As part of your BizSpark program, you receive access to many great tools & resources, including access to the Developer suite of tools. Knowing how to best use these tools can help to make your Application Development Cycle more efficient & your application far more robust.

Learning how to best use these to manage your Application Lifecycle & Development tools with sessions featuring some of Australia’s best known presenters on topics around Agile development processes, using Sketchflow, working with SharePoint Projects, Testing, Project Management, Mobile development and much more…

Even more exciting is that the event kicks off with the official Australian Launch of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0. This is the premier Keynote event and should not be missed.

So, don't miss out! Click here to Register now for the Australian ALM Conference, being held at Luna Park in Sydney on the 13-14th of April!

With several successful Microsoft BizSpark Incubation Weeks under our belt (Azure Atlanta, Win7 Boston, Win7 Reston, CRM Reston, CRM Boston, Win 7 Irvine, Mobility Mountain View,), we are pleased to announce Microsoft BizSpark Camp for Windows Azure in Sydney! We hope you’re tapping into the growing global BizSpark community & Local one as well.

The current economic downturn is putting many entrepreneurs under increasing pressure, making it critical to find new resources and ways to reduce costs and inefficiencies. Microsoft BizSparkCamp for Windows Azure is designed to offer following assistance to entrepreneurs.

• Chance to win cash prize of $5000
• Learn and build new applications in the cloud or use interoperable services that run on Microsoft infrastructure to extend and enhance your existing applications with help of on-site advisors
• Get entrepreneurs coaching from a panel of industry experts
• Generate marketing buzz for your brand
• Create opportunity to be highlighted at upcoming launch

We are inviting nominations from BizSpark Startups interested in Windows Azure Platform that target one or more of the following:

• Windows Azure
• Microsoft .Net Services
• Microsoft SQL Azure
• Live Services
• Microsoft SharePoint Services
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM Services

The Microsoft BizSparkCamp for Windows Azure will be held in Sydney on Saturday the 10th of April ending on Sunday the 11th. This event consists of ½ day of training, 1 day of active prototype/development time, and ½ day for packaging/finishing and reporting out to a panel of judges for various prizes.

This event is a no-fee event (plan your own travel expenses) and each team can bring 3 participants (1 business and 1 – 2 developer). It is required to have at least 1 developer as part of your team. To nominate your team, please submit the following details to Catherine Eibner (preferably via your BizSaprk Sponsor) no later than Thursday the 1st April 2010. Nominations will be judged according to the strength of the founding team, originality and creativity of the idea, and ability to leverage Windows Azure Scenarios.

• BizSpark Startup Organization Details: Name, Web Site URL, Mailing Address, Solution Overview, Key Windows Azure Scenarios, Target Industry, Company Size and Year Founded, How did you hear about this event?
• BizSpark Sponsor Details: BizSpark Network Partner or Microsoft Champion Name, Web Site URL
• Team Details: For each participant, Name, Brief BIO, Email, Phone, Twitter, Blog

Our local Mobile MVP & BizSpark Network Partner James McCutcheon of foundry 38 recently interviewed Mark Pickering from Performance Design (www.performancedesign.com.au), which is a local BizSpark company that builds performance tools for RX-8.

EP2: Getting to Know ... Performance Design from James McCutcheon on Vimeo.

If you are a Marketing person who can give advice to Mark – and in turn other BizSpark partners – let either myself or James know!