Windows Azure Simplified Subscription Sign Up Experience - How Easy Is It?

2012-01-18T00:41:12Z

In December we announced a series of updates to the Windows Azure platform. Ryan ‘To the Cloud!’ CrawCour detailed them on his public void HelloWorld() {…} post.

There was a lot of feedback on the sign-up and subscription management front and the team heard you loud and clear. Let’s recap what has been done to the subscriptions experience:

- Simplified Sign-up Process - You can now sign up for new subscriptions with three simple steps.

- Improved Subscription Management and Real-Time Usage Visibility - Spending limits on newly created 3 Month free trial and MSDN subscriptions ensure that you will only get charged for Windows Azure when you’re ready. In addition you can cancel unneeded subscriptions and view recent billing details directly from the Windows Azure Billing Portal.

- Streamlined Billing - Review key usage and billing details at a glance with summary view invoices. In-depth reports can be run across multiple information fields if desired. You can also take advantage of offer recommendations based on usage estimates and existing entitlements you have from various Microsoft programs.

The update I want to focus on is the new streamlined sign-up experience, specifically for the 3-Month Free Trial and MSDN subscriptions. All you need is a Live ID, a mobile phone (for the 3-Month Free Trial only, not needed for MSDN), and a credit card. I went through the process and it took less than 5 minutes!

Here is what happens now when you click on the 3-Month Free Trial offer link (scroll down if you already have an existing personal, BizSpark or corporate MSDN subscription):

1. Sign in with your Live ID

2. You are given the details on what you get with the 3-Month Free Trial. Choose your country (this will usually already be selected correctly for you)

3. Get the verification code sent to your mobile phone

4. Confirm and verify the code sent to your mobile phone

5. Enter credit card for proof of identity. Remember that this is a free trial with a $0 spending limit by default for new activations

6. And that’s it! You are directed to the welcome page…

You can see the subscription details…

And you receive a nice welcome e-mail

From there you can sign in to the Windows Azure management portal and start taking advantage of all that the platform has to offer. See my post on the MSDN New Zealand blog titled Windows Azure - Start Building Your Cloud Solutions Today for more details.

What if you already have a BizSpark or corporate MSDN Subscription?

You should already know that Professional, Premium and Ultimate MSDN subscriptions give you access to Windows Azure benefits at no charge. Activating your MSDN Azure subscription is even easier and the mobile phone step is not needed. Here are the details:

1. Sign in to the MSDN Subscription page with the Live ID associated with your account and click on the My Account tab

2. Click on ‘Activate Windows Azure’ under the Windows Azure section

3. You are then taken to the Windows Azure sign up process, and you are given the details of the MSDN Offer details

4. It will ask you for your credit card as well. Again this is for identification purposes, and to charge you in case you change your spending limit to go over the free offering – remember that from now new MSDN activations come with spending limit of $0 enabled by default so you don’t get charged.

5. And that’s it, you are then taken to the Azure portal and we have another subscription activated in less than 5 minutes. Clicking on the account tab I can now see and manage both my 3-Month Free Trial and my MSDN subscriptions

So to answer the question posed in this post title - how easy is it? Very!

The experience is the same if you want to get a Pay-As-You-Go account or a discounted 6-Month Plan (with the 6-Month Plan you also have the choice to be invoiced instead of using a credit card).

It doesn’t stop here - the team is always working on improvements so look out for them in future updates.

Thiago Almeida
Technology Evangelist
Microsoft New Zealand
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Startup Weekend Wellington Roundup

2011-11-08T19:19:00Z

Microsoft is very proud to have been premier sponsors of the Startup Weekend Wellington. The sponsorship came from the Microsoft BizSpark program, a 3 year program to help early stage startups succeed by providing them with software, support and visibility. I was there for the entire event so here’s a roundup.

The event was kicked off on Friday evening by Wellington city mayor Celia Wade-Brown, who talked about the importance of startups and encouraged everyone to get moving and take their ideas forward.

This was followed by Alexei Dunayev, from startup Audioscribe. Alexei gave some great advice on how to be successful and take advantage of the people and resources made available to them over the weekend. Audioscribe were the winners at the Startup Weekend Auckland back in September 2011. They have recently joined the BizSpark program which they will initially use to expand their Talk Transcriber solution to the Windows Phone platform.

From here a great game called Half Baked was played where randomly formed teams drew buzzwords from a hat and had to come up with a pitch based on those words. Some of the ideas were so good they ended up becoming a main pitch later in the night!

On to the main event of the first day: a host of ideas were pitched, with the 14 best making it through. This included Mobile Kombat, a gaming platform for Windows Phone, iOS and Android users to compete against each other.

Saturday the teams solidified their ideas, developed business plans, went through market validation, received advice from mentors, and created proofs of concept with the help of mentors and others involved. In true startup weekend style I also gave my own two minute pitch on Microsoft’s support of the event and the benefits of the BizSpark program.

Finally, on Sunday night after working through the final kinks and doing trial runs, the teams presented to everyone what they had accomplished over the weekend, followed by questions from mentors and judges.

After some deliberation the judges came back with the winners:

· USnap.US (1st place) - Guest-sourced wedding photo aggregation.

· Conscious Consumer (2nd place) - The ultimate tool for the Conscious Consumer.

· Well Done (3rd place) - The new app for parents and kids to achieve things together

Congratulations to the winning teams! For a full list of teams and descriptions check out the Startup Weekend Team Summaries post on the Startup Weekend Wellington blog.

I had several conversations about the BizSpark Program, Windows Phone, and the Windows Azure Platform, Microsoft’s interoperable, scalable and reliable cloud platform. There was also interest at the event in the possibilities of the Kinect sensor. For example, team Well Done, the 3^rd place winner, will investigate Kinect and how it can play a part on the parenting applications they are building; and team Auti, who received an honourable mention from the judges, clearly sees the possibilities of how Kinect can help autistic children along with their product.

As a final note I’d just like to say the vibe and intensity at the event exceeded my expectations. I look forward to participating in future Startup Weekend events, and encourage you to the same.

Thiago Almeida
Technology Evangelist
Microsoft New Zealand
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