re: Install the Office 2010 Technical Preview and win an Xbox 360 Elite!

infopath — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 20:57:07 GMT

UPDATE: Thanks everybody for the interest in the contest, and for helping to troubleshoot issues with the form. The issues have been resolved, and I've seen applications for most of the folks who commented (still following up with a couple of folks). I've cleaned up the comments since they primarily consisted of "hey I can't get in" :-)

As of Friday, we had about 80 applications, and I've submitted these to the customer program for inclusion. We can still take a few more, so I'll continue to check incoming applications over the coming week.

Please make sure to include your live ID e-mail address in the form, since that address will be used to give you access to the SkyDrive where you will upload your video submission. If you didn't include the right mail address on initial submission, don't panic - we'll get things worked out.

The technical beta is different from the technical preview program that includes client only bits. The tech beta is protected by NDA and participants get access to both client and server bits.

Because the server is protected by NDA, please do not post videos to a public location.

I'm waiting to get the official contest rules posted to the Connect website so that they are accessible to folks accepted into the program. The high-level information is:

- Only folks accepted into the limited Technical Beta (client+server) are eligible

- The contest starts 8/1 and runs until 10/15, so nobody has missed any deadlines. Judging won't commence until after 10/15.

What we're looking for are real applications - something you or your customers really use in your business - and that make great use of the new features in SharePoint 2010 and InfoPath 2010. The better your solution fits the business problem, the more elegant and polished the solution, and the more you use the feature set in cool and creative ways, the better you will score. There are several categories that you'll be judged against, so for example, if you have the prettiest form or the best video editing you might also win a prize. If we end up with really good material, we'll probably show it at conferences and on the website, so you might even get famous for a few minutes!

It's going to take some time to get folks processed through the system, so please be patient - we're herding cats as fast as we can!

-Nick Dallett

Program Manager Lead and customer programs guy

Microsoft Office InfoPath