The Windows Azure team has announced that Windows Azure now enables HIPPA compliance. Microsoft now offers a HIPAA BAA to our EA (Enterprise Agreement/volume licensing) customers and partners in the health industry.

The existence of Windows Azure BAA means that covered healthcare entities can now leverage Windows Azure core services in a pure public cloud platform, as well as a hybrid cloud configuration that extends their existing on premises assets and investments through the public cloud.

The Lingo Jingo app is powered by Windows Azure to deliver a social based language learning experience integrating with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to share progress on lessons and exercises. Web roles are used to host its MVC based main marketing site and language learning app, SQL Azure is used for storing user data, sessions and lesson contexts and Azure blog storage for storing lesson images and videos.

Video link: Lingo Jingo Language Learning Software Powered By Windows Azure

A Embarke provides a mechanism to bring together all social and email messaging through a comprehensive set of APIs. Conversations are threaded across networks, and developers can use the APIs to "mash up" various social networks and communication modes. Embarke uses Web roles, worker roles Windows Azure table storage and SQL Azure.

ISV Video: Embarke Distributes Your Social Conversations in EMail, Facebook, Twitter Using Azure

TechEd is Microsoft's premier technology conference for IT professionals and developers, offering the most comprehensive technical education across Microsoft's current and soon-to-be- released suite of products, solutions, tools, and services. This June we celebrate the 20th annual TechEd North America in Orlando. Experience four days of hands-on training from Microsoft experts.

I have put together some links to Channel 9 videos that provide information for developers and technical decision makers. Topics for developers include:

• Windows Azure Virtual Machines and Virtual Networks
• Windows Azure Active Directory
• Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.5
• Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012
• SharePoint
• Business Intelligence, Self-service BI, Reporting
• and more

Worldwide Partner Conference begins Sunday. It is nearly sold out but there’s still time to register.

The 2012 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference is coming July 8 - 12, 2012 in Toronto. With more than 15,000 attendees from 150 countries, there’s no better exposure for your business.

Yesterday in Toronto, Canada, at Microsoft’s annual Worldwide Partner Conference, Windows Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Financial Officer Tami Reller confirmed that Windows 8 is on track to Release to Manufacturing (RTM) the first week of August.

This week Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer unveiled the customer preview of the new Microsoft Office, available at office.com/preview. The next release features an intuitive design that works beautifully with touch, stylus, mouse or keyboard across new Windows devices, including tablets. The new Office is social and unlocks modern scenarios in reading, note-taking, meetings and communications and will be delivered to subscribers through a cloud service that is always up to date.

The preview also provides developers with a look at a way to develop application for the Web and for on premises Office using a common API.

Your cloud applications can now take advantage of the same identity system that powers Office 365, Dynamics CRM Online and Windows Intune. More than 250,000 companies and organizations use Windows Azure Active Directory today to authenticate billions of times a week. With a new developer preview you can now use Windows Azure Active Directory as true Identity Management as a Service.

When combined, you can create applications allows your users to sign on using credentials used in their organization already and helps you create new collaborative applications.

AppDynamics' automatic instrumentation and configuration make it a perfect fit for managing cloud environments with a high rate of change. In addition, AppDynamics' auto-scaling feature allows Windows Azure customers to automatically provision Windows Azure resource based on the performance and throughput of business transactions.

ISV Video: Windows Azure Performance Management, Monitoring Using AppDynamics

In this video cloud solutions architect Neil Mackenzie talks with Stephen Burton of AppDynamics who explains how Windows Azure users can:

• Monitor the health of their Windows Azure application
• Troubleshoot performance problems in real time
• Rapidly diagnose root cause of performance problems
• Dynamically scale up and scale down their Windows Azure application

The release of Windows 8 is on the horizon, and soon millions of people will be looking for Windows 8 apps. Now’s the time to make sure your app is ready for them.

Begin your 30-day journey to create a great Windows 8 Metro style app.

See this post for details of a special program helps you get your app on Windows 8.

The next developer conference will be this fall and is being called BUILD. It will be held on Microsoft's campus in Redmond, Washington, from October 30^th until November 2^nd.

Mark your calendars for registration that opens 8AM Pacific time on August 8 (8.8) at www.buildwindows.com.