ISV Partner Blog

Aspiring Architect Series 2008

Johan Roosen — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:25:25 GMT

Last year we held a Web Cast series for aspiring architects that was attended by over 1200 individuals and covered a number of strategies that can help developers and IT professionals to transition to the architect roles. The Aspiring Architect Series 2008 builds on last year’s content and covers a number of topics that are important for architects to understand. Please make sure that you have gone through the 2007 series which can be found at http://blogs.msdn.com/mohammadakif/archive/tags/Aspiring+Architects/default.aspx . We are hopeful that you will find the upcoming series to be a very useful investment of your time.

June 16^th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Introduction to the aspiring architect Web Cast series

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380836&Culture=en-CA

June 17^th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Services Oriented Architecture and Enterprise Service Bus – Beyond the hype

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380838&Culture=en-CA

June 18^th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – TOGAF and Zachman, a real-world perspective

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380840&Culture=en-CA

June 19^th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Services Oriented Architecture (Web Cast in French)

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380842&Culture=en-CA

June 20^th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Interoperability (Web Cast in French)

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380844&Culture=fr-CA

June 23^rd , 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Realizing dynamic systems

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380846&Culture=en-CA

June 24^th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Web 2.0, beyond the hype

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380848&Culture=en-CA

June 25^th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Architecting for the user experience

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380850&Culture=en-CA

June 26^th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Conclusion and next steps

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380852&Culture=en-CA

.NET 3.5 Enhancements Training Kit - May Preview

Johan Roosen — Wed, 14 May 2008 13:46:02 GMT

The Visual Studio & .NET Framework evangelism team released a revision of the .NET 3.5 Enhancements Training Kit, updated to work with Visual Studio 2008 SP1 & .NET 3.5 SP1 Beta 1! The April Preview of the training kit has been downloaded over 13,000 times. The May Preview release includes updated hands-on-labs as well as new presentations.

The following features had their labs updated in this iteration:

ASP.NET AJAX History
ASP.NET MVC
ASP.NET Dynamic Data
ADO.NET Data Services
ADO.NET Entity Framework

The following features have supporting presentations included in this iteration:

ASP.NET MVC
ASP.NET Dynamic Data
ADO.NET Data Services

New presentations will continue to be developed for inclusion in future iterations. In addition, demo scripts for each presentation will be created and added to the kit.

You can download the Visual Studio 2008 & .NET 3.5 SP1 beta releases here.
You can download the training kit here.

More info here or in the METRO program.

Security Strategies with Steve Riley

Johan Roosen — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:19:04 GMT

What : Microsoft TechNet Briefing: Security Strategies with Steve Riley

Speaker : Steve Riley – Senior Security Strategist – Microsoft Corportation

When : May 27^th – full day event

Where : Utopolis Mechelen

Audience : IT Professionals, Security TDMs

Registration Link : https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032378435&Culture=en-US

Event Overview

It's 11:00 PM, do you know where your data is?
Microsoft security intelligence report
The fortified data center in your future: Build it now and they will come
Oh no, we’ve been hacked, now what? Developing an incident response process

Speaker : Steve Riley - Senior Security Strategist - Microsoft

Steve Riley is a senior strategist and worldwide security evangelist in Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Group. Steve specializes in the process of information security, including policies, networks, and hosts.

Steve is a frequent and popular speaker at conferences worldwide, working to spread a better understanding of security science. He also spends time with individual customers to learn the security pain they face and show how some of that pain can be eliminated. Having been born with an Ethernet cable attached to his belly button, Steve grew up in networking and telecommunications. Besides lurking in the Internet's dark alleys and secret passages, he enjoys freely sharing his opinions about the intersection of technology and culture.

Discovery Day (8th May) - session abstracts

Johan Roosen — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 18:25:01 GMT

Getting the most out of Microsoft’s adoption programs 13.00 - 13.45

Johan Roosen – ISV Development Platform Advisor, Microsoft Belux

Microsoft invests a lot in programs for ISV's, and will continue to do so. However these programs and their benefits are not well known by our partners today. This session will focus on two major programs for our technical audience: “InnovateOn” and “Metro”. Focus will be on the benefits and the role of the ISV DPA in these programs and your partnership.

OBA: Building End-to-End solutions 13.45 - 14.30

Philippe Destoop – Architect, Microsoft Belux

With the release of the 2007 Microsoft Office System clients, servers, and tools, Microsoft delivers a true composite application platform that can be used to create collaborative, role-based, easy-to-use solutions that extend the traditional LOB applications and enterprise systems. Microsoft calls these solutions Office Business Applications (OBAs). In this session you will learn about the concepts, how to architect OBA’s that are ready for the enterprise and get an insight in the industry specific OBA frameworks that Microsoft is providing to optimize the time to value for your enterprise.

SQL2008 and the S+S model 15.00 - 15.45

Gunther Beersaerts - Enterprise Technical Strategist - Data Platform, Microsoft Corporation

In this session we will provide an overview of the next release of SQL Server, SQL Server 2008, codenamed “Katmai”. The session will cover the core value-proposition, major release themes and the specific engine improvements and scenarios for ISV's and Software Developers, including the new data types, development- & productivity enhancements in a S+S world, as well as integrated business intelligence capabilities to make your applications smarter. We will also cover the release timeline and the disclosure calendar.

Team Foundation Server in a REAL Software Factory 15.45 - 16.30

Simon Ferris - Software Development Manager, Real
Philippe Minsart – Squad Team Leader (.NET Unit), Real

Real Software is implementing a Software Factory to enable a consistent process model in all Software development activities. They have selected TFS as the tooling to support this. Simon Ferris, the Software Development Manager, will present an overview of the project, explain why Team Foundation System was selected as the basis for this very important initiative and will offer some insight it what should be considered during such an implementation.

Upcoming events for developers

Johan Roosen — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 23:04:11 GMT

Tom provided a clear overview of the upcoming Microsoft and community events.

MIX essentials

24 April 2008 - Aula Magna, Louvain-La-Neuve

MSDN Evening: Developing an integrated e-commerce solution using Visual Studio, SQL Server and Dynamics CRM

6 May 2008 - Microsoft, Diegem

MSDN Evening: LINQ for Visual Basic 2008 Developers

7 May 2008 - Utopolis, Mechelen

MSDN Evening: Building Windows Installer packages using XML and the WiX toolset

4 June 2008 - Utopolis, Mechelen

MSDN Evening: Using Team Foundation Server for Version Control - Best Practices

11 June 2008 - Utopolis, Mechelen

MSDN Evening: Mobile xRM - Combine the flexibility of Dynamics CRM with the power of Windows Mobile

17 June 2008 - Microsoft, Diegem

Heroes Happen {Here} Community Launch Events

VISUG - The ABC of WCF

6 May 2008 - Merelbeke
13 May - Kortijk

VISUG - Team Foundation Server 2008 Overview

7 May 2008 - Zaventem
21 May 2008 - Kontich

VISUG - ASP.NET 3.5, AJAX and LINQ

14 May 2008 - Lummen
21 May 2008 - Schelle

VISUG - Introduction Workflow Foundation in .NET 3.5

27 May - Merelbeke
28 May - Kortrijk

Upcoming community events

Belgian Community Day - hosted by 8 user groups

26 June 2008 - Keerbergen

ACCB.NET Brugge - XAML

30 April 2008 - Brugge

ACCB.NET Brugge - Hands-on workshop

7 May 2008 - Brugge
4 June 2008 - Brugge
1 July 2008 - Brugge

ACCB.NET Brugge - Expression Blend and WPF

28 May 2008 - Brugge

Meet Tim Heuer for Silverlight Q/A @ MIX essentials

Johan Roosen — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 23:47:57 GMT

Once again Katrien managed to convince one of the top speakers from MIX essentials to have small meetings with our ISV partners. For those who attend the MIX essentials and are interested in having a 1:1 meeting or 1:F with Tim Heuer, please send me an email. Tim is well known for his great Silverlight expertise, so grab the opportunity !

We learned from our first experience already and will set up either 1:1 or 1:F with max 5-6 people :o)

These sessions will however take place during the MIX essentials event (in the afternoon) so make sure you register enough colleagues to be able to benefit from the general sessions as well as from your 1:1 meeting ...

Timeslots and planning will be based on responses and interests.

Open XML SDK roadmap

Johan Roosen — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 23:27:34 GMT

Have you seen Doug Mahugh's blog for the roadmap and downloads?

Technorati Tags: Open XML

Building great installation packages

Johan Roosen — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 23:04:32 GMT

Developing software is one thing ISV’s are very good at. But are your installation packages as good as your software? On the 4th of June we have a free MSDN Evening that will focus on creating Windows Installer packages. A must see ...

Some session info:

MSI (Windows Installer) packages are the standard way to install software on Windows. But what is a MSI package exactly? During this session we will show you what MSI packages are composed of and how you can build one yourself using Windows Installer XML (WiX) toolset.

WiX is a toolset that builds Windows installation packages from XML source code. Join us to learn and see how this toolset can help to make it easier to deliver software to your customers.

Level 200 - overview

Speaker: Martijn Beenes, software consultant, Info Support

Martijn Beenes is working as software consultant at Info Support in The Netherlands for over six years now. In the past three and a half years he has mainly been active in the department PDC. This department builds and maintains the development software factory Endeavour. In the role of Lead Developer he is involved in building several components of the product and also responsible for the delivery and distribution of the software factory. You can find his blog at http://blogs.infosupport.com/martijnb

Feedback Tim Sneath Q&A

Johan Roosen — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:24:00 GMT

Our Q&A session with Tim Sneath can be called a success. 22 participants from 11 different partners showed up (as well as some Microsoft attendees). Tim started the session with some demos from MIX that surprised some of the attendees. However the overall feeling was that the Q&A was the most valuable part of the session.

I would like to thank all of you for the feedback you gave me. Although the evaluation was positive (as you can see in the summary), there's still room for improvement.

Main issues (I will focus on next time):

Fewer people in the session and/or longer session so everyone gets more/all of his questions answered
Shorter introduction (product presentation) and more Q&A interaction

The positive interest in these kinds of initiatives will trigger more sessions like this in the future...

Free deep technical training on MOSS 2007

Johan Roosen — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 11:32:22 GMT

For ISV's and/or partners who are working on MOSS2007, there are some great deep dive trainings available from Martin Harwar. You can find all the recorded sessions of his Trainer-Led course here: http://www.english-tiger.com/Training/Default.aspx

It's free ... check it out.

Innovation & Discovery Day - 8th May

Johan Roosen — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 23:27:53 GMT

Today, we've sent out the invitations for our new Innovation & Discovery Day. If you didn't receive one in your mailbox, please contact Fien Keijzer.

Soon I will post the abstracts for each session as well. Stay tuned ...

The new format of this event is the start of a number of new initiatives from our DPE team to help our ISV's and partners become more successful. An opportunity you don't want to miss !

Here's is a copy of the most important info from the invitation:

It’s with a lot of pleasure we see the Microsoft ISV community in Belgium and Luxembourg growing, both from a qualitative and from a quantitative point of view. ISV’s are very dynamic partners and Microsoft is keen on exchanging information with them regularly.

Consequently, we organize every quarter an ISV Innovation day covering a mixed agenda of Business –and Business-technical topics. Based on your feedback, we feel strengthened to continuing doing so. However, we also feel a strong need to do something more specific for the technical profiles working at our partners: for the people who are creating the technology that make ISV’s successful.

For this reason we will setup our ISV day in a new format. It will improve and strengthen our partnership both from a business and technical point of view. The event will contain two consecutive tracks with a different focus: the Innovation day (AM), for Business/Technical Decision Makers & Partnership Managers and the Discovery day (PM) oriented towards the Technical Decision Makers and Technology Professionals.

It’s our pleasure to invite you for the Spring edition of our new ISV INNOVATION (Morning session) & DISCOVERY DAY (Afternoon session) on May 8^th from 10h00 until 17h00.

The Innovation day will inform you, next to the traditional business and partnership updates, on Microsoft’s approach how to integrate your powerful Line of Business Applications in the Microsoft Office Suite. This technology, called OBA (Office Business Applications), attracts more and more attention from many ISV and Development partners.
The Discovery day will focus on how ICT departments can benefit the most from their Microsoft partnership. Targeted audience is CIO, CTO, Project managers, (Chief) Architects. In this edition you will learn and experience the power of some of the new Microsoft products and strategies, which are the foundation for the current exciting wave.

Agenda

Innovation day

09.30 – 10.00:	Welcome and coffee
10.00 – 10.30:	Intro: ISV news at Microsoft - Carl Vanden Eynde
10.30 – 11.15:	OBA: A new breed of applications - Johan Roosen
11.15 – 11.45:	What’s new in the Microsoft Partner Program - Lien Deleenheer
11.45 – 12.00:	Q & A
12.00 – 13.00:	Lunch (*)

Discovery day

12.00 – 13.00:	Lunch (*)
13.00 – 13.45:	Getting the most out of Microsoft’s adoption programs - Johan Roosen
13.45 – 14.30:	OBA: Building End-to-End solutions - Philippe Destoop
14.30 – 15.00:	Break
15.00 – 15.45:	SQL2008 and the S+S model - Microsoft speaker
15.45 – 16.30:	An ISV success story - Simon Ferris (Real Dolmen)
16.30 – 17.00:	Closing & drink - Carl Vanden Eynde

(*) Lunch is included for both AM and PM attendees.

Venue

DE MONTIL NV, Moortelstraat 8, 1790 ESSENE

Registration

The registration options are (not mutually exclusive)

Registration of 1 or more participants for the Innovation track (BDM focus)
Registration of 1 or more participants for the Discovery track (TDM focus)
Registration of 1 or more participants for both tracks

Subscribe

To subscribe please send an E-mail to Fien Keijzer and indicate clearly to which session(s) you wish to participate and the names of the attendees.

Tim Sneath - WPF/Silverlight

Johan Roosen — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 18:51:48 GMT

The format has been finalized:

14h00 - 15h30 : Public session (30' presentation, 60' Q&A), limited (+/- 15) number of attendees
15h30 - 16h15 : Private 1:1 session (Q&A) - slot booked
16h15 - 17h00 : Private 1:1 session (Q&A) - slot reserved

Target audience: architects/developers

Location: Microsoft Office Diegem

Participants per company: Recommended 1 or 2, maximum 3

Updated TTT material on Windows Live Quickstart

Johan Roosen — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:23:41 GMT

Technorati Tags: Live

Learn how to quickly and easily deploy world class internet services to your users and build compelling web applications using Windows Live. Windows Live Quick Start is a comprehensive resource for partners to learn about business and technical opportunities with Windows Live.

Partners can find the material here.

Meet Tim Sneath

Johan Roosen — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 13:43:41 GMT

I have some great news for ISV's who are:

looking at WPF/Silverlight
planning to build WPF/Silverlight applications
building WPF/Silverlight applications

On 09/04/2008, Tim Sneath from MS Corp will visit Belgium and is willing to meet customers, partners and ISV's to answer all of their questions and give some guidance and insight on WPF and Silverlight. Check out Tim's blog @ http://blogs.msdn.com/tims.

If this is something you're interested in or you need some more info about this, please contact me

Schedule will be set up based on interest and preferred formats (1:1, 1:F, onsite, offsite, ...).

Vista SP1 is here

Johan Roosen — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 12:46:43 GMT

You can download Windows Vista SP1 via Windows Update. For those of you eager to receive the benefits of Windows Vista SP1, you can now do so.

For those of you happy to wait, sit tight because SP1 will start downloading to customers PCs automatically beginning in mid-April (remember, this happens only if you have your Windows Update configured to automatically download updates and SP1 will automatically download but not automatically install). But if you want to get the benefit of a year's worth of improvements right now, go check Windows Update today (hit the Start Menu, All Programs, and select Windows Update).

For the standalone installers:

x86: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b0c7136d-5ebb-413b-89c9-cb3d06d12674&DisplayLang=en
x64: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22&p=1&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=&u=%2fdownloads%2fdetails.aspx%3fFamilyID%3d874a414b-32b2-41cc-bd8b-d71eda5ec07c%26DisplayLang%3den

A sneak preview of the improvements:

Security
Application compatibility improvements
Reliability improvements
Network performance
Performance and power improvements
Support for new technologies and standards
Desktop admin & mgmt
Setup and deployment
Interopability
File copy
Alignment with Server 2008
...

For more info check out these pages: Product Page and Technet