Say what? Microsoft Malaysia One ISV Technology Blog : ISV

Innovate In Malaysia

hoongfai — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 10:24:56 GMT

FAQ for Innovate On

Q. I have already profiled my solution on Innovate On portal but I didn’t print out any web pages during the solution profiling process. How do I go back to my solution profile details?

A. Login to www.innovateon.com using your Windows Live ID. You will see the following Innovate On homepage. You solutions are listed in the “My Solutions” section somewhere in the upper right-hand corner. Please note that you may have multiple solutions profiled.

Click on the solution link. This brings you to the solution profile web pages. Example of the first page is illustrated below.

To be profitable or not to be profitable?

hoongfai — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 10:19:27 GMT

You might think which idiot would want to run a business that is not profitable. True. So wouldn’t you want to invest some time to estimate the P&L for new business opportunities using a tool.

This is perhaps the best-kept secret on the Microsoft Partner Program. Check out this tool here.

I’ve often mentioned this to my ISV partners that whether they move into a software-plus-services world, or while they are debating whether to offer an on-premise solution or hosted solution, it all boils down to their own business model. While Microsoft is more ready than ever with the recent announcements about the Azure Services Platform at PDC, the parallel thought process should be about whether they are prepared for this new business model. I found this very good whitepaper that talks about how Microsoft delivers measurable business opportunities for partners in software-plus-services today.

How to profile your solution on InnovateOn

hoongfai — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 10:59:36 GMT

In one of my previous blog posts, I talked about InnovateOn and what are the benefits to you for profiling your solution.

Here are the steps to profile your solution on InnovateOn.

Sign in using your Windows Live ID at http://www.innovateon.com
Under My Solutions, create a new solution profile.
It takes 3 easy forms to profile your solution, as illustrated below:

Enroll Solution	Programs	Profile Details

When you click on Finish, the following screen appears:

Voila, you're good to go.

Support for ISVs in Malaysia

hoongfai — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:12:52 GMT

I get this question very often from our ISV partners. How do you get technical support especially for those hard-to-handle issues in your product development, and it is all to do with the Microsoft technologies you have adopted in your solution?

Before you call any of the numbers below, please make sure that you have your MSPP ID and details ready. A piece of advice: the 5-pack professional support is very affective. Please do not skimp on that. I do know of many partners who tried not to use their 5-pack professional support, for the fear that they would run out of it. If you have an urgent issue, use it, do not skimp it, otherwise you would most likely not use it anyway.

Here's what you can do (phone numbers only apply to Malaysia).

Microsoft Partner Program (MSPP)	1 800 88 5648
Licensing/Technical	1 800 88 6295
5-Pack Professional Support	1 800 80 6114
Microsoft Action Pack Subscriptions (MAPS)	1 800 80 1432 (Malaysia Product Activation Team Department)
Regional Support Center (SEAPART)	seapart@microsoft.com

Microsoft Partner Program (MSPP) - 1 800 88 5648

Dial 1	Microsoft Certified Professional Support
Dial 2	Microsoft Certified Trainer
Dial 3	Microsoft Partner Program (MSPP)
Dial 4	Microsoft Learning Solutions
Dial 5	ISV/Empower program
Dial 6	Microsoft Action Pack Subscriptions (MAPS)
Dial 7	Courseware
Dial 8	Partner Sales Management

Licensing/Technical - 1 800 88 6295

Dial 1	Bahasa Malaysia
Dial 2	English

Dial 1	Product Activation
Dial 2	Pre-sales & licensing enquiries
Dial 3	Microsoft Consumer Products (get ready with product identification number)
Dial 4	MSDN & TechNet subscription and media replacement
Dial 5	Microsoft Partner Services
Dial 6	Microsoft Action Pack Subscriptions (MAPS)
Dial 7	Courseware
Dial 8	Partner Sales Management

Dial 1	Gold/Certified Partner: Pre-sales Technical Support
Dial 2	Gold Certified Partner: Technical Support Coordinator (TSC)
Dial 3	Gold/Certified Partner with ISV Competency & Empower: Advisory Hours
Dial 4	Microsoft Activation
Dial 5	MSDN & TechNet media replacement
Dial 6	Regional Support Center (RSC)

A better alternative to solving the rounding mechanism in your apps

hoongfai — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 06:45:57 GMT

Awhile back, I wrote a blog post on the rounding mechanism, little did I know that a reader posted a better alternative in the comments (I should read keep track of the comments closely in the future). I haven't tested this, but I trust the contributor of this piece of code. Full credit goes to gohsianghwee for posting this, and I quote him:

There is a better alternative, pass in the value 1234.23 and round digit as 2 will solve your problem. This algorithm makes user definable rounding possible. In fact, I just showed you one of my rounding mechanism in my application, which all rounding mechanism in my application are user definable.

User must always use decimal in terms of dollar and cent calculation. Even though decimal is not a primitive type, but it handles the calculation more appropriately compared to the others. This is due to how .NET handles primitive type figures.

public static decimal RoundAmount(decimal roundValue, decimal roundDigit)

{

decimal totalValue = 0;

decimal powerValue = 0;

powerValue = (decimal)(System.Math.Pow(10, (double)roundDigit));

decimal tempDecimalValue = 5 / powerValue;

decimal rndFigure = roundValue / tempDecimalValue;

totalValue =(decimal)(System.Math.Round(rndFigure, 0)) * tempDecimalValue;

return totalValue;

}

Thanks!

What's the reality for a small-sized ISV trying to get help from its technology principal

hoongfai — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:48:55 GMT

Let's face it, the reality for a small-sized ISV trying to get help from its technology principal, be it any technology vendor is rather bleak. They may end up in any one of the following situations:

you may not be in their radar
you're being shoved aside
you don't know who from the technology vendor's local office to contact
you're being ignored from its technology forum because your problem is one in a million
fine, you got the business card from one of their technology specialists,you call him/her, and your first line was "hey so-and-so, remember me, I met you at this event?", and s/he said "huh? who's that? sorry I don't do this, could you please go to http://support.company.com
you're working way into the graveyard shift, and you're going crazy because you just can't find that piece of code sample that could resolve everything in your app
[fill in the more in the comments of this blog post]

I know because I was in their shoes once upon a time when I was working as the R&D Manager in a mid-size ISV in Singapore. My technology principal was a couple of J2EE Application Server vendors, a mobile phone vendor, and a developer tools vendor. I thought to myself, those guys are jerks, they don't care about their ISVs who are toiling day-in-day-out developing an excellent solution on their technology platform.

The table has turned on me. I now work for a technology principal or vendor, Microsoft, and there are heaps of ISVs out there in Malaysia. I know of very small ISVs which are so short-staffed that even the Managing Director does some level of coding. Heck, even my former CTO could whip out a connector to a SMSC in a mere 4 hours. Internally, these group of ISVs are categorized under Breadth ISVs. I bet that some of them may be upset at me for not remembering their names even though I had just spoken to them at TechEd, or ISV Innovation Day recently or as far back as in the year 2003. Or that they'd sent me an email by saying something "I am using WF to develop a workflow on MOSS 2007, but I couldn't deploy it on the *(*^^%&^ server, but this is as much information as I could provide to you". I must have been a jerk (like what I used to call those guys). I apologize if I had been all that.

We hear you, and we are trying to the best of our abilities to address the 800-odd (some say 1000+) ISVs out there in Malaysia. As a ISV Technology Advisor, my goal is to drive technology adoption among my managed ISVs, One ISV Connect ISVs, and breadth ISVs. The technology that I could "evangelize" to you is as much as your appetite for technology, and your adoption of course. If all my ISV partners are presented in a pyramid, you know where you fit, you get the drill? Scaling out is an everyday issue that hangs in my mind. Fortunately, there's help out there, and that's when we encourage our breadth ISVs to check out all the resources online. Before you jumped into any conclusion, by saying something like "I could guess it already, http://msdn2.microsoft.com, aren't I right?", hold your breath, here's what we have for you.

There are heaps of benefits by signing up on Innovate On. All you need to do is to use your Windows Live ID to sign up, then just tell us about the solution that you are developing. And off you go to search for all the technical resources for the solution that you are building. How does the Search know what technical resources apply to your solution? Well, when you profile your solution, you would have selected all the Microsoft technologies that you use in your solution, in turn the Search returns what's applicable to you. You could also further tailor your search in this cool Silverlight search application (I deliberately right-mouse clicked on the Silverlight app to show that it is indeed built on Silverlight)

You could tailor your search based on

Microsoft technologies
Audience target
Stage of product

But the juiciest benefit is ISV Technical Support!!!!

5 hours of free email tech support for your Windows Mobile solution

10 hours of free email tech support for your Windows Vista solution

10 hours of free email tech support for your 2007 Office system solution

The types of support requests you can raise are:

· Best practice

· How-to question

· Code sample

· Technology adoption guidance

I've said enough, click on that Innovate On image!

Say I'm the Senior ISV Technology Advisor

hoongfai — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 11:38:00 GMT

Hi there, you may remember me from such roles such as Academic Programs Advisor in Microsoft Malaysia. I used to have a blog on theSpoke, http://thespoke.net/blogs/hoongfai, but I became such a passive blogger that eventually it became just another item that is returned with Windows Live Search when you search for my name, "Lai Hoong Fai", or "Hoong Fai Lai", or any other permutations of my name.

Currently I'm the Senior ISV Technology Advisor, still in Microsoft Malaysia. I work with a special group of Microsoft partners called ISVs (Independent Software Vendors). Who are these folks? The biggest ISV partner of Microsoft has got to be SAP. Their solution uses Microsoft's products and technologies, such as Microsoft SQL Server, and recently there was a collaboration between SAP and Microsoft that resulted in a new product called Duet. All in all, Microsoft ISV partners are those who develop their solutions that leverages one or more Microsoft products and technologies. I work with these unique set of partners to advise and guide them on adopting Microsoft technologies and products in their software solutions.

I have friends who ask me what I do, in layman's term. I often had difficulty explaining the name of my role until I found the term "technical marketing". That's the most "layman" I think I could get in explaining my role title. That seems to get me off the hook. People just stop asking me. Some may challenge me as to whether that is an oxymoron. How could one couple technical and marketing in the same phrase. I could!

More to come in my later blog posts. I will also blog about a couple of exciting events we organized in the island state of Penang earlier in Nov 2007 just for ISVs. They were organized in collaboration with Software Consortium of Penang (SCoPe). The events were SCoPe - Microsoft ISV Innovation Day, ISV CEO Networking evening, Office Business Application workshop. Not forgeting an excellent proof-of-concept demonstration at the RosettaNet Global Summit. All about that in a later post.....