One of the most exciting developments recently has been the rise of SharePoint, a Microsoft technology that supports remote teamwork and information sharing through the creation of collaborative websites. When a team member is out in the field, the SharePoint site allows creative thinking and team information to flow across the wires.

Capturing the energy of the new Java open source initiatives, the Spring Framework is part of an important new wave of ideas in the Java development space. No one knows how the Java/.NET tensions will unfold in the coming years, but we're seeing a very interesting response to increasing .NET adoption from Sun with Java 5 and Java open source technologies such as Spring. Apress is excited about these new technologies and you'll find us publishing right there in Java, with practical approaches and solutions.

As I write, it is the week of VSLive in San Francisco, an annual Microsoft conference where many Apress authors will be speaking, including Scott Allen, Tom Barnaby, Billy Hollis, Dominic Selly, Thomas Rizzo, Deborah Kurata, and Rockford Lhotka. These are some of the names driving our industry forward this spring. There's some exciting developments unfolding here, with Microsoft announcing at VSLive yesterday that they're on track to release Beta 1 of Longhorn by the end of June. A lot of people have also been wondering about the final release date of .NET 2.0 and September is a reasonable estimate I think.

We're professional geeks at Apress. We love new technology, yet we know that today's jobs are about working with today's technologies, so we've recently improved, updated and added new material to some of our most popular current technology titles.

We can't read enough about technology at Apress, but we enjoy bringing you books that we think you're going to find interesting as well as useful. Check out some of our latest releases that offer some alternative viewpoints on the computing industry from characters like Randal Schwartz and the comedienne of the programming world, Verity Stob.

I mentioned Rockford Lhotka is talking at VSLive this week - his writing continues to spark fresh discussion in 2005 with anyone involved in enterprise development on a Microsoft platform.

If you're interested in keeping up to date with other advances in technology join the Apress team to debate diverse topics in the Apress forums and peruse the blog postings at Ablogs. We're always online with an interesting discussion taking place. Let's hear what you have to say about the books, the industry the way the world is. We look forward to meeting you!