Chris Bowen's Blog : Microsoft

WebsiteSpark – A Jumpstart for Web Development and Design Companies

cbowen — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:42:09 GMT

Having just posted about a Boston-area opportunity for BizSpark companies, I realized I hadn’t yet mentioned the new WebsiteSpark program, so…

WebsiteSpark

Similar to BizSpark, WebsiteSpark is a new program for web development/design companies and offers (from the FAQ):

The program helps Web Pros drive new business opportunities through increased visibility and connections with partners (including Web Hosters) and customers around the world; WebsiteSpark also provides Web Pros with Microsoft tools and hosting solutions, as well as support and training.

What Do You Receive?

From the WebsiteSpark support page:

Design Tools/Development Tools/Testing Tools. Each Web Pro firm will be entitled to :
- Visual Studio® 2008 Professional Edition 3 user licenses
- Expression® Studio 2 (or 3) 1 user license, available only to the Primary Contact for the Web Pro
- Expression® Web 2 (or 3) 2 user licenses
- Windows Web Server® 2008 (or Windows Web Server 2008 R2 when available) 3 user licenses
- SQL Server® 2008 Web 3 user licenses
Production and Deployment. If self-hosting, each Web Pro firm will be entitled to four processor production licenses each (requires enrollment in SPLA Essentials):
- Windows Web Server® 2008 (or Windows Web Server 2008 R2, when available)
- SQL Server® 2008 Web

What Does This Cost?

From the FAQ:

“There is no upfront cost for Web Pros to join WebsiteSpark or receive its benefits; a Program Offering Fee (USD 100) is required when the Web Pro exits the program.”

How Do I Learn More and Join?

Full details, including how to qualify and join, are on the WebsiteSpark site and program guide.

If you’re a web development and/or design firm, it’s definitely worth a look.

-Chris

Learn About the New England Research & Development (NERD) Center

cbowen — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 22:28:58 GMT

A new site has just launched with details of the Microsoft New England Research & Development (aka “NERD”) center at One Memorial Drive in Cambridge, MA.

The site features details about the facility, plus events, jobs, and the teams that call NERD home.

Check it out at: MicrosoftCambridge.com. (Not to be confused with our friends across the pond at the Cambridge, England Research Center.)

It’s a beautiful facility, right along the Charles with amazing views of Cambridge and Boston, so take a look at the upcoming events and drop by for a visit!

-Chris

Roundup of 11 Recent Microsoft Technology Releases

cbowen — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:55:51 GMT

There have been quite a few developer and technology releases in the past couple of weeks, so in case you’ve missed any, I’ve collected pointers to 11 of them in this post:

Internet Explorer 8 Release Candidate 1 (RC1)
- IE Team Post
- Release Notes
ASP.NET MVC Release Candidate 1 (RC1)
- Many new improvements including tooling, view enhancements, form post handling, unit testing, file handling, AJAX and others.
- Scott Guthrie’s Detailed Post
- Phil Haack’s Post
Updates for Windows Azure:

Windows Azure SDK January 2009 CTP
- “The Windows® Azure™ SDK provides developers with the APIs, tools, documentation, and samples needed to develop Internet-scale applications that run on Windows Azure.”
Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio January 2009 CTP

“Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio extend Visual Studio to enable the creation, building, debugging, running and packaging of scalable services on Windows Azure.”

Live Framework Tools January CTP

Read James Senior’s post for details and note that you’ll need to sign up for the appropriate services before you can download the CTP, described in Lynn Langit’s getting started with Azure post

Microsoft Tag Beta
- “With the Microsoft Tag application, just aim your camera phone at a Tag and instantly access mobile content, videos, music, contact information, maps, social networks, promotions, and more. Nothing to type, no browsers to launch!"
Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1: BETA
- "The Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1: BETA provides the documentation, samples, header files, libraries, and tools (including C++ compilers) that you need to develop applications to run on Windows 7 BETA and the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1”
- BTW, you can access all SDK’s from this portal.
Managed Extensibility Framework Preview 4 Release
- “The Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) is a new library in .NET that enables greater reuse of applications and components. Using MEF, .NET applications can make the shift from being statically compiled to dynamically composed. If you are building extensible applications, extensible frameworks and application extensions, then MEF is for you.”
Community Technology Preview of Visual Studio 2008 extensions for SharePoint v1.3
- “The Visual Studio extensions for SharePoint (VSeWSS) provide project templates for developers using Visual Studio 2008 to create, debug, package and deploy SharePoint projects including Web Parts, Data Lists, Content Types, Event Receivers, Templates, Modules and other SharePoint artifacts.”
Microsoft Web Platform Installer 1.0
- “The Web Platform Installer (Web PI) is a simple tool that installs Microsoft's entire Web Platform, including IIS, Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition, SQL Server 2008 Express Edition and the .NET Framework. Using the Web Platform Installer’s user interface, you can choose to install either specific products or the entire Microsoft Web Platform onto your computer. The Web PI also helps keep your products up to date by always offering the latest additions to the Web Platform.”
Microsoft Visual Studio Learning Pack 2.0
- “The Visual Studio Learning Pack 2.0 is a software package created by Microsoft to help students learn about computer programming. Improvements in this release include support for Visual Studio 2008 Express and more support for Visual Basic.”

Plus a couple of new guides for good measure:

Patterns & Practices Application Architecture Guide 2.0
XAML Guidelines Draft
- Rudi Grobler’s post (includes additional videos)

Enjoy!
-Chris

Announcing Microsoft's BizSpark Program for Startups

cbowen — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 01:14:33 GMT

Some great news for the startup and entrepreneurial community - we've formally launched a new program, called BizSpark, designed to offer tools, mentorship, and support to early stage startups, with no upfront costs to enroll.

Think DreamSpark (tools and platform software for students) but for startups, and you won't be far off.

Program Details

There are plenty of details on the Microsoft Startup Zone site, but in summary, the program connects startups with Network Partners, organizations in the software community who can provide assistance and guidance to the startups. Microsoft provides the BizSpark startups with:

Software - Lots of it, along with production licenses. From the Startup Zone site:

All the software included in the Microsoft® Visual Studio® Team System Team Suite (VSTS) with MSDN® Premium subscription

Expression® Studio Version 2

VSTS Team Foundation Server (standard edition)

Production use rights to host a “software as a service” solution (developed during participation in the BizSpark Program, on any platform) over the Internet, with regard to products including:

Microsoft Windows Server® (all versions up to and including Enterprise)

Microsoft SQL Server® (all versions)

Microsoft Office SharePoint® Portal Server

Microsoft System Center

Microsoft BizTalk® Server

Microsoft Dynamics® CRM (coming soon)

In addition to the core program offering, BizSpark startups will be eligible for other Microsoft offerings, such as:

Microsoft Azure™ Services Platform

Support - Software support from MSDN (groups, incidents, concierge, etc.), BizSpark program support, and guidance through Network Partners (incubators, investors, advisors, agencies, hosters, etc.

Visibility - Through the program and the BizSpark DB, increased exposure to the potential investors, partners, and customers.

What Does it Cost?

From the BizSpark FAQ:

As part of Microsoft’s commitment to Startup success, there is no upfront cost to enroll in the program. Startups will be responsible for a USD$100 program offering fee when they exit the program

Who Qualifies?

How are startups eligible? [excepted from source]:

Your startup must be:

Actively engaged in development of a software-based product or service that will form a core piece of its current or intended business

Privately held

In business for less than 3 years

Generating less than USD $1 million in annual revenue

To be eligible to use the software for production and deployment of hosted solutions, startups must also be developing a new "software as a service" solution (on any platform) to be delivered over the Internet.

BTW, if you're an ISV, but don't qualify for BizSpark, take a look at Empower for ISVs, which may be another way to get additional support from Microsoft.

What Next?

I'm excited that we're offering this program! If you're a startup, read through the program details on the Microsoft Startup Zone, then find a Network Partner, who can help connect you with the BizSpark program.

If you're in the Northeast, and think your organization could be potential Network Partner, drop me a line and I'll be glad to chat with you.

-Chris

Announcing the MSDN Developer Conference Series (Boston on January 22nd!)

cbowen — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 22:59:24 GMT

MSDN Developer Conference

A fantastic series of one-day conferences is coming, bringing the latest technology from Microsoft to 11 cities across the US. The MSDN Developer Conference features 12 sessions in three tracks:

Cloud Services

Use Windows Azure, Live Mesh, and more to create apps that bridge the gaps between PC, Web, and phone
Client and Presentation

See the state of the art and future plans for ASP.NET 4.0, WPF, and Silverlight
Tools, Languages and Framework

Learn about Visual Studio 2010, Language Futures, Oslo, and Parallel Programming

Think of this as the greatest hits of PDC coming to you.

A full day of content for $99. And of course some nice giveaways as well.

Boston's Turn

As one of the 11 cities in the series, our local event in the northeast will be in Boston on January 22nd at the Sheraton Boston Hotel. I'm the "city lead" for Boston, so let me know if you have any questions.

Speakers currently scheduled to present in Boston include:

Register today before the seats are gone!

The Sessions

The day will feature a keynote, along with the following sessions:

Cloud Services	Client and Presentation	Tools, Languages, and Framework
Lap Around Cloud Services	Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) Roadmap	The Future of Managed Languages: F#, C#, and Visual Basic
Developing and Deploying Your First Cloud Services	Developing Data-Centric Applications Using WPF	A Lap Around "Oslo"
A Lap Around the Live Framework and Mesh Services	Building Business-Focused Applications Using Silverlight 2	Microsoft Visual Studio Team System: A Lap Around VSTS 2010
Developing Applications Using Data Services	ASP.NET 4.0 Roadmap	Parallel Programming for Managed Code Developers

Online Community

Find our tag cloud under #MSDNDevCon and join in the buzz!

Registration

Registration is open, and a nice deal at $99.

If Boston isn't near you, there are 10 other cities hosting a MSDN Dev Con event, so take a look and register for a city near you:

Date	City
12/9/08	Houston, TX
12/11/08	Orlando, FL
12/16/08	Atlanta, GA
1/13/09	Chicago, IL
1/13/09	Minneapolis, MN
1/16/09	Washington, DC
1/20/09	New York, NY
1/22/09	Boston, MA
1/22/09	Detroit, MI
1/26/09	Dallas, TX
2/19/09	San Francisco, CA

A big thanks goes to our own Bob Familiar, who is spearheading the work to create these events across the US! (This is also the reason why he's had to temporarily step aside from our Northeast Roadshows.)

I'm absolutely looking forward to this and hope to see many of you in Boston!

-Chris

Northeast Microsoft Job Opening for a Passionate IT Professional

cbowen — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:46:23 GMT

Passing along word from my colleague Blain Barton who has posted about an opening on his team for a Northeast-focused Community Champion for the IT Pro space:

This is a great opportunity to join a dynamic presentation team and help the IT Pro Evangelist team continue to build IT Pro Community Excellence. This person will focus on scaling our TechNet seminars business to the IT Professional community in the Northeast portion of the East Region and Midwest portion of the Central Region. Ideal location is DC to NYC corridor; however, other Midwest and East locations will be considered.

So, if things like domains, networking, trusts, DNS, and IPSec are what you enjoy chatting about at cocktail parties (okay, slightly geeky cocktail parties), then check out the job description and toss your hat in the ring!

-Chris

Jim O'Neil Blogs!

cbowen — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:37:17 GMT

If you’ve been to our Roadshow or some of the Heroes Happen Here events, you’ve had a chance to meet my new Northeast colleague, Jim O’Neil.

Well, Jim has just entered the ranks of Microsoft bloggers and now you can find an additional local source of information on his new blog. His will definitely be a blog that’s subscription-worthy!

While you're adding subscriptions, here's a way to meet the rest of our local evangelism team.

-Chris

New Microsoft Research Center in Cambridge, MA

cbowen — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 20:41:33 GMT

Some exciting news for New England. Microsoft Research has just announced that the One Memorial Drive, Cambridge offices (that I introduced earlier) will be the location of our newest Research Center!

The center, opening in July, will be the 6th such center in the world, the 3rd in the US, and the first on the east coast. It also marks the first center to be led by a woman, Managing Director Jennifer Tour Chayes.

Research will initially be conducted in the areas of computer science and social science theory, including ways to bridge the two fields. The center will begin with 10-15 researchers, but plans are to grow to at least 50.

Coverage of the news can be found here:

Boston Globe Article
New York Times Article
WBZ Interview by Anthony Silva (listed on the left-hand side)
Q&A on the Microsoft Research site

Welcome, Microsoft Research New England!

-Chris

Congratulations to our New and Continuing Northeastern MVPs

cbowen — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 20:47:45 GMT

I'd like to pass along congratulations to our new and re-awarded MVPs (Most Valuable Professionals) in New England and upstate New York for the first quarter of 2008:

Ho Yin Au: Windows - PC Games
Mark Blomsma: Visual Developer - Visual C#
Peter Blum: Visual Developer - ASP/ASP.NET
John D. Carrona: Windows - Networking
SB Chatterjee: Microsoft Office Groove
Richard Hale Shaw: Visual Developer - Visual C#
Roy Harvey: Windows Server System - SQL Server
Scot Hillier: Windows Server - Windows SharePoint Services
Robert Hurlbut: Visual Developer - Security
Patrick Hynds: Visual Developer - Security
Duane Laflotte: Visual Developer - Security
Tony Northrup: Windows - Networking
Fritz Onion: Visual Developer - ASP/ASP.NET
Chris Pels: Windows Server System - XML
Dave Porter: Windows - Security
John M. Raymond: Windows - Shell/User
Michael Ruminer: Visual Developer - Team System
Don Sorcinelli: Windows - Mobile Devices
C David Tobie: Windows - Printing/Imaging
Billy Wang: Windows - PC Games
Robert E. Zaret: Windows - Windows Embedded

These people have demonstrated technical knowledge and an ongoing commitment to the overall Microsoft community, online and/or in person, in their respective specialities and beyond.

Great job, everyone! Keep up the fantastic community work!

-Chris

Congratulations to SB Chatterjee!

cbowen — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 06:18:00 GMT

Some great news to welcome in the new year! Long-time community leader SB Chatterjee has just been awarded Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) for Groove!

For years, SB has been doing great work both in Connecticut with the CT .NET User Group and online with his support of Office Groove via discussion groups and more.

Check out his MVP profile page and keep an eye on his blog for his own announcement.

Well-deserved congratulations to you, SB!

-Chris

TechEd 2008 Now Two Events with IT and Developer Specializations

cbowen — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 06:21:56 GMT

Just announced on the TechEd 2008 site, TechEd will be run as two back-to-back conferences, the first focused on developers and the second on IT professionals:

TechEd U.S. 2008 Developers - June 3-6, Orlando, FL
TechEd U.S. 2008 IT Professionals - June 10-13, Orlando, FL

Both weeks are in the same location as last year's TechEd (Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL.)

Some other details from the FAQ:

Expected attendance:
- TechEd Developers - 5,000
- TechEd IT Professionals - 10,500
Event cost:
- "The attendee fees for either event will be comparable to the 2007 ones; more details will be communicated when registration goes live in January 2008."
For people who are both developers and IT professionals:
- "Attendees will have access to all content regardless of the event they attend. "
- "Microsoft will offer special pricing packages for those that wish to attend both events."

-Chris

P.S. Thanks to my Florida-based colleague, Joe Healy, for the heads-up!

Share this post :

Technorati tags: TechEd, Microsoft, Events

What's It Like to Be a Developer Evangelist?

cbowen — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 17:57:33 GMT

The "Evangelist" title has come into more common use within the technology industry and many larger companies now have some forms of evangelism roles. Want to get an idea of what's involved with the role of Developer Evangelist (DE) at Microsoft? Watch this Channel 9 video with DEs Lynn Langit and Asli Bilgin for some insights.

As Lynn and Asli mention, the role varies by geography, industry focus, and even personal passion and experience, but many of the driving principles are the same (as are the characteristics of what it takes to be a successful DE.)

-Chris

Technorati tags: Careers, Evangelism, Microsoft

Job Openings with Microsoft SoftGrid in Cambridge

cbowen — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 18:13:16 GMT

As I've mentioned before, Microsoft is in the process of moving/growing groups to a great new location in the Cambridge area. Microsoft SoftGrid is one of the groups moving into that space on 1 Memorial Drive on September 24th.

The SoftGrid team has a bunch of Software Development job openings available - Dev Manager, Lead Test Engineer, Software Engineers, Sustaining Engineers and Test Engineers. )

Here's a link to the details:

http://members.microsoft.com/careers/search/results.aspx?FromCP=Y&JobCategoryCodeID=&JobLocationCodeID=104&JobProductCodeID=&JobTitleCodeID=&Divisions=&TargetLevels=&Keywords=%20&JobCode=&ManagerAlias=&Interval=10

If you're interested, send your resume to:

Lauren Day
Microsoft
Staffing Consultant- SoftGrid/MSD/Forefront
27 Melcher Street 3rd Floor, Boston MA 02210
[moving to 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge on 9/24/07]
Direct: 617-896-5601 EST
Home office: 978-686-2234 EST
laday@microsoft.com
www.microsoft.com/careers

For more information about SoftGrid, take a look at:

http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/softgrid

-Chris

Technorati tags: Microsoft, SoftGrid, Careers, Jobs, Boston, Cambridge

Congratulations to Jesse Liberty

cbowen — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 17:38:16 GMT

Not sure how I missed this news until now, but Joe Stagner mentions that Jesse Liberty, noted author, speaker, and technologist, has joined Microsoft! Jesse is now a Senior Program Manager on the Silverlight development team.

It turns out Jesse announced this a few weeks ago on his blog:

"As part of my job, I will be creating new avenues of communication about Silverlight, both here, and of course through sites and portals and who-knows-what-else at Microsoft. Stay tuned… much to come very quickly, I suspect."

Jesse has always been well respected for his excellent books, but he has also been a great contributor to the New England development community - frequently speaking at user group meetings and other events. That passion for community will be a great asset in his new role.

Welcome aboard, Jesse! Looking forward to what you'll be helping to drive with Silverlight.

-Chris

Technorati tags: Microsoft, New England, Silverlight

Microsoft Growing in Cambridge, MA

cbowen — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 21:49:39 GMT

We'll be expanding our available space in the Boston area by way of One Memorial Drive, Cambridge:

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2007/06/21/room_to_grow_for_microsoft/

"Microsoft will be leasing 136,000 square feet in the 17-story high-rise office tower, overlooking the Charles River, in addition to the 46,000 square feet the Redmond, Wash., company agreed in April to lease for employees of Softricity, a Boston company it acquired last summer."

Definitely a positive development for Microsoft in New England.

Now I'll have more excuses to swing by my favorite Cambridge haunts - L.A. Burdick, East Coast Grill, Mr. Bartley's... Oh, and customers, of course. :)

Update - Chris Brookins commented to provide a link to a great video of the view from inside One Memorial Drive.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=BF-3HiMTjLU

-Chris

Technorati tags: Microsoft, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Boston