Alvin Gendrano's WebLog

In Bangalore This Week

2007-07-31T09:39:30Z

I am in Bangalore this week to visit our lnternational-English delivery site. It is an impressive operation with over 150 specialists, and partner technical consultants serving thousands of partners world-wide. This week caps a very busy and productive travel month with trips to Denver for the Partner Conference, to Orlando for the MS Global Exchange, and now in Bangalore....(read more)

Yet Another New Blogger on the team!

2007-07-20T21:56:13Z

We have another member of the ISV Advisory Services team blogging about technology. http://blogs.msdn.com/amitava/default.aspx Amitava leads a team of our engineers in providing services to help partners attain Windows Vista Logo certification. With the increased logo-certification focus in FY08 and additional logos related to server products, Amitava should have a lot of cool things to talk about in the next year....(read more)

Worldwide Partner Conference 2007 in Denver, CO

2007-07-12T18:17:02Z

We're at the Worldwide Partner conference this week in Denver, marking the third consecutive year our group has participated. For me, it's always great to interact with our ISV partners on what they find most important and to share with them the benefits of partnership with Microsoft. This year has been extra special for ISV-Advisory Services, as we are getting more and more recognized as a valued resource for ISVs. In fact, Naseem Tuffaha delivered the ISV-Super-Session yesterday, and called a partner...(read more)

New Office-Technologies Blogger on the Team

2007-07-02T21:19:00Z

I am always excited to get e-mail like this: The Office TFA Team has its first blogger. Congratulations Pranab and Happy blogging!!! J http://blogs.msdn.com/pranab/ Thanks and have a great day. Kind regards, Vinod Venugopal | Technical Lead | Microsoft Global Partner Support Delivery...(read more)

June 12 is Philippine Independence Day

2007-06-11T11:42:00Z

Hoisting the Philippine Flag up on the blog site to commemorate Philippine Independence. Flag image courtesy of Anton Diaz ( http://www.anton.blogs.com/ ) On Friday (June 15), the MS Filipino Diversity Action commitee will hold an Independence Day social at the Redmond campus....(read more)

Townhall Meeting Today

2007-05-15T19:34:00Z

Today marks an important milestone in my career at Microsoft. I finally get to attend one of Steve Ballmer's Townhall meetings in person . In prior years, I have religiously attended these important meetings remotely through webcasts. Having spent the last 8 years of my Microsoft career in Charlotte, NC I've not had all the opportunities to attend Redmond-campus events. One big exception to that was the Company Meeting in 2002 when I and a few other Microsoft employees decided to take vacation days...(read more)

Now in Seattle

2007-04-07T19:22:09Z

After 8+ years at Microsoft, we are finally at Corporate Headquarters (eg. The Mothership). Interestingly, we have moved here to do the same jobs. It's been a productive 4 weeks, but admittedly, the first two weeks were very dreary because of the rain. After living in Charlotte the last 8 years, and Tucson for 3 years before that I've been quite used to sunny weather. I'll need to somehow channel my inner Filipino to get used to rainy weather once again. As you might know, the Philippines is a tropical...(read more)

Offsite Location

2007-02-27T09:06:24Z

In case you were wondering where we were having our offsite (Victoria, BC): Victoria, BC...(read more)

Global Partner Support Offsite

2007-02-27T09:01:00Z

I'm 30,000 feet above the Midwestern United States traveling to Seattle for a leadership offsite with my Global Partner Support colleagues. Together, we deliver support and services benefits for partners through the Microsoft Partner Program (MSPP) which include Tele-Presales Tech Support, Technical Service Coordination, Managed Newsgroups, Forum support, and of course, ISV Advisory Services. One way to look at it is that we provide services for almost every stage of the partner lifecycle. It's been...(read more)

Back!!!

2007-02-26T10:15:33Z

I've been wanting to jump back into the community scene for quite a while, and it might as well be tonight. It has been crazy busy lately with normal ISV-Advisory-Services operations and the neat collaborative projects we have in the works. In the last year, we've made it a point to meet with as many internal groups that work with ISVs in one way or another. These teams include Vista SWLogo, Office Integrated Innovation, SaaS, SPLA, ISV competency, Worldwide Partner Group, Developer Evangelism, Ascend/Touchdown...(read more)

Potential Application Compatibility Gotchas in Windows Vista

2006-04-25T05:13:00Z

With the imminent (Release to Manufacturing) RTM of Windows Vista at the end of 2006, it is prudent for software vendors and enthusiasts to start testing their applications for compatibility with the new OS. Microsoft has released a whitepaper highlighting a cookbook of steps to help guide software developers through the process of ensuring that their applications continue to flawlessly work on Vista: The Windows Vista Developer Story: Application Compatibility Cookbook Though the effort to retain...(read more)

Great time to be a Microsoft ISV Partner

2006-03-02T06:58:00Z

I'm amazed every time I think about the great benefits and programs now available to Microsoft Independent Software Vendor (ISV) partners and I believe that now's the best time to be a breadth ISV on the Microsoft platform. These benefits and programs reflect Microsoft's increasing focus around helping ISVs grow their businesses and sell more products. Of course, it is self-serving for Microsoft too in the sense that more ISV solutions sold mean that eventual end-customers see more potential value...(read more)

About Me

2006-01-30T06:32:00Z

I manage the global delivery of a Microsoft Partner Program benefit for Independent Software Vendors (ISV) called ISV Advisory Services. It is a very exciting technical enablement benefit that was launched in 2005 (press release). At its core, the benefit is designed to help software vendors create compelling solutions on the Microsoft platform by providing ISV's with 10 to 20 hours of advisory services per year. To serve thousands of ISVs worldwide, we have hired a talented and growing group of 50 developer advisors in the US, India, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, China, Korea, Spain, Argentina, and, Italy to provide proactive services such as:

Customized 1:1 Technology Workshops on the latest Microsoft developer technologies like:

SQL2005
Visual Studio 2005
Visual Studio Team System
ASP.NET 2.0
etc.

Provision of Code Samples

Legacy to .NET Migration Best Practices

SQL2005 Migration Guidance
Application Certification Guidance
Architecture/Design Guidance Sessions

To-date, our global team has served over 3,000 ISVs and has delivered over 35,000 hours of developer guidance. To learn more about the benefit, send an e-mail to isvhelp@microsoft.com.

Hello World!

2006-01-30T05:49:00Z

Well, I finally jumped into the blogosphere despite years of succesfully convincing myself that I did not have the time for this. Fortunately, or not, blogging has caught up with me thanks to two events in January that were just too much of a coincidence to ignore:

One of my team members (Joe Scalone) highlighted how other managers at Microsoft were blogging, and asked me to do the same
My Management Strategy MBA class had a semester-long requirement to maintain a blog

And so, as the saying goes, I decided to hit two birds with the same blog.