The new Developer marketing boy. : Silverlight

Innovation Days, November 2008

chlong — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 13:50:33 GMT

We are about to announce our next ISV Innovation Day road show across Australia scheduled for the end of November 2008. The main theme this year is Software plus Services, which I’m sure won’t surprise many of you. We’ll be using content from the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) which is in LA at the end of October and whilst we’re waiting for the slide decks Craig Bailey from Elcom has been window shopping at the agenda tags:

“…Six sessions on Oslo (ie BizTalk) and seven on Parallelism should tell you something about the focus Microsoft is giving them. But 27 on Cloud services is the real give away. The buzz around Cloud, Identity, SQL Data Services and the Live/Mesh platforms is very high.”

Our Delicate Genius and Dave Glover are both attending PDC and will hopefully redeliver all the juicy content from the conference.

I’m really interested in what you want though, so in what is slowly becoming a tradition, please use this poll or leave a comment to help us create the agenda.

If you can’t make it to PDC, then try and attend another one of the Microsoft technical conferences in the diary as it’s going to be the year of big announcements. Just as the PDC is focused on the future of the Platform and technical strategy, there’s the world wide annual Tech-Ed Developers Conference (3-6 June in Orlando) which offers in-depth technical training on our current products. Then there’s the annual MIX Conference (18-20 March 2009 in Las Vegas) which is aimed at developers, designers and business decision makers who build next generation consumer web sites.

Credit to Steve for the graphic and for the great definition of what Software plus Services is…

Amnesia have Surfaced

chlong — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:32:19 GMT

I'm jealous and delighted that Amnesia took delivery of Australia’s first two Microsoft Surface tables. Hopefully they'll find their way to TechEd. Nice one guys... and by the way, where's my invite?

Scott Guthrie on Microsoft's Play for Rich Internet Applications

chlong — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 02:47:06 GMT

Our Scott Guthrie (who heads up the Silverlight development team) was interviewd by Knowledge@Wharton. Visit the site to download/play the audio. Questions from Knowledge@Wharton include:

Microsoft just launched the first beta of Silverlight 2. Why is this important?
What's Microsoft's revenue model for Silverlight?
How will you decide when to go with Silverlight versus other web technologies?
I note you've adopted the term "rich Internet application" rather than "rich interactive application" -- you're not going to fight that battle?
How do you differentiate yourself from Flash? Why is Silverlight something that we need? Why not just use Flash if you're building an interactive web app?
when will we see Silverlight on the iPhone?

Visit the site at http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1920

Visual Studio 2008 Centre in Silverlight

chlong — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 02:29:53 GMT

One of the first Silverlight-enabled development centres for Visual Studio 2008 has been launched. Some of the features include:

Animated landing page that highlights some of the features of each of the Visual Studio 2008 Express products
Interactive menus to explore by interest and by product sections
Interactive product feature tours for each of the SKUs

Check it out at http://www.microsoft.com/express

I came across Daniel's Top 15 things to love about Visual Studio 2008...

ReMix Australia 2008

chlong — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 10:41:33 GMT

Details on ReMix Australia have been announced. The details are:

1 day in 2 cities

20^th May in Sydney
22^ndMay in Melbourne

Opening Keynote followed by 2 streams (technical track is owned by Michael Kordahi and the creative track is owned by ShaneMo so give them your feedback on what you need)
Tickets will be $199 incl GST (includes a copy of Expression Studio Version 2 – NFR, valued at over $1,000)
Registration will open 7^th April
We will host the Imagine Cup Finals again
If you are interested in being a sponsor, please let Finula or myself know

Technorati Tags: Remix Australa 08

How XAML Transforms the collaboration between designers and developers in WPF

chlong — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 00:16:50 GMT

Great software requires collaboration between developers and designers. In this white paper, learn how Microsoft’s new user interface platform, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), emphasizes the collaboration between designers and developers. Revolutionizing software design in the process. To access the whitepaper, click here.

Silverlight to power Jackass 2.5

chlong — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 07:47:55 GMT

Later this month, Blockbuster will premiere the first full-length feature film, Jackass 2.5, directly to online audiences on Windows and Mac using Microsoft Silverlight. The movie will be free, for anyone in the US, 17 or older, courtesy of Blockbuster at www.blockbuster.jackassworld.com beginning December 19th through December 31st, 2007

This marks a transformational shift in how users are choosing to consume their media today and in the near future, a trend that Microsoft is paying attention to and enabling with Silverlight.

Technorati Tags: Silverlight, Jackass

Happy Applications

chlong — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 08:28:42 GMT

Our very own RIA Evangelist, Scott Barnes, talks about some of his ideas on how UX could be different tomorrow... what if applications reacted to your emotional state and had a focus on cheering you up should you be angry? Or look to ensure you are kept focused should you be in a goofy mood? http://visitmix.com/blogs/Mossyblog/Putting-the-Rich-in-RIA--User-Account-Profiles/

How's the carpentry course going Scott?

Technorati Tags: RIA, Scott Barnes

Popfly for Business

chlong — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 12:00:10 GMT

John's post on Popfly seems to have popped up a lot in the Microsoft blogsphere recently. There's a great example on how Popfly could be used in the retail space with the "Gift-o-Matic"... I thought I was pretty familiar with what it could do after a few of Nick Hodge's demos... but this is cool (discounting Nick's t-shirt here).

As John says, "Popfly is pretty cool. Not just geeky-cool -- but honest-to-goodness cool on multiple levels. It goes way beyond what anyone else is doing, and represents a new way for businesses and consumers to engage with each other. If there's anything close, it's FaceBook with their FaceBook applications -- but those only work on FaceBook -- and Popfly works on FaceBook and virtually everywhere else, too".

So you are interested in doing something with Popfly...

Visit http://www.popfly.ms/Overview/ for some other examples on the art of the possible
Visit the Popfly blog for a step-by-step guide on how to get it
Read the Popfly documentation at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/express/bb510375.aspx

Technorati Tags: popfly, silverlight

When, How and Why Move to Silverlight?

chlong — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 11:40:13 GMT

I enjoyed reading Denny's post on the "Question of When, How and Why to Move to Silverlight".

3 of my favourite excerpts:

"If you have a hammer, then everything looks like a nail."
Don't Fall Into the "Version 3" Trap
Denny's answer to this question: "Why should I consider going with Silverlight when I already have Flash skills in house?"

I'm sure ShaneMo and Scott will have plenty to add :).

Technorati Tags: Silverlight, Denny Boynton

Expression Silverlight Designer Training

chlong — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 10:40:47 GMT

Our User eXperience "bloke", Shane Morris (who is part of our Evangelist team) is promoting Expression and Silverlight training for Designers.

Training is held in either Sydney (13-14 Dec) or Melbourne (17-18 Dec) via New Horizons and Alpha Computer Consultants. Sydney is looking pretty full and there's places left in Melbourne.

New Horizons in Melbourne on December 13-14 and Sydney on December 17-18.
Alpha Computer Consultants in Melbourne and Sydney on 10-11 December.

(Or if you have a developer focus, check out Readify).

Click here to visit Shane's blog.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Designer, Expression, Silverlight, Australia, New Horizons, Alpha Computer Consultants

Silverlight Enterprise Deployment Guide

chlong — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 14:03:09 GMT

David Tesar has posted a new whitepaper for any organisation wanting to deploy, manage, and troubleshoot Silverlight in their environment. This Silverlight Enterprise Deployment Guide includes installation switches, update behavior, value proposition on why to deploy, group policy files and instructions on how to deploy Silverlight via group policy & SMS... which should be an interesting read for any systems administrator.

Download it here.

Silverlight RC2

chlong — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 01:46:30 GMT

Tim blogs Silverlight RC2 almost with us! Also click here to see more examples built in Silverlight...

Technorati Tags: Silverlight

Microsoft Web Experience DVD

chlong — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 16:18:32 GMT

As part of the new Web solutions pages up on the Partner Portal, you can request a Microsoft Web Experience Stack DVD. This is a great resource which is proving to be really popular as it allows you to really test drive our new platform, push it's limits, learn about our new products and see how it compares against the competition. It also includes software that may not be available through other means, like an Action Pack etc. So if you are a Microsoft Partner based in Australia I can give you a complimentary copy... keep reading.

The DVD includes trial versions of (which expire March 2008):

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition, SP2
Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 and .NET Framework 3.0
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition, SP2
Microsoft Visual Studio Professional
Microsoft Expression Studio (includes Microsoft Expression Web, Expression Blend, Expression Design, and Expression Media)

There's a bunch of additional resources on the DVD as well:

ASP.NET 2.0 | ASP.NET 2.0 Virtual Labs | ASP.NET 2.0 Webcasts | Microsoft Web Development Learning Series (ASP.NET 2.0)
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition | Overview | Virtual Labs
Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition, SP2 | Overview | Training
Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, Professional Edition | Overview | Virtual Labs | Webcasts
Microsoft .NET Framework | Overview | Virtual Labs | Webcasts
Microsoft Expression Studio | Overview | Virtual Labs | Training Videos

So, do you want one? :)

Do you want to pay for the postage?

You can either click here and then click on this graphic --> complete the online form and pay US$5.00 for postage

- OR -

if you are based in Australia and are a Microsoft Partner, send me an email or leave a comment and I'll post you one at no charge (limited to the first 100 requests, 1 copy per organisation). I will also have a small supply of these at the Australia Partner Conference in a couple of weeks time.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Web Experience DVD, Microsoft, Microsoft Partners, Web 2.0, Windows Server, .NET Framework, SQL Server, Visual Studio Team System, Expression

Web Partner Resources Now Online

chlong — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 05:43:42 GMT

There is some new content on the worldwide Microsoft Partner Portal for Web Partners, built in Silverlight, which highlights the resources available to you. It addresses the different audience types - IT Generalists, Custom Development Companies and Agencies.

Click here to take a look at let us know what you think.

We have also produced a DVD - the “Microsoft Web Experience Stack”, which is a VPC image of Windows Server 2003 R2, .NET Framework 2.0 and 3.0, SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio Professional, Expression Suite (Web, Blend, Design, Media). Partners can order this DVD from here where you will also find webinars, case studies, and white papers. I will have a small supply of these available at the Australian Partner conference if you would like one.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Microsoft Partners, Microsoft Expression, Silverlight