Adventures In SoftwareLand : MicroISV

Update on MicroISV Evangelism

Michael Lehman — Thu, 28 May 2009 00:06:00 GMT

For the past 4 years I have had the enjoyable task of being the MicroISV Evangelist for Microsoft. Recently based on some organizational changes and task assignment realignment, I have begun to focus my attention full-time on other efforts and thus, effective now, am no longer tasked with MicroISV-related responsibilities.

If you are a MicroISV and are interested in working with Microsoft, I'd highly recommend checking out the BizSpark program and the Microsoft Startup Zone http://www.microsoftstartupzone.com/pages/home.aspx

I may get the opportunity to attend SIC this year but it's looking increasingly unlikely. If I can swing a speaker slot at TechEd EMEA, I'll be visiting ESWC '09.

I thank all of the members of the MicroISV community for their interest and support and look forward to all your wonderful products which I, and millions of other Windows users, continue to enjoy each day.

Update on Microsoft Blueprints

Michael Lehman — Thu, 28 May 2009 00:01:00 GMT

Most of you who read this blog know that for the past 3 years I’ve been driveing a project that was first called Project Glidepath, then Software + Services Blueprints and finally Microsoft Blueprints.

You may have also noticed recently that the Codeplex project where we were distributing the bits has been closed and wondered what’s up.

We are making some changes around Blueprints. Blueprints were an important incubation whose purpose was to explore process guidance and automation. They helped us gain a better understanding of requirements for this kind of technology through customer and partner feedback.

Recently, however, we took down the Blueprints project on CodePlex and the Blueprints home page on MSDN. We did this in order to focus on the incubation internally. This work includes determining how best to support process guidance and automation capabilities in a manner aligned with Visual Studio Team System product direction.

Since February, I also have moved from focusing on evangelism to spending my time working more closely with the Visual Studio team and am looking forward to seeing what comes from that collaboration.

Back from the shadows again!...

Michael Lehman — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 15:44:00 GMT

Unlike the plan which I had in place, I've been silent for the past two months going heads-down on a new project. It's been a major push and I'm happy to say it's nearing an end as it will be unveiled next Monday, November 5th, at the Microsoft TechEd : Developers conference in Barcelona, Spain.

Before that happens, I'm at the 7th annual European Shareware Conference, being held in Cologne, Germany, where I'll be speaking on a panel discussion Saturday morning at 9:00 AM and giving an talk about independent innovation on Sunday morning at 10:00 AM.

If you are a MicroISV @ ESWC, I'd love to spend 5-10 minutes with you and highlight you and your products. Ask any of the conference organizers or use the email link and we'll plan a time for an interview.

Meanwhile... stay tuned for a major announcement on Monday!

MicroISVs on the "Seat of Heat"... First part of SIC 2007 videos now live on Channel9

Michael Lehman — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 17:59:00 GMT

At the Software Industry Conference 2007, I got more than a dozen MicroISVs to sit in the "seat of heat" and do a brief video interview.

The first part of these interviews is now live on Channel9! Enjoy.

Software Industry Conference 2007 - lots of new faces

Michael Lehman — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 19:43:00 GMT

The Software Industry Conference 2007 just opened this morning here in Denver, Colorado and, according to the organizers, 80% of the attendees are new attendees (as opposed to people who attended this event in previous years).

I've been saying on this blog, and around Microsoft, for the past few years that the number of MicroISVs is growing and this is a great indicator of just that phenomenon.

I'm giving two talks, one tomorrow about podcasting and one on Saturday about Independent Innovation.

I also still have openings in my schedule for podcast interviews if you're here at SIC and want to get on Channel9. Just click on the email link and drop me a line or find me around the show.

MicroISV Show Interviews @ Software Industry Conference next week

Michael Lehman — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 04:32:00 GMT

UPDATE: Exhibit night is FRIDAY.

Bob Walsh and I are happy to announce two opportunities for you to be interviewed at SIC (www.sic.org) and get featured on our Microsoft Channel9 show (http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/The_MicroISV_Show).

We will be doing audio podcasts throughout SIC and you can request a time slot by emailing me.

In addition, on ~~Thursday’s~~ Friday's Exhibit Night, we will have our video camera set up in the Microsoft booth and you can come be interviewed on-camera (5 minute slots) for a special SIC-edition video MicroISV show episode which should appear on Channel9 the week following SIC. You do not have to pre-schedule Exhibit Night interviews.

Hope to see you there!

Time to face forward and...get moving!

Michael Lehman — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 22:11:00 GMT

I've been travelling a bit lately and fallen off the "blogging" horse. So, I'm once again climbing aboard my trusty steed "Bloggy" and off we go again!

First up, I just posted the next episode of The MicroISV Show on Channel9 which features Mike Rohde talking about how starting to think about your user experience and design issues when you're first dreaming up a product is now quickly becoming the norm rather than the exception.

Secondly, I've just posted the most recent entry in my "7 Day Software" series which hilights software that I've installed that I kept installed after using it for at least 7 days. This time it's FeedForAll from NotePage, Inc.

Finally, I highly recommend the following 3 books that have helped me start thinking again by delivering the proverbial "head wack" just when I needed it:

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, author of The Legend of Bagger Vance and other novels. A great how-to move from Resistance (wanting to create but not getting anything done) to Professional (where you actually do it!)
Crazy Busy by Dr. Edward "Ned" M. Hallowell, MD, author of Delivered from Distraction. Practially everyone, especially in the tech biz, these days suffers from Acquired ADD. We recently interviewed Dr. Hallowell for The MicroISV show.
The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris. This book has really got me thinking about how I go about making sure I'm never the "middle aged fat guy in the red BMW".

p.s. Thanks to Bob Walsh for recommending these books to me!

Now... I've got to go off and post something new at my personal Independent Innovation blog!

Office Interactive Developer Map: A Very Cool WPF Application

Michael Lehman — Wed, 30 May 2007 21:21:00 GMT

You've got to check out the Microsoft Office Interactive Developer Map and it's write up on the Sharepoint Products and Technologies Team Blog.

This Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) application allows you to drill down to each product and technology and learn about new features, objects, Web services, namespaces, and schemas required to extend Microsoft Office and build custom Office Business Applications (OBAs).

If you've ever thought a building an application that involves Office integration you need this tool!

Gavin Bowman's Obligatory Blog aggregates MicroISV news

Michael Lehman — Wed, 30 May 2007 20:20:00 GMT

Gavin Bowman, proprietor of V4 Solutions, writes what he calls the "Obligatory Blog" (he says: These days if you run a software company, you have to have a Blog. This is mine).

Gavin is a MicroISV and subject of my first interview on The MicroISV Show, who now has a second product, congratulations!

On his blog, he does a weekly chronicle of doings in the MicroISV space under the headings of: News and Announcements, Relevant Blog Posts and Articles and Further (mostly relevant) Reading.

If you're a MicroISV, or want to be one, check out Gavin's Obligatory Blog regularly.

Bob Walsh's take on MIX, Blend and Silverlight

Michael Lehman — Sun, 20 May 2007 21:31:00 GMT

Bob Walsh, author of "MicroISV: From Vision to Reality", and co-host of The MicroISV Show on Channel9, has written a blog post about his experiences at MIX07.

Eric Sink : Geeks Rule and MBAs Drool...

Michael Lehman — Tue, 08 May 2007 21:34:00 GMT

I just discovered this article by Eric Sink (from 2005 but still very, very topical) about the often-discussed-on-The-MicroISV-Show topic of should you go it "alone" or have a "business-oriented" co-founder.

In the past I have started companies (a) by myself, (b) with a non-technical co-founder and (c) with a technical co-founder and only approach (c) actually worked.

I'd love to hear from MicroISVs who have attempted any one of the three approaches and find out what you think.

Silverlight is going to be huge for MicroISVs

Michael Lehman — Wed, 02 May 2007 19:31:00 GMT

This week at MIX07 we revealed the full extent of Microsoft Silverlight which includes support for XAML-based UI and includes a .NET CLR with support for C#, VB.Net, IronPython, JScript and eventually IronRuby and VBx which enables the delivery of cross-platform high-speed, rich functionality applications in IE, Firefox (and soon Opera, post v1.1) on Windows, and in Safari on the Macintosh.

You can download the alpha of Silverlight Version 1.1 right now.

What Silverlight means to MicroISVs is, when 1.1 is released, the ability to write a wide-range of always-up-to-date, high-performance desktop-like applications delivered over the web without the use of AJAX or Javascript.

(NB: the Silverlight CLR contains a JIT compiler which yields up-to-1000x-faster performance than JavaScript)

It does not mean that desktop applications are history because:

You have to persist the user's data in the cloud
There are some things you can't do in the Silverlight CLR (it's a hefty subset of the full CLR/BCL but not everything is included)
There is limited access to writing to local storage (check the SDK docs for info about 'isolated storage')
The app always has to run online (but that means no "patches")

but it does create some awesome opportunities for a wide range of real high-performance applications coded in real languages.

Since the apps are always downloaded you can choose to serve them only to users who are currently licensed. No need for "trial" downloads, simply turn the users access off after the trial period unless they pay. You could even deliver one version of the application to users who are in the 'trial' state and a more-fully-featured version to users who are in the 'subscribed' state. And, in my opinion, very significantly, if you want to, you can sell it using a subscription based business model instead of just a one-time charge and build multiple streams of recurring income.

It will not, since the IL will be cached in the browser, completely eliminate the need for obfuscation but since each running application will, by necessity, need to connect back to your server, mean that cracks will be much less likely and, since the user's data is stored on a servers a cracked version will be of much less use.

The cloud storage is also an opportunity for MicroISVs to offer additional local backup-your-cloud-data-locally tools and services.

Bottom line is this the kind of profound paradigm shift that MicroISVs have the agility, motivation and skill to take advantage of big-time.

I can't wait to see the new, innovative applications that are built on Silverlight!

Stay tuned for Project Glidepath guidance, code templates and tooling in the near future.

Check out the videos of all the MIX07 keynotes, breakouts and panel discussions available online now (with the full set to be available in the next couple of days)

Launching The Independent Innovation Blog

Michael Lehman — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 19:41:00 GMT

IndependentInnovation.net - My new blog and podcast.

Independent Innovation is a new meme that is rapidly changing the work and personal lives of millions of people around the globe as the Internet and widespread adoption of broadband technology is enabling individuals and small groups to create new self-funded, live-anywhere, sustainable lifestyle companies that delivering their digital intellectual property (digita IP) products via the Internet.

I have been wanting for a while to expand my view beyond just MicroISVs to complement the work I do here at Microsoft and so I have just launched a new blog and podcast over at www.independentinnovation.net and invite all my Adventures In SoftwareLand readers to surf on over and check it out.

Most MicroISVs are Independent Innovators and so the site will feature frequent interviews and topics of interest to MicroISVs. In my experience most developers, no matter where and how they work, are also artistic in one sense or another (mostly musical) and you'll also find many interesting topics related to distribution and protection of digital IP of other forms over at IndependentInnovation.net as well.

On the new site I will be commenting about trends in the Independent Innovation space, interviewing both Indepdent Innovators and those who provide products and services to them as well as hosting guest blog posts by some of the thought leaders who are pointing the way to this new way of working and living.

Free Event: Office Live Review for MicroISVs - Redmond-May21, Boston-June 5, Sillicon Valley-June 11

Michael Lehman — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 00:41:00 GMT

CORRECTION: Office is the "Professional" SKU and Vista is the "Business" SKU.

UPDATE: We are also going to offer this event in two additional locations and dates: June 5th (Boston) and June 11th (Silicon Valley/Mountain View)

UPDATE: Office and Vista are "Ultimate" SKUs.

UPDATE: Office Live Developer Center on MSDN

UPDATE: Office Live Marketplace

Do you build software solutions and/or provide services to small business?

Do you want to create an additional stream of income with a low technical barrier of entry?

Are you interested in knowing how to take advantage of the shifting software plus services paradigm?

Then the Office Live Review for Micro ISVs is the event you should attend!

Come hear details about the Office Live platform, how you can easily integrate with your applications, create solutions and offer services to small businesses, and… receive a free copy of Office 2007 Ultimate and Windows Vista Ultimate! The first 20 people to create an Office Live solution and post it to the Office Live Marketplace will also receive a Zune!

Office Live provides you with an opportunity to access the 6 million US based small business market in a saleable and profitable manner through extending the Office Live platform by:

· Extend and integrate your existing products via the Office Live web services and the Windows Live SDK to interact with the Office Live environment accessing contact information, presence management, document management, shared calendaring and more.

· Creating customized, verticalized, and niche solutions offered to a single customer or created for a broad audience

· Providing design and other consulting services to Office Live customers

· Extending the capability of a customer’s existing server deployment with extranet based solutions that may integrate with other applications

Office Live is a set of web-based services for small businesses to manage their business online. It consists of a public facing web site for their customers and private web site that employees can use to collaborate and manage the business. The private site comes with business applications for managing contacts, e-mail, calendars, projects, documents, sales and more.

To the developer Office Live represents a compelling software-as-a-service platform for rapidly building custom solutions available to thousands of small businesses.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

When:

May 21^st ^th, 2007 9AM-5PM

Where:

Redmond, Washington in the Platform Adoption Center @ Building 20.

What:

This one-day workshop will focus on delivering the following goals for the attendees:

Understand Microsoft’s Office Live strategy and how to build solutions that extend it.
Understand Microsoft Office Live offerings – Office Live Basic, Office Live Collaboration, and Office Live Essentials, and what types of scenarios each of these apply to.
Learn about Office Live Business Applications and Shared Workspaces.
Learn how to customize the Office Live environment, including templates, look and feel, web parts, and navigation. Understand when to use Site Designer and when to use SharePoint Designer to customize the environment.
Learn how to extend the Office Live environment, to create verticalized applications. This includes defining workflow rules, data sharing, web parts and mash-ups.

The workshop will provide developers with the necessary experience to exploit Office Live functionality in the following technologies:

Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) v3 (Web Parts, Workflows, Lists, Content types, Web services)
Office 2007 (SharePoint Designer, InfoPath 2007, Access 2007, Excel 2007)
Office Live Specific (Business Applications, Shared Sites, Site Designer, SBA Sharing Workspace)
Windows Live ID
Web Technologies (HTML, XHTML, Web Design, CSS)

Attendees are encouraged to consider the following pre-requisites to ensure a positive experience in the workshop:

Active development experience with C# and/or VB.NET or JavaScript
Active development experience with Windows SharePoint Services v3 and Office SharePoint Server.
Basic understanding of Web technologies such as HTML, CSS, RSS, client-side scripting
Ideally development experience with Office client applications
Basic understanding of SharePoint portal technology

Workshop Format:

The course will be comprised of module covering an Office Live concept. The agenda for the one-day event is as follows:

Start	Stop	Description
08:30	09:00	Arrival and registration
09:00	09:15	Welcome and logistics
09:15	10:00	Understanding the Office Live Architecture
10:00	11:00	Understanding the Office Live Data and Storage Architecture
11:00	12:00	Using Workflows to Define Business Rules in Office Live Apps
12:00	13:00	Lunch
13:00	14:00	Programming with the Office Live Web Service API
14:00	15:00	Integrating with Office Live Authentication using Windows Live ID
15:00	15:15	Break
15:15	16:15	Build Office Live Integration using VS with Project GlidePath
16:15	17:15	Creating Mash-Ups in Office Live
17:15		Dinner

How to Register:

1. Click on the registration link: https://microsoft.crgevents.com/officelive/

2. Select New Registration

3. Supply the Registration Code: GENATT

The MicroISV Show #14 - Don Dodge

Michael Lehman — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 02:37:00 GMT

Just posted the latest episode of The MicroISV show which was a great interview with Don Dodge, a member of the Emerging Business Team here at Microsoft.

Don and his team work with startups and help them connect directly with our product developers.

Visit The Microsoft Startup Zone for more information.