This issue of MSDN Magazine comes during the largest release wave in the history of Microsoft, a wave consisting of Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, and Visual Studio 2008. In my December Editor's Note, I talked about all of the new features that were planned for the Visual Studio 2008 release timeframe. Hard on the heels of that release came talk of entirely new platforms with names like "Oslo" and "Volta." Likewise, there were formal announcements of new programming languages, such as F#. And if that wasn't enough, we now have two additional (and enormous) releases: Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008. So what do these releases mean to you? Aren't they technologies for system administrators?

When I worked on the certification team here at Microsoft, we grouped job roles into one of three major categories: developer, IT professional, and information worker. Developers are individuals like you—people who write software using tools such as Visual Studio. IT pros are folks who design, implement, and maintain IT infrastructure components such as Windows domains, SQL Server clusters, and Web server farms. Lastly, information workers describe people who represent customers for many of you. They are individuals who use products such as Microsoft Office and custom business apps to perform potentially non-technology-related tasks.

Why am I spending time describing these categories? Because, as I believe this latest launch wave illustrates, the lines that separate these categories are simply not as clear as they once were. For example, when you consider a technology like SQL Server, where is the line separating developer from IT pro? Naturally, there are a few obvious tasks that can cleanly fall into one category or another (backups come to mind), but should a developer care about indexes and query plans? Should an IT professional understand something about SQL CLR to properly manage a SQL Server instance? And if the delineation still seems too clear with SQL Server, consider SharePoint—it is a technology for developers, IT pros, and information workers (and a few other categories that we don't even have names for).

The point here is that in order to be successful as developers these days, we need to look beyond our compilers (and interpreters if you are of that persuasion) and develop a broader knowledge base. We need to understand, if even at a basic level, how networks are put together and how directory systems such as Active Directory are used to manage them. We need to develop an appreciation for how business works so that we can know how to best leverage technologies such as SQL Server Analysis Services, SQL Server Reporting Services, and SharePoint to provide better information to decision makers.

And it is this idea of building a broader knowledge base that makes this launch wave so exciting. In this issue, we talk about how new platform technologies can enable you to build better apps, both for the information workers who will use them and the system administrators who will manage them. From leveraging new capabilities in platform services such as IIS, to building custom functionality into existing information worker applications such as Microsoft Office, to bringing together the developer and DBA in the product lifecycle, this issue has something for everyone.

Finally, I want to call out one last point of interest. This issue has an official issue date of "Launch." As such, the order of your 2008 issues will go as follows: January, February, Launch, March, etc ... While initially confusing, we took advantage of the launch to do something revolutionary—that is, to bring the issue date closer to the actual date. Practically, this means that now, while your launch issue will arrive sometime in February, your March issue will arrive ... amazingly enough ... in March!