SharePoint 14 + PDC ?

With the PDC keynote completed (a few hours ago), I’ve been looking into the twittersphere (tweets) and blogs for info and news.

There are a few key announcements – Windows Azure is the new Cloud O/S – not actually Windows Strata as had been leaked previously.

And – there’s a VHD (Virtual PC) for Visual Studio 2010 – and .NET 4.0.

Also, there’s LOTS of talk about Windows 7 – like they’ve forgotten/skipped Windows Vista – don’t need to talk about it anymore ?

The one area I’m keen to hear announcements is regarding vNext of SharePoint.  

I have some theories / questions :

• SharePoint 14 – will it be in line with Windows 7, and retain it’s numerical naming ?  
• Or will it be SharePoint 2009 ?   or SharePoint 2010 ?    Remembering that SharePoint 2007 was RTM’ed in late 2006 – otherwise, would’ve sounded a year old as soon as launched
• The answer is in line with Office 14 – Word, Excel, etc – will that be Office 14 – or Office 2009 – or Office 2010 ?
• What’s happening with the WSS and MOSS split ?    Will there still be a FREE version – meaning WSS ?    And the MOSS standard / enterprise (licensing) ?
• What will be the Silverlight inclusions ?   I’m sure there are many, many features and UI aspects that can be Silverlight’ed.

And – some more “functional” aspects (features) :

• InfoPath – will there be a new in-browser designer ?   To negate the need to install InfoPath 2007 on a client PC – would be part of InfoPath Forms Services instead ?  (I’ve used a product called AchieveForms in the past – just need a web browser for forms design).  
• Content Deployment – this is one of the biggest problems I’ve faced with SharePoint – buggy, inconsistent, annoying !   (and yes – have complained with Microsoft folk – they know…!)
• SharePoint Designer – will there be a better UI for Workflow Designer ?   More closely aligned with WF – and the Visual Studio designer ?
• Visual Studio – just been reading about the vNext (2010) – and there is supposedly better developer support for SharePoint – yay !

Lots of stuff to come – I know I’ll probably have to sign an NDA – so might not be able to say much more about it – until public beta…