Beyond | IT : ODC2008

FedEx QuickShip Revisited

john.mullinax — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:14:00 GMT

Jon Box has short post today talking about our partnership with FedEx a while back to help them build and launch their FedEx QuickShip service. The formal launch was on stage with Bill Gates at the Office Developers Conference – exciting times!

I think FedEx has been pretty pleased with the reception of FedEx QuickShip by our mutual customers. Two of the guys involved on the FedEx side are Ben Baker and Matt Howell – FedEx recently made a video of them talking about FedEx QuickShip.

For more info on this solution from FedEx, checkout my earlier posts, here. And do check out Jon’s post for links to case studies and some great quotes about how FedEx can make life better for their customers by building customer solutions on top of Microsoft Office.

Technorati Tags: FedEx,QuickShip,Office Development

And the winner of the BillG - signed Guitar Hero guitar at ODC 2008 is...

john.mullinax — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 09:45:22 GMT

As I mentioned here, we held a raffle earlier today to give away a Guitar Hero III guitar, complete with Bill Gates' autograph, at the Office Developers Conference 2008. The guitar played a part in the FedEx demo during BillG's keynote kicking off the conference. (More on that, including pics and video, here, and Jon Box's take on it here).

The conference was just wrapping up, and at noon PST today we gathered folks together in the "interactive theater" in the exhibit hall (ok, we all crowded into a small room with curtains for walls) and drew the lucky winner from a FedEx box absolutely full of entries. And... the winner is...

Clayton James!

Clayton was kind enough to stick around and answer a few questions that I know are at the top of everyone's mind!

Question: What do you do?

Answer: I'm a Microsoft Certified Trainer and Consultant with Data Cogs in Brisbane, Australia - a .NET and SharePoint consultancy.

Question: Australia! Do you know Frank Arrigo?

Answer: Yes!

Question: Do you have an XBOX 360?

Answer: No...

Question: Are you going to get one?

Answer: Definitely!

Question: Most importantly, are you going to actually play Guitar Hero with the BillG-signed guitar?

Answer: That's a tough one... maybe once!

We chatted a bit more, and before Clayton headed out he said he'd send a video playing with the guitar, and we'd see about getting it up on Silverlight streaming.

We'll get a pic up of Clayton receiving his Guitar "soon".

Finally, much sincere thanks to FedEx for helping Clayton get his new guitar shipped back home to Brisbane at no charge! Very classy!

Technorati Tags: ODC 2008,FedEx QuickShip,FedEx,Guitar Hero,BillG,OBA,S+S,Software+Services

BillG Keynote at ODC -- see the video and screenshots from the FedEx demo

john.mullinax — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:34:00 GMT

If you weren't at ODC live to see BillG's keynote, you can see the video here. [Note: updated link so it works again.]

Also, FedEx showed a number of cool things during BillG's keynote at ODC today. The demo was really packed, so there wasn't a lot of time for to really dwell on / explore the interesting things they've put together. Here are a few screenshots for the different scenarios that were shown:

The FedEx QuickShip toolbar for Microsoft Office Outlook.

As a reminder, FedEx QuickShip is the Office Outlook add-in that FedEx is launched today. You can learn more, and download the add-in free of charge at the FedEx site here.

Printing to FedEx Kinkos from Office Word 2007. This was built using Visual Studio 2008 and VSTO 3. This is a prototype that FedEx is very excited about. Keep in mind it might change significantly when/if FedEx brings it to production.

While FedEx already has a printer driver type of capability called FPFK (File Print FedEx Kinkos) that lets you print to Kinkos from any Windows application (including Word), the kind of experience that FedEx showed today is far richer. In addition to connecting users to Kinkos services, it also provides the contextual information and visualizations to help people make decisions about how to leverage Kinkos services.

A "MyFedEx-style" site template that customers can use from within their own SharePoint environment. Uses ASP.NET AJAX, and pulls in mapping data from Virtual Earth -- in addition to the FedEx services, of course. Let's users find the rates for shipping packages, manage shipments, and see where there shipments are, and the route they've taken.

This is also a prototype that could change if/when it comes to production. One thing to keep in mind, customers could build this for themselves using SharePoint and FedEx's services. You can learn more about how to build with FedEx's services at the FedEx Developer Resource Center (DRC).

FedEx capabilities within Office Live Small Business. This screenshot shows tracking for FedEx shipments and Kinkos print orders within Office Live. This was built using Office Live Small Business and FedEx's HTML plugins available through the FedEx DRC.

Technorati Tags: ODC,BillG,FedEx QuickShip

Win a Guitar Hero Guitar signed by BillG!

john.mullinax — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:42:31 GMT

As I mentioned here in the post about FedEx's awesome announcements and demo, Microsoft and FedEx are giving away a Guitar Hero III game, complete with a guitar signed by David Zanca and BillG!

You can see the guitar at the FedEx both at the ODC. And when you're done there, stop by and say "Hi" at the Microsoft Architects booth next door!

For more pics from the ODC keynote, check out Eric Bowen's post here.

Technorati Tags: ODC,FedEx

FedEx joins BillG on stage at ODC 2008 to announce FedEx QuickShip, and show off Office as a platform, S+S

john.mullinax — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:33:00 GMT

(Update 1:41pm PST: See screenshots and video here!)

I'm at the Office Developers Conference 2008 this week, and BillG is on stage doing Q&A, having just finished the keynote. A number of the highlights involved FedEx.

In fact, FedEx SVP David Zanca joined BillG on stage and announced the public launch of FedEx QuickShip. FedEx QuickShip is an easy way to use FedEx tools and services from within Office. Very cool! Jon Box and I have been working with FedEx behind the scenes on FedEx QuickShip for a while now, so it's very exciting to see it finally get officially "born"!

Maybe even cooler is what's to come: Zanca also showed how FedEx is thinking very broadly about using Microsoft Office as a platform for accessing and interacting with FedEx shipping and printing services. Among other things, he showed:

Printing from Word 2007 directly to Kinkos -- complete with the ability to select finishing options like bindings (color, paper size), to see visualizations of the document as options are selected and deselected, and to see how the prices change in context.
Sharepoint site template that can give you something like a "MyFedEx" -- but for your own sharepoint site. Among other things, it leverages Virtual Earth to show where your package is and where it's been.

For customers, it's a way to get access to the power of FedEx -- and do it directly from within the environments where they do their work. For FedEx, it's a new way to reach customers, and to differentiate FedEx, by serving customers in ways that help people work better.

Beyond Office at the client level (Outlook, Word) and Office at the server level (Sharepoint), the Office Live team also showed how FedEx services can be brought into people's Office Live services environments.

Taken together, what FedEx showed is a great example of the kinds of differentiating user experiences that can be created across the full Office platform. It's also a great example of Microsoft's Software + Services vision. While S+S is a term that Microsoft tends to use, the concept is something we're seeing get a lot of traction in the industry today. For example, Rob Carter recently said:

“The Internet doesn’t mean a customer destination like a Web site—it means connections. For FedEx, that means finding more ways to integrate its offerings into what people are doing in work and life.”

It's been a lot of fun for Jon Box and I to work with the FedEx team on all of this!

One more bit of fun... at the end of the Zanca's demo, a FedEx courier came up on stage and delivered a Guitar Hero III Les Paul model guitar to BillG! We're going to give that guitar -- autographed by BillG and Zanca -- away to someone at ODC near the end of the conference! If you're at the ODC, come check it out at the FedEx ODC event booth! (Update: See the guitar here!)

And if you do, don't forget to stop by the Microsoft booth next door and say "Hi" -- Jon and I will be there off and on throughout the conference.

Technorati Tags: Office Platform,ODC,FedEx,S+S,Software+Services

Miss your chance to see BillG keynote CES? See him keynote the Office Developers Conference 2008!

john.mullinax — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 21:01:13 GMT

The Office Developers Conference (ODC) is coming up quick, starting 10-Feb-2008 in San Jose this year. Should be an awesome event! Office 2007 is by far the best Office yet to build solutions on, and now that it's got a year on the market under it's belt I can't wait to see what everyone is showing off!

As an added bonus, Bill Gates will keynote the event to kick things off -- his last ODC Keynote as a full-time Microsoft employee. So if you missed him at CES, don't miss him here! After that, you can look forward to a few great days getting inspired and learning how to put that inspiration into practice.

More info below - grabbed from the conference registration site: www.odc2008.com.

I will sure be there, and look forward to seeing many of you there, too! :-)

LIVE DEMOS. REAL CODE. HOT NEW INFO.

The 2008 Microsoft Office System Developer Conference

February 10-13, San Jose California

ODC 2008 is the premier event for Microsoft Office and SharePoint developers, bringing together architects, developers, industry technical experts, Microsoft insiders, and key partners to redefine what it means to build on the Office system.

Opening Keynote by
Microsoft Chairman, Bill Gates

We have incredible keynotes by senior Microsoft executives, starting with a special opening keynote by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. We’ll have hot new sessions that bring together diverse topics, from application composition to Software+Services, SharePoint & Silverlight to VOIP & OOXML, and everything in between!
We have 5 technical tracks, and 70+ breakout sessions and hands-on labs. And for the first time ever, we will have an Executive Track where analysts, Microsoft and industry executives will get together to discuss the how and why of Office business applications and their competitive advantages.
We look forward to seeing you there!

Additional Executive Keynotes:

Kurt DelBene - CVP, Office Business Platform Group
Rajesh Jha - CVP, Office Live
Richard McAniff – CVP, Microsoft Office
Gurdeep Singh Pall - CVP, Microsoft Unified Communications Group

Technorati tags: ODC2008, Bill Gates, Microsoft, Office, Conference