Nigel Parker's Outside Line

Get Your Game On

2013-04-01T02:51:00Z

Why should you consider Windows Apps? Well because the market opportunity for games is really good right now and you may already have the code written and ready to port to the new platforms.

The annual Game Developer's Conference kicked off in San Francisco last week.

Coinciding with the event it was awesome to see the first Unity title released on Windows Phone 8, Temple Run. The beta SDK for the Unity 4 game engine for Windows 8 is available now and I expect improvements as the team move towards a final release.

Recently London based HTML game dev studio Mudvark created the HTML game Mortar Melon, for Windows 8 using the Scirra games engine and took out a recent Windows 8 competition. Mudvark didn’t expect the more than a quarter of a million downloads that they got in the first month and a half on Windows 8 and they are now considering Windows 8 as a possible primary platform for future titles.

Likewise Aussies Halfbrick have earned over $100k from their games on Windows 8 in the last 30 days!

With all this winning going on I wasn’t surprised to see that the student team that placed 2nd in the games category at the recent imagine cup finals in Auckland have already had 10’s of thousands of downloads and their game 2150 A.D. in the Windows Store is receiving over 1,000 downloads per day.

This is not unique as there are other stories of indie devs making $30k per month on their Windows Store games.

If you think back it was a game for Windows Phone, AlphaJax that took out the Best Mobile Application category at the 2011 ONYA awards in Wellington. Alphajax was subsequently acquired by Microsoft Game Studios in 2011. The acquisition provided some of the seed capital required to start Marker Metro in Auckland (the worlds first agency 100% dedicated to making apps for Windows) has been profitable from day 1.

All of this opportunity bodes well for the awesome kiwi game development industry that earns the majority of their revenue from original intellectual property and royalties. So if you are into game development now is a good time to start looking at porting/ building your apps for Windows.

So I Sold My Surface…

2013-03-14T03:35:00Z

Now I wouldn’t normally consider this sort of thing news worthy but I guess others have so I thought I’d be proactive and close out the story.

I have recently upgraded my primary machine from a Samsung pre-launch prototype slate to a Surface Pro that I ordered from America. I gave my kids the use of the build slate (I say use because they have their own account profiles and picture passwords). Indigo loves the build slate partly because of the stylus which she has grown up with. She especially enjoys local kiwi app Art Rage.

In the comparatively short time ArtRage has been available through the iTunes store - the iPad version was released in October 2010 - it has come to represent "a few 10s of per cent" of Ambient Design's income.

That hasn't come at the expense of ArtRage's desktop sales, Fox-Wilson says, which are holding up.

I also have a Surface RT that I have received through work that I actively use for reading on the Kindle app (my Kindle Fire hasn’t been turned on this year) and in meetings and all day conferences when I’m on battery and travelling light and also outputting to the TV to watch streaming live TV via a Flash website is a bonus.

The Surface RT is a hit with the kids as well through their own family safety monitored child account, they love having their own login’s with all their own apps on the front screen!

That said last weekend I chose to sell our second Windows RT device that I had imported from the US last October as I firmly believe that there is such a thing as too many devices in a home and I like to limit my children’s access throughout the day.

I set a low reserve and a low buy now price because I wanted someone else to get a bargain and enjoy the device, since they are going on sale tomorrow in New Zealand I felt an imported/ second hand price should represent a discount on what you can buy new one for in the shops here.

My plan backfired, world media jumped on this story and the Surface RT has sold for $704 on Trade Me (only $35 less than a new one!)

As a result I have chosen to donate all the money to charity (in fact Cure Kids).

The lesson for me is next time not to link my Trade Me account to my Twitter account and keep private things private.

Thanks,

Nigel

8 years on the ship

2013-01-16T23:32:51Z

In two months time I will have been eight years in the DPE team at Microsoft New Zealand. During that time I have become part of the furniture (in a good way) and I have had a lot of fun doing it. I find externally to Microsoft people often identify me as “that Microsoft guy” and I’m fine with that.

It’s been an incredible journey starting as an ambitious young evangelist and developing into an ambitious not quite so young evangelist.

Microsoft has been an incredible place to work everyday, it’s challenging and it has a level of intensity seldom found elsewhere. Microsoft hires some of the best people that I have had the privilege to working with (when I first started I was awestruck and liken it to making it to the Olympics and finishing in last place). Microsoft also invests heavily in developing their people and I truly believe I am much more skilled in a number of areas today than I was eight years ago when I first started. I have a quest for knowledge and here I am always learning. Working for Microsoft New Zealand once we have delivered on our “must-dos” we have the freedom to make a difference in New Zealand and beyond, I love that!

Today I am happy to announce that I am the new Director of Developer & Platform Evangelism for Microsoft New Zealand!

So what does that mean, I hear you asking. It means that I now have the privilege to lead the awesome NZ DPE team to “continue” to excite and engage customers and communities about Microsoft’s new and emerging technologies how and in the future.

To use a sporting analogy I am now moving from a player to a player-coach like Tana Umaga did in his transition with Counties Manukau.

Where I Have Come From:

During the last eight years I have lead strategic change with New Zealand developers, government agencies, start-ups, top NZ websites and media companies. This work has evolved into the app focus that we have today in DPE with Windows Azure, Windows Phone and the Windows 8 development ecosystems.

When I sit to write a post like this I ask myself, what have been the real highlights? I present the following list like a TV sitcom’s greatest hits show:

Web09, Expression for Art’s Sake and introducing Silverlight and Expression to New Zealand
Many many TechEd keynotes from my first in 2006 to Lou Carbone (“the best keynote ever”) to my Three Screen & A Cloud Keynote to last years keynote featuring the always awesome and inspiring Jer Thorpe.

A side point on this was in helping to convince Rowan Simpson to start a blog while driving to the rugby with the Gu in 2006!

Working with the Webstock crew from the beginning to the great heights that they have reached today

Karl and CJ share their memories
Chatting to Eric Ries about Start Ups and Webstock
Chatting with Chris Shiflett at Webstock
Five years ago I was privileged to present at Webstock a talk aptly titled ‘The Internet Is Not Private Get Over It!’. I think many of these issues around privacy and data portability still exist today.

My dad (Ted) died suddenly in August 2009 – it shocked me to the core and I responded with a presentation “Failure is the Best Possible Outcome” at the inaugural TEDx conference in Auckland where I was privileged to present alongside other great New Zealanders including Sir Ray Avery.
I have loved my time at Kiwi Foo over the years and I thank Nat Torkington for including me in many of these ground breaking events.

My write up from the inaugural 2007 event
The video wars of 2010 was a particularly interesting topic for me
This resulted in my presentation at the MIX 2011 conference in Las Vegas on the topic
I then followed this up by presenting with Chris Double from Mozilla at the inaugural WDCNZ event.

It was a fun party as well, hanging out with ex Google developer relations gal Pamela Fox

Traveling to the PDC/ BUILD and MIX conferences in the US on many occasions have been a highlight

I remember the MIX event at Las Vegas 2010 with Keith Patton, Ben Gracewood and Gus Pickering. This was the event where Windows Phone was unveiled.
It was this trip that inspired Keith to write his own game for the new platform that eventually lead to his new business working fulltime building apps for Windows.
Fast forward a couple of years and we make it to the launch of Windows 8 and the awesome NZ built apps that we helped nurture.

Constantly evangelising within Microsoft, I liken this to trying to steer an aircraft carrier with a tug boat often the best way to get results is to whisper into the ear of the pilot. Our current focus on web standards, design and interoperability I like to think I’ve played a small part in all of that.

What I Have Built:

In my mind the hardest thing about being an evangelist is staying up to date with the doing as well as the showing! I love staying hands on with the technology and I have amassed an interesting portfolio of work over the years in role.

Building the interactive web experience for the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series 2009
Building a live production video player in Silverlight for tvnz.co.nz
Building the Slice of Kevin - New Zealand IE8 Web Slice Competition
Working on the Photosynth project to launch the All Blacks Jersey with Adidas
Working as a technical project manager on the 2011 Rugby World Cup
Working with the NV Interactive team on the NZ Cricket Video Vault
Building the wall of fashion for Air New Zealand Fashion Week (hosted on Windows Azure)
Creating NZsynth for the Web09 keynote that lead to the work at Te Papa developed by Tim Tait - Kura Pounamu and The Mixing Room

I was a finalist in the Microsoft Be What’s Next global innovation competition with this story

Building On Sale New Zealand for Windows Phone and Windows 8 leveraging Windows Azure in the backend.
Building the NZ Herald Windows Phone app including the Windows Azure back-end piece used for tile generation (stay tuned for an updated Windows Phone 8 version coming soon).

Where We Are Going:

A couple of years ago I had the opportunity to act in the DPE Director role in New Zealand for a few months. I shared my learning's at the time. The experience was very positive and I was encouraged by the opportunity to focus on the broader aspects of our business and team.

The number one thing for me in the new role is to stay passionate! It is infectious. Leading a team of driven awesome people is an honour and awesomeness happens when we all strive to make a difference collectively.

In DPE we are the team that creates Microsoft’s future. It is our job to create a future that we believe in. Our team operates with the highest level of integrity, we are honest with ourselves and each other even when the news is bad. The next six months are particularly exciting and challenging and as a young team we have much to learn and to teach each other. We strive to stay curious, take the time to listen, learn and observe. We deliver excellence in everything we choose to pursue and we respectively challenge the process, think differently, when it is clear that the old way no longer serves us. We speak up when we see ourselves heading off track. We plan our strategy and lean forward rather than always drawing from the past, we have the freedom to choose. Above all else as a team we have fun, we don’t take ourselves too seriously, and we enjoy the journey as it a path that we have chosen together.

If you are reading this (yes you got this far) and the thought of a career as an evangelist at Microsoft is something that makes you hungry, it absolutely must be a lifestyle choice and not a job please reach out to me and or others in our team.

I am not replacing my previous role straight away but I am certainly starting to think about how best we can work as a team to tackle head on our exciting new challenges in the months and years to come.

Profile of Kiwi Made Windows Store apps at Launch

2012-10-24T23:43:49Z

With Windows 8 and Windows RT launching in New Zealand today we though we’d showcase a number of the kiwi made launch apps at this mornings media briefing. NV Interactive and Marker Metro did a great job of showing of a number of their apps that are in the Windows Store. There has been an incredible effort from local developers to produce stunning local and international apps in time for the launch for Windows 8. It is also great to see kiwi iOS development companies MEA Mobile and Smudge Apps releasing Windows 8 apps on Day 1.

I highly recommend that you check out the just launched iSupr8 app from MEA Mobile in Hamilton. Their film grade effects are world-class!

Check out the following 30 Kiwi Made apps in the Windows Store! There are many many more apps that are also in the store that are kiwi made. Ryan has made a complete list of the first 100 kiwi made apps that made it to the store. Enjoy!

This is only the beginning! Now which device are you going to buy?

Also windows phone is now sitting at around 7% market share in NZ. It was great to see Stuff launch their Windows Phone app this morning along with Flicks. I’m looking forward to Windows Phone 8 (4 days to go) to change the game on mobile as well!

The Awesome Datacom MetroComp

2012-06-12T23:06:30Z

Kerry Topp (General Manager | Microsoft Enterprise & Mid-Market Solutions | Datacom Limited) wrote:

Congratulations to the 45 plus people involved in the Datacom MetroComp.

The Datacom MetroComp, kicked off at 4pm, Friday 8th June 2012 and ran through to the same time on Sunday, 10th June. The comp required teams to design, build, deploy and present on a specific Windows 8 Metro Style application that they developed from scratch over the weekend.

The competition was judged by Greg Davidson (CEO), Vernon Kay (Director S&I AKL) & with Nigel Parker, Development Advisor at Microsoft, as the special guest adjudicator.

Team Pixel, who produced a cool photographic application, came third.

First place, was too hard for the judges to call - with both CaptureLive and MetroFlight taking line honours for first prize. Both teams displayed strong use of Metro and Metro design principles and functions.

Congratulations to all those who took part in this fantastic event and well done to the eventual winners. A great energizing event that created significant buzz around Datacom and for the upcoming public release of Windows 8.

On a personal note, I would like to sincerely thank the Microsoft Enterprise Team’s Development Centre of Excellence - Husain Al-Badry, Warrick Flower, Ian Randall – with the excellent assistance of Thivy Ruthra, Bryan Nimo, Peter Koenders, Ilona Joe and Tanya Chappell - in creating and pulling off the weekend and this competition. You guys were awesome and together helped contribute to a very special event - thank you!

I am very impressed with the quality of work that the teams produced over the weekend. I spent a lot of time with the teams and I have made a video of the app presentations that I hope you will enjoy:

You can all see pictures of the weekend here => http://sdrv.ms/Ld7M32 and also a few that I took

I can’t wait to see the apps in the store!

Please also read the other posts I have on Kiwi Metro Style apps for some tips on how to get started building your own apps for the upcoming store release.

The Launch of the New Zealand Windows 8 Store and the First Set of Kiwi Apps

2012-06-06T23:04:00Z

I am really proud to have worked with the following pioneering Kiwi’s over the last few month to create a set of 7 NZ made launch applications for Windows 8. It is very encouraging to see four of them in the top 12 apps in the NZ Windows 8 Store!

Thank You!

Atta Elayyan
Ben Ataya
Ben Gracewood
Gus Pickering
Jacky Tay
James Brown
Keith Patton
Mark Baldwin
Max Flanigan
Michael Choeung
Nigel Sampson
Paul Bartrum
Reuben Bijl
Sam Langley
Simon Young
Thivy Ruthra
Toby Vincent
Umesh Sripad
Zach Hitchcock

I made a couple of YouTube Videos to Show the New Zealand apps working together, Video 1

A Chinese Tale told by NZ Windows 8 Apps

Introducing the apps:

TweeTRO

NZ Herald

Trade Me Toolbox (With Live Tiles and Push Notifications)

Also Ben Gracewood talks about his new role as Metro Practice lead for Marker Metro.

NZ Cricket (With Live Tiles and Push Notifications in time for the West Indies tour late June)

Flicks

Menu Mania - App Link

Ancient Frog

Also check out these other apps made in New Zealand:

Sports	ESPN Cricinfo	Stunning visual design and readability on the articles - a ground breaking HTML5 app
Music & Video	7digital Music Store	7digital on Windows 8, uses all the charms (apart from devices), background music, streaming
Games	Jelly Jigsaw	Spend the money and create a Jelly puzzle with your own photos from Facebook!
Education	Bubbly Kids	Great educational 5 in 1 app for pre-school kids

The recent Tech Ed keynote showcases local apps. There is also a wealth of content available from the Building apps for Windows track at Tech Ed where you can hear first-hand from the developers who have built these early Windows apps. Also from a business perspective, Windows 8 Line of Business apps are coming for Plunket and SeaLord.

Building Your App

Idea: If you are stuck on an idea for an app take a look at Humanising Data our government open data competition.

Take a look at the category inspiration and the case studies or just browse the Windows Store for inspiration.

Design: Ensure you understand the design language – Tech Ed Session.

Build: Your first stop should be the Developing great apps for Windows page.

Certification: ensure you understand the certification process and test your app with the Windows App Certification Kit.

The Windows Store

The Windows Store is open to you to sell your app today at a cost of $70 NZD per year. All eligible MSDN subscribers receive a free, one-year Windows Store developer account as part of their MSDN benefits. We have a program for students—DreamSpark—that similarly waives the subscription fee.

As Atta said in the developer video. Their Tweetro app has had more than 100,000 downloads and Windows 8 hasn’t even launched yet! First mover advantage means now is the time for you to go and make your millions.

With over a billion PCs in use, Windows represents the largest platform in the world. This unprecedented reach, combined with the fact that any PC running Windows 7 can run Windows 8, presents you with a tremendous revenue opportunity. The Windows Store is your means to take full advantage of this opportunity through its support of flexible business models, markets, and languages.

Be What’s Next

2012-04-03T04:25:00Z

Having just completed my seventh year as a technology evangelist in New Zealand it is easy to lose sight of the path that I have travelled. My submission into the Microsoft Next project was an opportunity to reflect on the impact of the “long game” that we have applied with developers, inventors and thought leaders here in our part of the world.

Entire new industries have been created in the time that I have been in role and the people who inspire me the most are now my friends who are at the forefront of this new golden age.

Please watch my video and vote for me (by clicking like) if you like what you see :)

If anyone is interested in more detail of the story that sits behind the video – here it is :

Innovation happens when ideas are presented, adopted by others and refined into real world solutions

I presented a keynote slot at Web 09 in Auckland where I told a story of creative innovation using Microsoft technology (video) - detail and behind the scenes. I followed this up with a three day camp in Wellington where I brought like minded designers and developers together to see what they could create using the next technology.

This lead to two amazing projects at Te Papa museum in Wellington.

Kura Pounamu
- Video
- Demo
The Mixing Room– Stories from young refugees in New Zealand
- Video
- Demo

John O’Brien and Bronwen Zande extended the mosaic concept further by entering a massive deep zoom mosaic – Mosaic of Queensland – into the Library Hack 2011 competition. John hooked up a bunch of poses using the Kinect SDK that would allow users to navigate up, down, left, right, zoom in, zoom out and of the mosaic – detail - video

I invited John and Bronwen to NZ to present on Kinect for Windows at the last Tech.Ed event. John create a Kinect Demo using the Mercury Particle Engine with Voice Recognition as part of his preparation for the talk.

I took both the Kinect mosaic example and the Mercury Particle demo to the Auckland Bar Camp and Youbee events in Auckland. The feedback I received on twitter from my presentation really showed the demos hit the mark:

These presentations inspired developers in Auckland to embark on some truly interesting Kinect projects. One stand out is Sam Peacock who has taken Kinect and built what is possibly the world’s first interactive 3D music video for a high profile New Zealand band Pajama Club.

Four Full Days with Windows 8 – Kevin Isom’s Story

2012-03-27T08:52:00Z

Having been on the road for a week participating in Windows 8 camps up and down the country it is often easy to get so caught up in the doing that you don’t take the time to reflect on the impact. For me the impact was really hit home by following Kevin Isom’s journey of discovery with Windows 8.

Kevin is a self confessed JavaScript Geek and I find it fascinating to follow his journey as he dips his toes into Windows 8.

I was very impressed with how helpful Kevin was sharing his knowledge during the hackathon weekend and was exceptionally impressed with the game that he wrote from scratch over the weekend (it had my vote).

Hopefully Kevin will inspire other JavaScript geeks to take a look at Windows 8.

Twitter is often the best place to get instant and direct feedback below is a bunch of tweet’s that Kevin made as he jumped into Windows 8, read them in sequence as they tell quite a story.

22nd March – Day 1 – Sessions All Day

23rd March – Day 2 Labs

24th March – Day 3 Hackathon

25th March – Day 4 Hackathon

26th March – Post Event

Kevin also blogged about his weekend with Windows 8

Check out the video of Kevin’s game from the Hackathon Weekend presentations.

I hope that the next chapter in this story is to see Kevin’s game finished and in the store.

Check out the other photos from the week…

UX Guidelines for Metro Style Apps

2012-03-22T23:23:51Z

Over the last week I have delivered a session in Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland on Designing Metro Style Apps.

I have received a lot of positive feedback on the session and a lot of people have contacted me for a copy of the slides.

Unfortunately we are not in a position to release the slides from our camps just yet. These will be coming (along with the labs) in a few weeks time and I will publish a link here when they are available.

That said there is a lot of material all ready online on the topic that I presented.

I recommend that you start with the presentation and slides from Designing Metro style: principles and personality by Sam Moreau and Jensen Harris's session 8 traits of great metro style apps.

Then take a trip to the Dev Center to check out the UX guidelines for Metro style apps (including Photoshop templates)

There is also a good post summarizing these on blend insider as well.

Hope that helps

Windows Camp in New Zealand and Developing for Windows 8

2012-03-12T03:31:00Z

The Consumer Preview of Windows 8 was launched on 1^st March 2012 and I hope you have all had a chance to download it. We are very excited to hold our very first Windows Camps next week from the 20 to 23 of March in Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland. New Zealand developers will get a chance to get started building Metro applications for Windows 8. We are also pleased to have a guest speaker from Microsoft US Jaime Rodriguez. Jaime is very experienced at building metro style apps for Windows 8 and has worked on some of the early applications that have been released into the preview store. I am also presenting along with Keith Patton from Marker Metro at the events.

So what will you learn? We have an action packed agenda to take you through the Windows 8 Platform, Metro Style Design, how you can use XAML and/or HTML/JavaScript to build Metro Apps, building Metro UIs, Tiles and Notifications and the Windows Store. We’ll deliver developer-level, demo-driven sessions that will give you an accelerated entry into what it means to design, develop and publish modern applications for next-generation devices running Windows 8. See the full agenda.

The Windows Camp will be split into 2 parts. The first is lecture style presentations and the second is very limited hands on labs where you will have access to a Windows 8 machine to get hands on training. We will be prioritising slots to those developers who commit to building a Metro Style App for Windows 8 to put into practice what they learn in the lab.

Places are filling extremely fast – the Auckland lab has already sold out, so we have opened another lab. The Wellington and Christchurch labs are close to selling out as well so register now to avoid disappointment.

We are topping off next week with a weekend Hackathon in the Microsoft Auckland office (Fri 23rd March 6pm –> Sun 25th March 4pm). The purpose is to get a bunch of like minded people together to build Metro Style apps based on what they have learnt at the sessions and labs the week before. There will be awesome prizes up for grabs to those individuals/ teams that get their hackathon apps complete and certified in the coming months post the event.

If you are interested in the Hackathon and you think you’ve got what it takes please request a spot and we’ll let you know soon if you made it in.

Judging by the thousands of reviews of the preview apps already in the Windows 8 Preview store I predict that the worldwide demand for apps when Windows 8 ships will be unprecedented and a real green fields opportunity for motivated developers. New Zealand developers will be able to register for the Windows Store and get paid for their Metro style apps at the general availability of Windows 8.

Developing for Windows 8

There are plenty of resources for Windows 8 Development; here are the highlights of the top resources and quick links to get you started.

1) The portal to all things Windows 8 Development is dev.windows.com. Here you will get links to Metro style application design, Desktop application, Hardware and IE development.

2) Downloads for developers will have links to the tools and SDK, Windows 8 Consumer Preview as well as design assets, sample app pack and more.

3) Begin learning Metro style app development and Metro style design. There’s also a Windows 8 Consumer Preview Product Guide for Developers. And full metro style documentation is available.

4) The Windows Store will offer great opportunity to sell your applications and make money. Learn about selling apps in the Windows Store.

5) Join the conversation at the Windows 8 developer forums.

6) The Building Windows 8 Blog gives an inside look at how, what, and why different features of Windows 8 are being built. This blog is written by Windows President Steven Sinofsky together with members of the Windows engineering team. There are also blogs for Windows Store, Windows 8 App Development, IE and Windows Live.

7) Follow @buildwindows8 and @windevs on twitter. For local news and events, follow @nzigel and @msdnnz

8) Others ways to keep up to date is by subscribing to the NZ MSDN Flash and through Facebook - http://fb.windows.com/developers and facebook.com/msdnnz and youtube

9) Desktop app developer/partner content should check out Desktop app certification requirements, Desktop App Certification Kit, Compatibility Cookbook and Compatibility Center.

10) Hardware Developer/partners should check out Hardware Certification Requirements, Hardware tools and certification kit, Driver development documentation, Hardware and driver community resources and Compatibility Center

Hope you find these useful, and we look forward to seeing the amazing applications you build for Windows 8! Once you’ve build that world dominating application, email us at msdnnz@microsoft.com to let us know about it!