Silverlight 2. No, 3. Er, 4.

In 2007, Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere popped up as a video streaming plug in. Just over two years later and Silverlight 4 has burst on to the scene like a debut single from an American Idol act. Only this new act possesses longevity that those artists can only dream of. Already a star in its own right, Silverlight 4 promises web developers a slick new environment for creating visually appealing UI designs, stunningly interactive LOB applications and a web development platform that is now boasting out-of-browser capabilities.

This issue, DX Press offers a special Message from the CTO that combines both Julian's musings on this young upstart of a development platform, and Jesse Liberty's effervescent ruminations on how he'd like the community to help to shape its future.

Back in January, Julian stated in the DevExpress Roadmap that we could expect the first release of 2010 by the end of April. We are well on the way to that target with CodeRush Xpress shipping practically simultaneously with Visual Studio 2010 last week, and CodeRush and DXperience now at the Release Candidate stage.

If you are a subscriber to one of our DXperience suites – Universal, Enterprise, WinForms, WPF, ASP.NET or Silverlight – you can download the Release Candidate build from your Client Center account and feed your comments back to us through the Support Center.

DXperience customer, Matthew MacSuga, has already made his feelings clear, but we want to hear from more of you. Please be liberal with your feedback.

Download the DXperience Beta Available via Your Client Center Send Your Feedback to the DevExpress Support Team

Our last issue of DX Press included a boat-load of updates on new features, functionality and controls that you can expect in DXperience v2010 vol 1. In the lead up to the full release, the evangelists have been working with the DevExpress developers to bring the highlights of the next release directly to you.

Silverlight isn't the only area that has seen vast improvements. The teams have also been investigating feedback from you in order to make other changes - including a smaller, smarter installer.

Find out what else is new as you prepare yourself for the full force of the imminent release of DXperience v2010 vol 1.

Bing Maps Integrated With ASP.NET Pivot Grid ASP.NET Pivot Grid Supports Horizontal ScrollBar XAF Application Model and Model Editor Improvements JavaScript IntelliSense with DevExpress Client-Side Objects Installer Preview: Smarter, Faster And Sexier

Last week the DevExpress team in California trekked over to Las Vegas, NV to support Microsoft as a platinum sponsor of the launch event for Visual Studio 2010 and Silverlight 4. The UK team kept up with the launch festivities at the Microsoft Techdays events throughout the UK. With exciting new technologies that are opening up mobile development and advancing “rich internet application” development there was a huge amount of buzz surrounding the events.

As part of the launch event at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, Mark Miller presented a fast-paced coding session to a packed ballroom where over $180,000 worth of licenses were given away. For those who couldn't make it to the Visual Studio Launch or to Mark's session, a recording has been made of part of the presentation and published to the DevExpress Channel.

Catch up on a wild week in Vegas with the DevExpress Channel.

CodeRush Side By Side: Renaming DevConnections: Customer Testimonials DevConnections: Digi Cams