Submit two or more apps to the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace and receive a $99 rebate.  Register for the Windows Phone Developer Program and you will be notified when rebates are available.

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The seventh major release of BizTalk has been released to manufacturing and becomes available to customers October 1. BizTalk Server 2010 includes new support for Windows Server AppFabric to provide pre-integrated support for developing new composite applications. Customers maximize the value of existing Line of Business (LOB) systems by integrating and automating their business processes, and putting real-time, end-to-end enterprise integration within reach of every customer. The new BizTalk Server...

The Windows Azure Platform benefits offered as part your MSDN subscription have been extended from 8 months to 16 months. In addition new Azure benefits have been announced.

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At the Professional Developers Conference (PDC), Microsoft is announcing a host of new enhancements and services that make it easier to move to platform as a service, to enhance current applications and workloads, and to transform applications to take full advantage of the underlying platform.

These include Virtual Machine Role for Windows Azure, SQL Azure Reporting, Windows Azure Marketplace, Team Foundation System on Azure, AppFabric Caching, more control over IIS and elevation of privileges, improved support for Java apps, numerous improvements in the development experience, and a new offering for Microsoft Partners.

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During the keynote address at Developers Conference (PDC), Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Server and Tools Business President Bob Muglia showed how the company is advancing the Microsoft platform, spanning the PC, phone and cloud. Microsoft specifically highlighted the momentum of Windows Azure, Windows 7, Internet Explorer 9 and Windows Phone 7 and the opportunity for developers today and in the future.

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At the Professional Developers Conference (PDC), Microsoft underscored its continued commitment to HTML5 and showed how developers can fuse the full hardware acceleration and site-centric design in Internet Explorer 9 to tap into the power of PC hardware, transforming their websites to feel more like native Windows applications.

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Microsoft Platform Ready Test Tool delivers a simple, self-service way for software publishers to quickly verify application compatibility, fix errors, and receive benefits for innovating on the latest Microsoft platform technologies. Passing the test helps you meet requirements for Microsoft Partner Network ISV Competency.

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The Microsoft Interoperability Technical Strategy team announced a new set of tools based on Eclipse and updated client libraries (SDK) for Windows Azure at Professional Developers Conference 2010 (PDC 10).

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On November 3, Windows Phone 7 app submission will be open to all registered Windows Phone Marketplace developers.

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As you ready your Windows Phone 7 app for submission, check out these top seven tips to help your app sail through certification testing the first time.

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I saw this posted yesterday and wanted to spread the word. This book is a gift from the Windows Phone 7 team to the programming community.  To learn more about the book please visit this link . 

Nasuni CEO Andres Rodriguez and Microsoft Architect Evangelist Gunther Lenz present Nasuni Filer 2.0. Now supporting Hyper-V, Windows Azure and VFS, the Nasuni Filer turns cloud storage into a file server with unlimited storage, snapshot technology and end-to-end encryption. Join Nasuni and Microsoft for this free event and learn how to take advantage of the cost-savings and scalability of cloud storage . Event Sponsors: http://www.nasuni.com/resources/cloud-storage-webinars/Introducing-Filer2-webinar...

You are invited to attend the Windows Azure Platform University in Redmond, WA on the Microsoft Campus on October 12. This is in-depth sales-focused readiness training for our strategic independent software vendors and systems integrator partners. The goal of Windows Azure University is to bring together business and IT leaders from leading partners along with senior Microsoft sales and product group representatives to discuss the partner business opportunities with Windows Azure Platform. Attending...

The Windows Azure Management Pack enables you to monitor the availability and performance of applications that are running on Windows Azure. Feature Summary Discovers Windows Azure applications. Provides status of each role instance. Collects and monitors performance information. Collects and monitors Windows events. Collects and monitors the .NET Framework trace messages from each role instance. Grooms performance, event, and the .NET Framework trace data from Windows Azure storage account. Changes...

Microsoft released the latest version of the Windows Azure platform training kit. The kit is now in 2 versions, one for vs2008 developers and one for 2010 developers. You can download the kit from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=413E88F8-5966-4A83-B309-53B7B77EDF78&displaylang=en . What’s New: Updated all hands-on labs and demo scripts for Visual Studio 2010, the .NET Framework 4, and the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio version 1.2 release Added a new hands-on...

There’s a growing wave of developers submitting WP7 applications for certification and inclusion in the catalog. Although several applications passed testing, there is a trend in applications failing certification testing over these past weeks. Following are the top things to consider before submitting an application for certification to help increase the chances the application will pass testing the first time. 1) READ the docs!!! Understand the application policies that represent the...

Windows Phone 7 events  for developers are coming to a city near you. Events have been added for Seattle, Boise,and Bellevue. And you can still register for launch events in Sign up today for launch events and Unleashed events. Windows Phone 7 Developer Launch The first day takes you inside the all-new Metro interface paradigm with basic fundamentals of Windows Phone 7 application development. The next day is a hands-on app building workshop. Register at MSDN Events . Date City State October...

Video Link - http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/jodonnell/Microsoft-Robotics-Developer-Studio-Cars-and-Home-Automation-with-Stacy-Harris-and-John-Mullinax Robotic technologies can be applied to many aspects of our lives including some that may not seem as obvious. We have all seen scifi movies where there are many robots running around assisting in our daily lives of the future. However what about now? In this video Stacy Harris and John Mullinax talk about adding robotic systems to both a car and...

Nine new Windows Phone 7 handsets will be available this holiday season from leading mobile operators in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. With more than 60 mobile operators in over 30 countries worldwide committed to bringing Windows Phones to market, the millions of people around the world looking for a phone that plays as hard as it works will have a variety of phones from leading device-makers to choose from.

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Lync Server 2010 Release Candidate, Lync 2010 Release Candidate and the Lync platform SDKs are now publically available for download. Lync Server 2010 and Lync 2010 provide the infrastructure and the client for an integrated communications experience, where it’s easy to find contacts, get presence information and communicate from your PC, browser and mobile device.

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Microsoft Interoperability Technical Strategy team is shipping a new Community Technology Preview (October 2010 CTP) of the Windows Azure Tools for Eclipse for PHP. This Eclipse plug-in provides PHP developers using Eclipse with tools to create and deploy web applications targeting Windows Azure.

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App Hub is now the single place where Windows Phone and Xbox LIVE Indie Games developers can register; find development tools, support and resources; and submit and manage their apps for Windows Phone and Xbox LIVE. Every Windows Phone 7 customer will get all of their apps and games from the Marketplace Hub on their phone and from the desktop Zune software . App Hub is another step of making it easier for you to create and distribute great apps and games across Windows Phone, Xbox 360, PC and the...

New integration between Quark Publishing System with Microsoft SharePoint 2010 supports knowledge workers and creative departments what want to collaborate within one system to create, edit, revise, and publish brand-compliant, cross-media marketing communications. A new Channel 9 video describes the product and the challenges the team faced in developing the application

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Windows Phone 7 gives you the power to build complex, robust applications using consistent hardware specs, a comprehensive development toolkit, and the all-new, full-service Marketplace for selling your apps. To celebrate, we’re launching two days of fast-paced learning that will help you stake your claim in this exciting new frontier. The first day kicks off with a Keynote from Mark Hindsbo, Vice President of Microsoft’s Developer & Platform Evangelism Group in the US. Then we’ll take you inside...

We have just released a full online (and downloadable) training kit for Windows Server AppFabric.  This kit is comprised of the 4-day technical training course that explains all about the new capabilities in Windows Server AppFabric.  It includes the lab exercises and the full HD streaming of recordings of an actual delivery of the class.   

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