The new Developer marketing boy.

Innovation Day Tour 2009

chlong — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:17:39 GMT

Sarah in the Partner Team is organising a lap around the map for a series of Innovation Days.

The morning sessions is on emerging opportunities for the web, mobile and beyond:

To deliver innovative experiences to attract and retain loyal customers.
To create products and services that are integral to customers' lives - from social experiences with Microsoft Surface to mobile experiences on Windows Phone.
To learn how Silverlight is enabling Australian companies to deliver unique, compelling and most of all interactive services on the web.
To learn more about game-changing tools like Expression Blend, Sketchflow and Visual Studio 2010 which will allow you to envision, design and deliver your ideas faster and cheaper - driving down costs and time-to-market.
To drive revenue and manage traffic with Microsoft's range of advertising platforms and tools, from Microsoft Advertising, to Bing and beyond.

This session is designed to inspire you, demonstrate latent opportunity, and make partnering with Microsoft simple.

Please visit our site at

https://partner.microsoft.com/Australia/40047632

In the afternoon we are running sessions for ISVs covering:

Professional Developers Conference (PDC) Highlights
xRM (Anything Relationship Management) - understand Microsoft's CRM strategy and how you get to market first with world class business solutions.
Windows 7 and Windows Server Application Compatibility
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and Microsoft Office 2010 - what's new for developers including the tooling in Visual Studio 2010 and simplified debugging & integration with Team Foundation Server.
Windows Azure - Understand the new platform announcements from the PDC
Windows Marketplace for Mobile – how to manage and distribute your applications, and directly connect with millions of Windows Mobile users worldwide

Please visit our site at

https://partner.microsoft.com/Australia/40047632

and register for the morning session only, or for just the afternoon, or come along for the full day. Places are limited.

City	Date	Time	Venue
Adelaide	1-Dec-09	8.30am - 5pm	Microsoft Adelaide, Level 2
Perth	3-Dec-09	8.30am - 5pm	Level 2, QV1 Building Perth
Brisbane	8-Dec-09	8.30am - 5pm	Microsoft Brisbane Theatre 1 & 2
Melbourne	10-Dec-09	8.30am - 5pm	Microsoft Melbourne Exhibition Room
Sydney	15-Dec-09	8.30am - 5pm	Microsoft Sydney Theatres

Office 2010 Beta Available via MSDN

chlong — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:56:33 GMT

If you are an MSDN subscriber, Office 2010 beta is available for download.

If you’re interested in exploring the developer investments in Office 2010, visit the Developer Centre.

SharePoint 2010 is also available via MSDN Subscriber Downloads.

There’s plenty of Office + SharePoint 2010 content on Channel9 as well.

Windows Server 2008 R2 Developer Training

chlong — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:26:45 GMT

Check out this set of nifty Windows Server 2008 R2 training tidbits for developers:

New R2 Learning Center

Explore this significant Windows Server release via a self-paced training course of videos and hands-on-labs with a focus on performance, web, management, and other server solution scenarios. Learn about developing applications for “many-core” scale, enable efficient “trigger-started” services, explore new Windows PowerShell features, create integrated solutions with the File Classification Infrastructure, and build Web Platform extensions.

New R2 Developer Training Kit – Learning Center Edition

Download and share the Developer Training Kit. The kit includes self-paced hands-on-lab exercises with corresponding video resources on the new Channel9 Learning Center. Topics include:

“Many-Core” Application Scale
VHD and Hyper-V API’s
Designed for Efficiency
Extreme Web Services
The Extensible Web Platform

Hammer Time

chlong — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:12:32 GMT

Today at 1.30pm (Sydney time) is HAMMER TIME. We will be holding our first LIVE Smooth Streaming event in Australia with MTV interviewing MC Hammer (who also appeared on Rove last Sunday).

Hammer is Down Under promoting the new Xbox game Lips featuring MC Hammer’s 1990 hit “You Can’t Touch This” as one of the tracks).

We have teamed up with MTV, the Xbox team, Akamai, Inlet Technologies, Viocorp, and Readify to take the feed direct from the MTV studio out to the web using Silverlight Smooth Streaming, Windows Server 2008 and IIS7 Media Services. The feed will also feature an overlay of what is happening on Twitter as Hammer is being interviewed, Hammer will be taking questions live from the Twitter stream. The overlays also include a tag cloud most popular words from the feed to get the mood of the event as well as a list of the top Tweeters.

To watch, please go to www.mtv.com.au/mchammer

Other times include:

US Seattle = 6.30pm Monday
US NY = 9.30pm Monday
UK = 2.30am (sorry) Tuesday
Singapore = 10.30am Tuesday

---

Congratulations to the team for a great smooth stream and with twitter overlays (stream to the right + a ticker along the top).

Visual Studio 2010 Australian Road Show

chlong — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:50:43 GMT

The developer solution team are visiting eight cities over the next couple of months to tell Australia about the new Visual Studio 2010. Register now as places are limited.

New look for Aussie MSDN Flash

chlong — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 03:50:37 GMT

We published a new look for the MSDN Flash and I’d be interested in your thoughts: is this a useful resource for you? How would you improve it?

A lot of the feedback I received at TechEd was to make the newsletter shorter by making it a snap shot of what’s available via the MSDN site.

After sending last weeks Flash, about a dozen people asked for a bigger listing of events so we have included more of our user groups. If you have an event you would like listed, please contact me.

Click here to read previous versions of the Flash and to subscribe to the MSDN Flash click here.

As always, please let me know if you have any other suggestions or comments.

Harvey Norman Plan To Sell The World’s First Copy Of Windows 7

chlong — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:55:03 GMT

Gizmodo have reported that Harvey Norman will be open at midnight this evening which makes them one of the first retailers in the world to sell a copy of Windows 7. Click here to find a store near you or visit their Windows 7 promo site.

You can even follow Harvey Norman on Twitter.

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 is Here

chlong — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:23:00 GMT

Microsoft announced today the immediate availability of Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 and Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Beta 2 to MSDN subscribers with general availability following on 21 October.

Check out and download Beta 2

Featured overviews and walkthroughs

Tell us what you think so far

Submit a bug

Ask our product manager a hard question

We also announced a simplified product lineup and pricing options for Visual Studio 2010 as well as new benefits for MSDN subscribers, including the Ultimate Offer, available to all active MSDN Premium subscribers at the official product launch on March 22, 2010.

What’s new?

New testing options will help ensure quality code
Enhancements to the integrated development environment mean that whether modeling, coding, testing or debugging, developers can use existing skills to deploy a growing number of application types
Built-in tools for Windows 7 and Microsoft SharePoint 2010
New drag and drop bindings for Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation
interoperability with innovative technologies (such as those for the database, ASP.NET model view controller, unified modeling language, Expression, and multicore) allow developers to bring their visions to life

But wait! There’s more:

With the .NET Framework 4, developers can experience immensely smaller deployments with up to an 81 percent reduction in the framework size when using the Client Profile. Other .NET Framework 4 developer benefits include additional support for industry standards, inclusion of the Dynamic Language Runtime for more language choice, new support for high-performance middle-tier applications (including parallel programming, workflow and service-oriented applications) and backward compatibility through side-by-side installation with .NET Framework 3.5.

How do I get “the Ultimate Offer?”

Active MSDN Premium subscribers will be transitioned to a higher-level Visual Studio 2010 with MSDN subscription at launch. This provides access to an unprecedented amount of resources, including test and development rights for Microsoft server software (including Windows Server 2008 R2 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008), Microsoft Office, and premium Visual Studio tools.

What’s the new line up look like?

In the next version, customers will be able to choose from three main versions of Visual Studio 2010:

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN
The comprehensive suite of application life-cycle management tools for software teams to help ensure quality results from design to deployment
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Premium with MSDN
A complete toolset to help developers deliver scalable, high-quality applications
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional with MSDN
The essential tool for basic development tasks to assist developers in implementing their ideas easily

Also today, Microsoft unveiled new benefits for MSDN subscribers, including these:

Unlimited access to Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 (upon release)
a server product that drives down the risks and costs of developing software by enhancing team collaboration
Azure Development
which enables MSDN Premium subscribers to develop on the Windows Azure platform (Microsoft’s cloud services platform) with compute hours, storage, data transfers, SQL Azure databases and .NET Services
Complimentary e-learning
up to 40 hours per year, per subscriber to help developers access the wealth of online resources in a more streamlined fashion, Microsoft has also updated the MSDN Web site, which now features an updated user interface, a faster version of the MSDN Library and more community resources.

Video from our PR statement:

Next steps:

Want to be the first to know?

Get the Visual Studio 2010 datasheet

This 11-page datasheet gives you an insider's view of the next generation of Visual Studio.

Download now: XPS | PDF

Follow Jono

Jono Wells is twittering away about what’s going on with Visual Studio 2010.

Follow @onojw on Twitter

#vs10 RSS

New look for MSDN

chlong — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:08:29 GMT

Beth’s blog has some really good discussion about the new look for MSDN just around the corner… the Visual Basic Developer Centre is a good preview of what’s to come...

The current look:

What’s new?

New colour – from red to blue…
Better layout on the home page for easier navigation.
Essential resources are centred right in the middle with a rotator of sorts that allows you to pick a tab on the left to hone in on the content you want on the right.
You’ll see featured articles and library content, VB team and MVP blog posts, our Channel 9 videos, and VB samples & projects on Code Gallery and Codeplex all right there in the middle of the page.

Beth also blogged that we added ratings and comments on the videos a while back + a video scroller that lets you browse the most popular videos with ease.

I received a lot of feedback from TechEd Australia about finding the right information and how to engage with communities… there’s a lot in the pipeline but please give us your feedback in the MSDN feedback forum where folks from MSDN will be participating. Of course, you can always tell me your thoughts here as well.

3 weeks to submit your AIMIA Amy nomination

chlong — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:22:43 GMT

AIMIA is calling for entries into the 16th Annual AIMIA Awards, which celebrate the very best examples of digital media in Australia and New Zealand. Known affectionately as “The Amys” by the industry, the awards showcase work undertaken by Australia’s Interactive Media and Digital Content sectors across a broad range of consumer, business, government and not-for-profit categories.

There are loads of categories including 3 new ones:

Best Sport: Given to the best sports-based interactive media or digital content which demonstrates best practice, innovation and excellence in promoting and covering a sport, sports brand, product, service or event.
Best Online Video: Awarded to the entry that shows appropriate, relevant and best use of digital video as a creative and distribution medium in the application.
People’s Choice: This award is voted for by AIMIA members. The most voted entry from the total pool of 16th Annual AIMIA Awards category finalists will determine the winner of the category.

Awards are now open and close at 5pm AEST on Wednesday 4 November 2009. Finalists will be announced in mid-January. Entries must be submitted via the AIMIA website. For more details and entry criteria, please visit www.aimia.com.au/awards.

Visit www.aimia.com.au/awards or email awards@aimia.com.au for more details!

New Fixed Telstra Data Plans

chlong — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 04:11:29 GMT

Choose from two plans:

Mobile email plan for businesses with Exchange Server 2003 SP2 or higher (with 100MB of WAP/modem usage per month)
Mobile services plan, for businesses with System Center Device Manager 2008 (or SCMDM) which covers push email and data traffic through your SCMDM VPN.

Now I need to find a Windows Mobile 6.5 phone and upgrade the plan :)

Don, just so you know, I have my eye on the new Touch Pro 2…

New blog design

chlong — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 11:24:39 GMT

Over the weekend I thought I would reskin the blog… and thought borrowing Scott’s would be a whole bunch easier… I need to play around with the colours a bit but I thought it’s a great head start. Thanks Scott, I owe you a beer :)

And welcome home…

My new role…

chlong — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:34:20 GMT

I have realised my long term goal in joining the Developer Platform Evangelism group (known as DPE). My new role is the Developer Marketing Manager previously held by Finula Crowe who returned to Ireland. Fin has left some pretty big (and high) shoes to fill and I’m slowly learning all the amazing things she did around the business.

If you have any ideas, suggestions or any other feedback to help me find my feet, please get in touch, I’d love to hear from you.

Otherwise, I look forward to working with you :)

My new favourite thing

chlong — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:12:58 GMT

In the spirit of Oprah’s new favourite thing, the ability to join a conference call from the mobile version of Communicator is just awesome… no more fiddling around trying to write down access numbers; pin numbers or participant codes as OCS will call you back and sign you into the conf call… fantastic.

Download Microsoft Office Communicator R2 for Smartphones and Pocket PC.

Of course Johann has already blogged along with some other pretty screen shots and other hot fixes… I need to start saving for a 6.5 phone now.

Homescreen support for new homescreens in Windows Mobile 6.5+ phones.

Integration within the phone dialer for Windows Mobile 6.5+ phones.

Communicator Mobile 2007 R2 now recognizes when the phone is roaming, and by default does not sign in to roaming networks.

Additional support for joining conference calls from a Windows Mobile appointment. To do this, press Menu, and then press Join Conference.

Enables users to log on with a username of the format user@example.com, in addition to domain\user.

When placing Call via Work calls, callbacks are now automatically accepted.

Microsoft Installer (MSI) installation on Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) fails. In this situation, users should install Communicator Mobile 2007 R2 by using a .Cab installation.

AT&T FUZE devices set for High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) connection cannot handle voice and data at the same time. This causes Call via Work calls to fail unless the device is reverted to 3rd Generation (3G) by disabling HSDPA – surely this isn’t a problem for Telstra?

Going to TechEd Australia? Look for Dave…

chlong — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 04:31:16 GMT

Coatsey has pulled some quick stats from the TechEd09 registration report… looks like the most popular name attending the conference this is year ‘Dave’. The most popular female name is Simone, which I reckon is a simple spelling mistake.

One stat missing is the HUGE number of partners going… probably because of the Australia Partner Conference being at the same venue the week before. My team (the now called Partner Technology Advisors – more on that later) have put together 6 cool reasons why TechEd is cool for partners… and quite frankly anybody who works with technology. My top reason (over and above the netbook) is probably #3 as Andy says, it’s all about the community… keep up-to-date with the Twitter account (@auTechEd), for the breaking news and the hashtag #auteched.

There is a whole bunch of other social networking options on the TechEd Connect page as well as some other useful info over on Andy Coates, Nick Hodge’s, Andrew Dugdell’s and Jorke’s TechEd backstage blogs… whilst you’re there, check out the menu.

Look forward to seeing you there.

6 Reasons As To Why Tech Ed Is Cool For Partners

View more presentations from chlong.