The second beta release of PostgreSQL 9.3 is now available. This beta contains updated and debugged previews of all of the features which will be available in version 9.3, and is ready for testing by the worldwide PostgreSQL community. Please download, test, and report what you find.

Changes Since Beta 1

The following changes and bug fixes have been made since Beta 1. If you tested a feature in the previous beta, please retest it now to make sure that any issues you discovered have been fixed.

• prevent xid gaps in Hot Standby startup
• prevent insertion deadlocks with SP-GiST indexes
• add user-visible "updatable" flag for foreign tables and views
• fix two issues with JSON and Unicode
• make sure that pg_isready displays correct connection info
• fix pg_dump dependancy order for EventTriggers
• fix regression tests for postgres_fdw
• fix pg_xlogdump -r
• array_remove() no longer emits broken empty arrays
• fix formatting of automatically generated recovery.conf file
• simplify handling of crashes after fast failover
• allow CREATE FOREIGN TABLE to include SERIAL columns
• make the word "FOREIGN" optional in "ALTER TABLE"
• translation updates merged
• many documentation updates

Additionally, all bug fixes prepared for back-branches of PostgreSQL have been applied to Beta 2.

For a full listing of the features in version 9.3 Beta, please see the release notes. Additional descriptions and notes on the new features are available on the 9.3 Features Wiki Page.

Test 9.3 Beta 2 Now

We depend on our community to help test the next version in order to guarantee that it is high-performance and bug-free. Please download PostgreSQL 9.3 Beta 2 and try it with your workloads and applications as soon as you can, and give feedback to the PostgreSQL developers. Features and APIs in Beta 2 will not change substantially before final release, so it is now safe to start building applications against the new features. More information on how to test and report issues

Get the PostgreSQL 9.3 Beta 2, from our download page. Some binary installers for various platforms, including Solaris and FreeBSD, are already available; other will become available over the next week.

Full documentation of the new version is available online, and also installs with PostgreSQL.

S AN F RANCISCO — June 27, 2013 — Today thousands of developers gathered at The Moscone Center, with hundreds of thousands more participating online, for the second day of Build 2013, where Microsoft Corp. demonstrated that the developer opportunity on the Windows platform has never been greater. Keynotes delivered by Satya Nadella, president, Server and Tools Business, and Steve Guggenheimer, corporate vice president and chief evangelist, Developer Platform Evangelism, showcased how commonality across the Windows platform enables developers of all types to build compelling apps and experiences spanning devices and services.

Increasing importance of cloud services

Developers today are building multidevice, multiscreen, cloud-connected experiences. Windows Azure spans infrastructure and platform capabilities to provide them with a comprehensive set of services to easily and quickly build modern applications, using the tools and languages familiar to them.

“Developers are increasingly demanding a flexible, comprehensive platform that helps them build and manage apps in a cloud- and mobile-driven world,” Nadella said. “To meet these demands, Microsoft has been doubling down on Windows Azure. Nearly 1,000 new businesses are betting on Windows Azure daily, and as momentum for Azure grows, so too does the developer opportunity to build applications that power modern businesses.”

Delivering on its commitment to provide developers with the most comprehensive cloud platform, Microsoft announced the general availability of Windows Azure Mobile Services. Mobile Services enables developers building Windows, Windows Phone, iOS and Android apps to store data in the cloud, authenticate users and send push notifications. TalkTalk Business, a leading business telecommunications provider in the United Kingdom, chose Windows Azure Mobile Services to create new ways to engage with its customers and serve demand for mobile access.

Microsoft also announced the general availability of Windows Azure Web Sites, which allows developers to create websites on a flexible, secure and scalable platform to reach new customers. With the investments Microsoft has made in ASP.NET and Web tools, Web developers can now create scalable experiences easier than ever. Dutch brewer Heineken is using Windows Azure to power a social pinball game for the UEFA Champions League Road to the Final campaign, with the expectations of millions of interactions scaled on Windows Azure. Heineken exceeded its usage metrics by a wide margin yet experienced no scalability issues with Windows Azure.

Guthrie also highlighted Microsoft’s continued enterprise cloud momentum by demonstrating several platform advancements, including previews of improved auto-scaling, alerting and notifications, and tooling support for Windows Azure through Visual Studio. In addition, he previewed how Windows Azure Active Directory provides organizations and ISVs, such as Box, with a single sign-on experience to access cloud-based applications.

Developers can go to the Windows Azure site today for a free trial: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/free-trial/?WT.mc_id=AE37323DE.

Spanning from the c loud to d evices

Guggenheimer announced the availability of the Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry Release Preview, which extends Windows 8.1 technologies and provides additional flexibility to meet the needs of industry devices. Onstage, Guggenheimer demonstrated the Avis Select and Go app running on a Windows Embedded 8 Industry tablet and a Windows Embedded 8 Handheld device to illustrate the opportunity for developers to capitalize on the shared Windows codebase and enable industry-specific branding, peripheral support (such as mag stripe readers and barcode scanners), and lockdown capabilities.

Through a series of partner demos, Guggenheimer demonstrated the common core of the Windows platform spanning PC, tablet, phone and embedded devices.

• Khan Academy has released a major update to its Windows 8 app, now live in the Windows Store. Using Khan Academy’s website code, Microsoft demonstrated how developers can easily take HTML5 and JavaScript code from the Web and easily port to a Windows 8 app.
  

• Foursquare previewed an exclusive, uniquely designed Windows 8 tablet app that goes beyond check-ins to use location data in a way that helps users find interesting places and things to do around them.
  

• Adobe Systems Inc. is bringing its Digital Publishing Suite product to Windows 8.1 devices in late 2013. Publishers and brands will be able to design and publish content to multiple devices with interactive and inspiring reading experiences.
  

• Guggenheimer announced the availability of OpenTable, Rockmelt and Rhapsody apps for Windows 8 in the Windows Store and previewed five Disney games. Details on these applications can be found on the Windows blog.
  

• Finally, Guggenheimer highlighted a few of the popular apps available in Windows Phone Store today, including ABC News, Xfinity by Comcast, TV Remote, Dow Jones MarketWatch and Walgreens, as well as the live push-to-talk and multimedia messaging app, Voxer.
  

“People want to experience and explore the world around them, and the Foursquare for Windows 8 app helps them do that. It makes it fun to search for a place for dinner or to go out, and it helps people discover new experiences. We’ve worked with Microsoft on a bunch of initiatives over the years, and this product is another example of the great things we can do together,” said Dennis Crowley, co-founder and CEO at Foursquare.

New third - party offerings

PayPal’s software development kit, now generally available, allows developers to integrate the payment experience for 128 million account holders into a Windows 8 or Windows Phone 8 app. In addition, Unity Technologies, one of the industry’s most popular game development platforms with nearly 2 million community members, announced a strategic collaboration with Microsoft to make it easier for developers to bring popular games, entertainment and apps to Windows, Windows Phone, Xbox 360 and Xbox One for Microsoft Studios publishing partners.

New enhancements and services

Microsoft also demonstrated the developer productivity enhancements of the .NET 4.5.1 runtime that enable developers to build the next wave of modern applications that run across devices and cloud, while also extending their existing line-of-business applications. The updates include improved coding, designing, testing and optimizing of XAML applications in Windows 8.1. Microsoft published a white paper providing guidance to .NET developers.

Finally, Microsoft showcased how Bing as a platform can extend across a broad set of devices and client app experiences using Bing Developer Services. Guggenheimer demonstrated these platform capabilities by showing Microsoft translation technology in Twitter for Windows Phone, which now provides instant, single-click translation of tweets.

“Whether developing for existing, client/server, or emerging device and cloud application patterns, developers need a platform that offers consistency and flexibility. Only the Windows platform — spanning Windows, Windows Phone, Windows Azure and more — meets this need,” Guggenheimer said.

More information can be found at the Build 2013 website, http://www.buildwindows.com.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

For more information, press only:

Rapid Response Team, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, (503) 443-7070, rrt@waggeneredstrom.com

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

SAN FRANCISCO — June 26, 2013 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the immediate availability of the Windows 8.1 Preview, the next update of the Windows operating system, at the company’s developer-focused Build conference. As part of the conference’s keynote speech, the company outlined the reach, design and economic opportunities for developers to build differentiated, touch-based apps for the Windows platform, including new developer tools and increased support. Company executives also highlighted new top apps coming to Windows, including Facebook, Flipboard and NFL — clear evidence of the steady app momentum for Windows, which is experiencing the fastest growth across any platform.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was joined on stage by Julie Larson-Green, corporate vice president of Windows, and other company executives to demo the Windows 8.1 Preview, focusing on key areas of personalization, search powered by Bing, increased functionality for businesses, new in-the-box apps and more.

“With Windows 8 we built a new Windows, reimagined from the chipset to the experience. It was an ambitious vision, and with Windows 8.1 we refine it,” Larson-Green said. “Windows 8.1 will support the widest range of tablets and PCs and demonstrates how responsive we can be for customers. The preview we are releasing today is an important step for partners around the world that are building the next generation of Windows devices and apps.”

Antoine Leblond, corporate vice president of Windows Program Management, also took the stage to outline how Windows 8.1 provides additional opportunity for developers to design, build and market their Windows Store apps. He reinforced the best-in-class economics — developers keep 80 percent of the revenue for the lifetime of the app once it crosses the $25,000 revenue threshold. He also highlighted new updates, including the following:

• Redesigned Windows Store. The Windows Store has been completely redesigned in Windows 8.1 to reach engaged customers and connect them more effectively and quickly to the apps they want. This includes increased merchandising opportunities for apps and better discoverability based on an individual’s preferences, as well as new search controls from Bing in the user interface. App listings have a new layout with refined navigation and more related content.

• More monetization opportunities. Windows 8.1 delivers new opportunities for developers to build and monetize apps and engage users. Leblond introduced Windows Store gift cards, an easy way for consumers to purchase apps, books, games and content. Customers will be able to load their Microsoft Account with stored value in their local currency and make purchases online from the Windows Store. For developers in China, the Windows Store will support Alipay, meaning local developers will have new options to generate additional revenue.

• Leading experiences. Windows 8.1 offers developers a canvas to present and develop compelling app designs. Windows 8.1 apps can work together to share data, share the screen and deliver richer customer experiences across a range of devices, including new 8-inch-and-below form factors.

Beyond Windows 8.1, Microsoft showcased how developers can take advantage of tools and resources across the company to build differentiated experiences for their customers across Microsoft devices and services, including the following:

• Bing as a platform. The new Bing platform builds upon the large investments Microsoft has made in the core technologies behind Bing.com to be embedded as intelligent services into Microsoft devices, Microsoft services and third-party apps that people use every day. In addition to providing the Search experience in Windows 8.1, Windows Phone, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Office, Bing Developer Services are now available that enable third-party developers to leverage Bing technology to create amazing experiences in their own services and Windows and Windows Phone applications. More information is available here.

• Releases of Visual Studio 2013 Preview and .NET 4.5.1 Preview. Timed to the next wave of Windows, Visual Studio 2013 offers the ideal toolset for building rich modern applications that run on Windows 8.1. With a range of new features, Visual Studio 2013 makes it easier and faster for developers to create applications and services using modern lifecycle practices that span mobile devices and the cloud. Microsoft also announced a preview of .NET 4.5.1, enabling developers to build next-generation applications for devices and services while innovating their existing core business applications. Visual Studio 2013 and .NET 4.5.1 previews are now available for download here. More on Visual Studio can be found here.

• Windows Phone developer opportunity. Microsoft today announced that shipments of Windows Phone grew six times faster than the rest of the smartphone market over the past year. Sprint also announced plans to add Windows Phone 8 to its 4G LTE network this summer with the HTC® 8XT and the Samsung ATIV S Neo™. With the release of Windows Phone 8, customers are now downloading more than 200 million apps per month and generating more than twice the daily app revenue. To help give developers the best return on their investments, the next release of Windows Phone will be designed to run the same apps that developers are building today and support the same familiar tools and skills. For a limited time, developers can register with Windows Phone Dev Center for only $19.

Courtesy of Microsoft and Intel Corp., attendees at Build received the first 8-inch Windows-based tablet, the Intel® AtomTM Z2760 processor-based Acer Iconia W3 and a Microsoft Surface Pro, with all the horsepower of the third-generation Intel® Core™ processor in a sleek tablet form factor. With new levels of  performance, battery life and versatile form factors enabled by Windows 8.1 and Intel Architecture, these devices offer developers the chance to quickly get started building Windows 8.1 apps that will scale across form factors of all sizes. Among other giveaways, attendees received 100 GB of extra SkyDrive storage for one year, making it easy to store and access their files from anywhere.

The Windows 8.1 Preview is available for download beginning today. More information is available at http://www.preview.windows.com.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

The information contained in this press release relates to a pre-release software product that may be substantially modified before its first commercial release. Accordingly, the information may not accurately describe or reflect the software product when first commercially released. The press release is provided for informational purposes only, and Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, with respect to the press release or the information contained in it.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

REDMOND, Wash. — June 25, 2013 — CineTrailer, a pan-European app developed by DDM, an Italian digital media agency, has migrated its back-end technology to Windows Azure from Amazon Web Services (AWS) to help users choose and view movies via the Web, mobile devices or connected TVs. The company has also built its app for optimization on Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. Since the migration to Windows Azure in 2012, the CineTrailer app has been downloaded more than 2.5 million times, and is available in 11 countries and in nine languages throughout Europe.

“Transitioning to Windows Azure has allowed us to change, evolve and scale rapidly to meet our customers’ needs,” said Marco Dufour, chief executive officer at DDM and head of development at CineTrailer. “It costs roughly half of what we were previously paying, and we don’t have the costs associated with preparing and maintaining a dedicated database server. With Windows Azure all we need is a few lines of code and we can deploy our app in a fully scalable environment.”

The CineTrailer application enables users to watch a movie trailer and then find the nearest theater at which movie is playing via GPS. Users can also bookmark their favorite theaters and put a calendar alert to be reminded of the moment a desired movie is available for viewing.

“Windows Phone was the original environment in which CineTrailer was born and we’re particularly enthusiastic about it,” said Camillo Morganti, chairman of the board of DDM. “Working with the platform turned out to be an easy task, thanks to the myriad of fantastic features the mobile OS offers, like Live Tiles and swipe interfaces. Windows 8, too, has been a natural evolution and a great way for us to seamlessly engage users on two environments at the same time: tablets and PCs.”

CineTrailer also decided to build its app for Windows 8 and Windows Phone because employees were already familiar with other Microsoft platforms before the deployment, having started their experience as professionals with Visual Studio, ASP and SQL Server and subsequently having transitioned to the .NET platform. This meant less time was needed for developers to get comfortable with the platforms and an increased focus could be placed on getting the product to market.

“We are experiencing good results from our Windows 8 and Windows Phone apps,” Dufour said. “We see Windows 8 as a market changer and we think that developers have just started to see its tremendous potential. As developers ourselves, we’ve been immersed in visual environments for 15 years, but found the Microsoft platforms truly support both developers and editors. Windows Azure, Windows 8 and Windows Phone are natural fits for us, and are helping us change the way in which users consume and enjoy content.”

More information about how organizations are turning to Microsoft technology is available on the Microsoft Customer Spotlight newsroom.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

REDMOND, Wash. — June 25, 2013 — Today marks one year since Microsoft Corp. announced its acquisition of Yammer, the leading provider of enterprise social networks. Since the acquisition, Microsoft’s enterprise social momentum has accelerated in all areas, including new users, paid customers, user engagement, innovation, and the ecosystem of partners selling and connecting to the Yammer platform.

Twelve-month growth highlights include the following:

• Registered users have grown by more than 55 percent to nearly 8 million.

• Paid networks increased more than 200 percent year over year.

• Yammer user activity (i.e., messages, groups and files) has approximately doubled year over year.

“The continued boom in Yammer’s growth is validation that enterprise social represents an important trend in the way people want to share, learn and connect at work, similar to how they’re interacting in their personal lives,” said David Sacks, Yammer co-founder and corporate vice president, Microsoft Office Division. “During the past year, Yammer has unlocked new opportunities to share the benefits of enterprise social through Microsoft’s global sales organization and product ties with key communication, collaboration and cloud productivity offerings, such as Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM. We see nothing but continued potential in enterprise social as a cornerstone of the future of work.”

For more information about Sacks’ perspective on the successes of the past year, see his post today on the Official Microsoft blog.

Customers and partners bet on Yammer

Yammer Infographic June 24, 2013

Downloads: Web | Print

As more organizations embrace the benefits of enterprise social solutions, customers such as Manhattan Associates are seeing tangible return in areas like greater cross-functional collaboration and communication, improved customer response times, and increased business agility. Other customers, such as Electronic Arts, which is just getting started with Yammer, are excited for the opportunity to create more cross-functional collaboration and open communication within their organizations.

“Enterprise social has transformed how we work, breaking down organizational siloes, making us more open and collaborative, and enabling us to be more responsive to our customers,” said Dawn Gartin, collaboration manager, Manhattan Associates Inc. “As both a Microsoft SharePoint and Yammer customer, we’re excited about Microsoft’s vision and how the products are coming together to offer one uniform social experience, which, for us, is the key to getting work done.”

Partners also continue to invest in Yammer, connecting third-party applications to Yammer that add line-of-business capabilities and additional value for organizations using Yammer. The number of partners in Yammer’s App Directory has nearly doubled since its launch in October 2012, and the number of developers building on Yammer has increased more than 70 percent.

Yammer today announced integration with online influence tool Klout, which allows Yammer users to publish their public Klout scores and expertise directly on their Yammer profiles. In addition, Yammer administrators can elect to turn on a deeper integration with Klout to produce internal, Yammer-specific Klout scores for employees based on their activity within a company’s Yammer network.

More information on the growth of the Yammer partner ecosystem is available on today’s Yammer blog post.

Advancing the e nterprise s ocial r oad map

During the past year, Yammer has continued to make significant product updates, including message translation capabilities, improvements to file collaboration, platform updates such as embeddable feeds and the "Like" and "Follow" buttons, and continued development on various mobile platforms.

Yammer also continues to deliver on its outlined strategy to provide a social layer across Microsoft Office and third-party applications. Microsoft believes that, in order for social to become truly mainstream in the workplace, it needs to be a part of the applications people use every day. To deliver on that vision and past roadmap announcements, Microsoft is delivering interoperability with Office 365 with these newly released features:

• Yammer newsfeed for SharePoint Online and Office 365. Yammer now works even more deeply and seamlessly with Office 365 and SharePoint Online, allowing customers to replace the SharePoint newsfeed with Yammer.

• New Yammer application in Office Store. Available by the end of June in the Office Store, the Yammer application will allow customers to easily embed Yammer group feeds into SharePoint sites, creating a connection between groups and sites to deliver the best of Yammer and SharePoint.

In the coming months, Microsoft will release a number of Yammer, SharePoint and Office 365 updates to deepen connections between the services and enable greater collaboration. Although Microsoft has already talked about delivering an improved user experience and single sign-on, new planned features include advancements in search and email:

• Improved email interoperability. New capabilities will make it easier for users to follow and participate in conversations across Yammer and email.

• Expanded Yammer messaging and external communication. Expanded functionality helps meet everyday communications requirements, such as seamless external communication and enhancing real-time directed messaging.

• SharePoint search integration. Integrated search makes it easier to find information across Yammer and SharePoint quickly.

Microsoft will use its rapid development approach to provide ongoing enhancements to create connected experiences across Office 365 that combine social, collaboration, email, instant messaging, voice, video and line-of-business applications in innovative new ways. More details on the Office 365 and Yammer integration road map are provided in a blog post today from Jared Spataro.

About Yammer

Yammer (www.yammer.com) is a best-in-class Enterprise Social Network used by more than 200,000 organizations worldwide — including approximately 85 percent of the Fortune 500 — to foster team collaboration, empower employees, drive business agility and promote organizational connectedness. Yammer’s freemium business model lets customers see the value of Yammer before upgrading to the premium offering. Founded in 2008, Yammer is now part of the Microsoft Office Division.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.