Developing Applications for Small Business

JasonMcC — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 01:07:53 GMT

My job has changed recently to focus on the needs of developers who service small businesses. I can now talk about some of the work I've been doing with the launch the Small Business Developer Center.

I've been looking at this space for about a year now with a view to better understanding their needs and requirements. I've found that often our MSDN content and the scenarios we target for Visual Studio are a little too complex for the needs of this market. I've developed this new MSDN property initially to provide a clear and general overview of the Microsoft tools and products that can be used to build cost effective solutions for cash constrained small businesses.

If you are new to the Microsoft platform having come from a PHP or even VB6 development environment, then this site is for you. We built the content (articles, videos and hands-on-labs) around the needs of a fictitious small business called WingTip Toys. A fully working sample is built from what I've heard are common needs for these small businesses, build reports, integrate data between different systems, build a web presence and manipulate data using Windows applications.

I'd love your feedback! Remember that this site isn't intended for the Microsoft developer that is already very familiar with our technology platform, rather for developers new to Microsoft's platform stack looking for an on-ramp. I'll collect feedback here on my blog for now and will have a forum created within the next few weeks.

If you are a consultant and provider of development services for small businesses and have any suggestions for what you'd like to see, please let me know!

Jason

Technorati Tags: small business, application development, microsoft platform, wingtip toys

JasonMcC's WebLog : Small Business

Developing Applications for Small Business