For the past 4 years I have had the enjoyable task of being the MicroISV Evangelist for Microsoft. Recently based on some organizational changes and task assignment realignment, I have begun to focus my attention full-time on other efforts and thus, effective now, am no longer tasked with MicroISV-related...

Update to anyone following this entry: We have now released the Feature Builder Power Tool for Visual Studio 2010 (RTM-Preview) which supercedes and, in very many ways, continues on what we were doing with Blueprints. Most of you who read this blog know that for the past 3 years I’ve been driveing...

Unlike the plan which I had in place, I've been silent for the past two months going heads-down on a new project. It's been a major push and I'm happy to say it's nearing an end as it will be unveiled next Monday, November 5th, at the Microsoft TechEd : Developers conference in Barcelona, Spain. Before...

At the Software Industry Conference 2007 , I got more than a dozen MicroISVs to sit in the "seat of heat" and do a brief video interview. The first part of these interviews is now live on Channel9! Enjoy.

The Software Industry Conference 2007 just opened this morning here in Denver, Colorado and, according to the organizers, 80% of the attendees are new attendees (as opposed to people who attended this event in previous years). I've been saying on this blog, and around Microsoft, for the past few years...

UPDATE: Exhibit night is FRIDAY. Bob Walsh and I are happy to announce two opportunities for you to be interviewed at SIC ( www.sic.org ) and get featured on our Microsoft Channel9 show ( http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/The_MicroISV_Show ). We will be doing audio podcasts throughout SIC and you...

I've been travelling a bit lately and fallen off the "blogging" horse. So, I'm once again climbing aboard my trusty steed "Bloggy" and off we go again! First up, I just posted the next episode of The MicroISV Show on Channel9 which features Mike Rohde talking about how starting to think about your...

You've got to check out the Microsoft Office Interactive Developer Map and it's write up on the Sharepoint Products and Technologies Team Blog . This Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) application allows you to drill down to each product and technology and learn about new features, objects, Web...

Gavin Bowman, proprietor of V4 Solutions , writes what he calls the "Obligatory Blog" (he says: These days if you run a software company, you have to have a Blog. This is mine). Gavin is a MicroISV and subject of my first interview on The MicroISV Show , who now has a second product, congratulations...

Bob Walsh, author of "MicroISV: From Vision to Reality" , and co-host of The MicroISV Show on Channel9 , has written a blog post about his experiences at MIX07 .

I just discovered this article by Eric Sink (from 2005 but still very, very topical) about the often-discussed-on-The-MicroISV-Show topic of should you go it "alone" or have a "business-oriented" co-founder. In the past I have started companies (a) by myself, (b) with a non-technical co-founder and...

This week at MIX07 we revealed the full extent of Microsoft Silverlight which includes support for XAML-based UI and includes a .NET CLR with support for C#, VB.Net, IronPython, JScript and eventually IronRuby and VBx which enables the delivery of cross-platform high-speed, rich functionality applications...

IndependentInnovation.net - My new blog and podcast. Independent Innovation is a new meme that is rapidly changing the work and personal lives of millions of people around the globe as the Internet and widespread adoption of broadband technology is enabling individuals and small groups to create new...

CORRECTION: Office is the "Professional" SKU and Vista is the "Business" SKU. UPDATE: We are also going to offer this event in two additional locations and dates: June 5th (Boston) and June 11th (Silicon Valley/Mountain View) UPDATE: Office and Vista are "Ultimate" SKUs. UPDATE: Office...

Just posted the latest episode of The MicroISV show which was a great interview with Don Dodge, a member of the Emerging Business Team here at Microsoft. Don and his team work with startups and help them connect directly with our product developers. Visit The Microsoft Startup Zone for more information...

Dave Collins, one of the masters at marketing MicroISV software, talks with Bob Walsh and me in episode #13 about how to choose keywords, where to spend your advertising dollars (Google AdWords for now, Microsoft AdCenter perhaps in the future), why not to buy keywords if your website is not up-to-par...

Ben Yoskovitz over at www.StartupSpark.com interviewed Stephane Grenier about his experience as a MicroISV. Stephane produces a product called landlordMAX , which is a property management software application. Said Ben, "For more information on Stephane and his adventures as a software entrepreneur...

Scott Hanselman interviews Leon of SecretGeek discussing Leon's 25 steps to starting a MicroISV. From my point of view the biggest challenge facing MicroISVs is that there are too many hats to wear to do all the things one has to do to be successful. I think Leon is offering good advice and if you...

My new co-host of The MicroISV Show, Bob Walsh, linked on Monday to Leon Banbrick's post giving his 25-step recipe for building a successful MicroISV. Based on my own experience starting 1 very successful and 2 struggling MicroISV companies, I think Leon's step 22, "Free up enough time/resources for...

Joining me as co-host of The MicroISV Show is Bob Walsh, Managing Director of Safari Software ( www.safarisoftware.com ), author of "MicroISV: From Vision to Reality", author of the soon to be published "Clear Blogging", and proprietor of 3 websites which are useful to the MicroISV community: www.mymicroisv...

Now that the European Shareware Conference ( www.microisv.eu ) is in the books, I've travelled to Barcelona for TechEd Europe Developers. I'll be mostly talking to attendees at the Shareware @ TechEd stand ( http://www.mseventseurope.com/Teched/06/Pre/static/Developers/exhshareware.aspx ) If I...

The 6th annual European Shareware/MicroISV Conference ( www.microisv.eu ) is now history and a great time was had by all. I participated in a panel discussion on Technical Issues and gave a presentation about Project Glidepath ( www.projectglidepath.net ). I'll be posting a podcast of my talk as...

We 've just updated the master MicroISV Project Glidepath repository to include both C# and VB.Net versions of the Windows Presentation Foundation UX packages. Check out the blog post on www.projectglidepath.net for information on how to synchronize your local repository and downloaded these two new...

Next week I'm off to Cambridge, UK for the annual European Shareware Conference for MicroISVs . Bob Walsh, author of "MicroISV: From Vision to Reality" is the keynote speaker and I'll be participating on a panel and giving a presentation about Project Glidepath .

I just posted a screencast of the Project Glidepath installation process on the www.ProjectGlidepath.net website. If you subscribe to the Project Glidepath Blog you'll get access to a series of audio/video/screen podcasts that are being produced moving forward.