, CA 94105 (map, add to calendar)

If you are heading to Build 2016, make sure to arrive a day early and join us for a few drinks, on us, just for being awesome. Several Telerik heroes will be there: @JohnBristowe, @Samidip, @NikiAtanasov, @EdCharbeneau and yours truly.

Telerik in the Mixology VII Attendee Party

March 31th, 7:30-11pm at Delarosa
37 Yerba Buena Ln, San Francisco, CA 94103 (map)

As is tradition, the Visual Studio Partner Program team will be organizing this year's Mixology party, and it will be a blast. The setup this year is different (but better) than what we've seen in the past and Telerik will be sponsoring one of the happenings during Mixology. Find us—look for the Kendoka—we just may have some cool swag to give to you!

Telerik Session at /build

Well, /build is a Microsoft show where mostly Microsoft "blue badges" present. We are proud to have been invited to participate in a few sessions—we'd love to see you. Look out for John Bristowe's (@jbristowe) session below:

NativeScript and Visual Studio Code: Together at Last
Yes, you heard it here, folks. You can now write NativeScript-based apps in Visual Studio Code—all through the power of Visual Studio Code's extensibility model. In this session, you'll discover how to build native mobile apps with NativeScript using Visual Studio Code. You'll also learn how the extensibility model works in Visual Studio Code and how you can write an extension yourself!

The Future of Xamarin

A month ago Microsoft acquired Xamarin and promised to share more details as to the Xamarin future during Build and Evolve. Today I'm ready to bet that:

1. Microsoft will announce its intentions to merge the UWP and Xamarin codebases into a unified framework for targeting Windows 10 (desktop and mobile), Android, iOS, Xbox, IoT, etc. devices with a single C# codebase

2. Xamarin tooling will become free and will be included in Visual Studio

If you are up for this bet, I'll be at the Telerik Party the day before (see above)—feel free to stop by and chat. Or look me up at the Telerik booth—we'll be happy to show you our UI for Xamarin suite and to discuss all announcements.

UWP, HoloLens, Xbox

The holographic computing age is here, yet we are still to see what HoloLens is capable of. It started shipping in early 2016 and I suspect that Microsoft has a great demo up its sleeve for /build. Technology-wise, I think we'll see an uber-impressive HoloLens app (game?!) built with UWP, running on Xbox and controlled via Cortana.

If you need UWP UI today, stop by the Telerik booth for a UI for UWP demo.

SQL Server Running on Linux

By now it should be obvious that Microsoft is keeping its promise in making its products and new innovations accessible to a broader set of users. Earlier this month Scott Guthrie announced Microsoft's plans to bring SQL Server to Linux. A private preview is out today, but probably we'll see one or two demos of SQL Server running on Linux during the keynote (likely bundled together with Visual Studio Code and .NET Core).

Office 365 Development With Kendo UI

Did you know that if you are part of the Office 365 Developer Program you get Kendo UI for free? Telerik is the official UI partner for Office 365 development and we have a cool demo to show you—just look our booth up and ask for it. We even plan on a few Channel9 videos on the topic shortly after /build.

UI for NativeScript

Last year we announced the preview of UI for NativeScript—a suite of rich and native UI components that add advanced features on top of the default UI components that are shipped with the NativeScript framework. We are expanding the suite with new components and new functionality and we are ready to show you what we are up to if you are at /build.

NativeScript for Visual Studio Code

The NativeScript extension for Visual Studio Code is a great way to accelerate your NativeScript development workflow. With IntelliSense, interactive debugging, conditional breakpoints and device emulation integration, the NativeScript extension for Visual Studio Code provides the most feature complete environment for NativeScript Development. Perhaps the best feature of all, it's free!

If you are into VS code, make sure to go to @JohnBristowe's session on "NativeScript and Visual Studio Code: Together at Last (see above).

.NET Developer News

We know something you don't! Yes, we know what .NET developers plan to do with UWP and what platform their next web app will be on. We will share the news during /build, so make sure to stop by the Telerik booth for the nitty gritty.

See you at /build!

This year's Build Conference promises to be an exciting one. We hope to see you there!