What's Rockin' in Singapore

On 30th January, we did the first of a planned series of web-related technology talk events -- this time focusing on Web User Experience (UX). I'd like to thank everyone who attended and stayed back late (we overran by 45 minutes!)  I think we had a lively time.

We covered the following in the 3 hour presentation session:

1. An overview of the spectrum of Microsoft's user experience technologies. This spans from the ubiquitous web-based (such as ASP.NET AJAX) to rich user interfaces leveraging platform capabilities (such as Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Mobile), and finally to the new class of Rich Internet Applications (enabled by Silverlight.) We also showed (or, in a specific instance, attempted to show ) real-life applications deployed by customers / partners using these technologies.
2. Jocelyn (our ISV Developer Evangelist) then did a code-talk / demo session on ASP.NET AJAX. Be sure to check out the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit -- you saw how easy it was to add interactivity to ASP.NET web applications!
3. We had Yong Hwee from patroids creative works who shared first-hand experience on developing their first project on Silverlight.
4. I then did a code demo on how we actually developed a real-world Silverlight 1.0 application using Visual Studio and JavaScript. Of course, you can also build video-rich application in 7 steps, and no code with Expression Media Encoder.

My presentation decks for the session can be found on my SkyDrive. You can find Jocelyn's presentation deck (Overview of ASP.NET AJAX) here.

I have also uploaded my two slide decks, which can be accessed from the links below:

• Microsoft & Web 2.0 - UX Technologies.pdf
• Building a Rich Internet Application with Silverlight 1.0.pdf

(I will be sharing the Silverlight demo code as I clean it up for public consumption, so do check back this blog again in a week or so...)

Prelude:

Do keep a look out for the next event entitled "Building Web 2.0 Mash-ups" -- where we will talk and demo building Facebook applications with Visual Studio, creating mash-ups with Windows Live Services, and introduce cool technologies like PopFly, etc.  

This scheduled for the evening of 12 March 2008 -- keep it free!

If you are interested in SOA, you should be excited about this upcoming event organised by SiTF together with the support of 6 friendly vendors. Microsoft is one of the sponsors.

Stanley Tan, Academic Program Manager, Microsoft Singapore will be presenting on The Next Generation Web, first presentation in the morning. The web can be the consume layer of the SOA stack.

"There is great interest in Web 2.0, blogs, wiki’s and social software in the consumer space but what are the implications of the Web 2.0 phenomena in the enterprise? Is Web 2.0 another internet bubble and so can be safely ignored or is there some substance to the hype? In this session, you will be wowed by the exciting demonstrations and showcases of the latest Microsoft’s Web 2.0 offerings like Silverlight, Popfly, and so on… "

In the afternoon from 3.30 to 5.50 pm at level 4, there will be 2 hrs of exciting hands on lab on Silverlight technologies! Come and try out the labs! Every person who completes the labs and feedback forms will bring home either a T-shirt, mug, name card holder, glass globe or pouch (no one will leave empty handed!). In addition, you will also stand a chance to win Office Home & Student 2007 (1 copy) or Windows Live OneCare (3 copies). The draw will start right after the lab sessions.

Another edition of Architect Council is coming... this time, the topic would be around Software+Services and Web 2.0. We also have a guest speaker to share his real life experience in using Silverlight technologies for building portals.

The flagship event for architect for the year is ON! I'm sure all the attendees will be charmed by the rich contents and delivery of our MS Corp speakers!

May 16^th, 2007
Intercontinental Hotel / Singapore
Ballroom, Level 2
Dear Architects,
Please join us for RAF07, the Microsoft Regional Architect Forum Southeast Asia, which will be held on May 16th, 2007, in Singapore.
RAF is Microsoft's premier gathering of strategic architects and other key influencers from enterprises around South East Asia. The Regional Architect Forum SEA promises to be an invigorating and lively event, with key technology leaders from Microsoft sharing their vision with you and listening closely to your business needs and business vision.
The theme for SEA RAF07 is Software + Services.
Services are everywhere. Global business collaboration is driving organizations of all sorts - from manufacturers to logistics providers to telecoms to governments - to become business service providers. Business applications - the software that integrates these services into manageable processes - are sourcing business services from an increasingly heterogeneous network of providers. To embrace the Software + Services model, we must understand how to both provide and consume business services. What do business applications that consume external services look like, and what do they need from their service providers? How can an organization become a trustworthy business service provider? How do we manage and govern a service portfolio that extends beyond the boundaries of the organization? How will S+S foster people-driven productivity, and what new metaphors are emerging to make the power of S+S available to everyone?
Join us at RAF07 to explore this new direction both for technology architecture and for the collaboration between organizations around the globe. This event showcases key learnings from industry specialists brought to you by Microsoft Corporation.
Service Oriented Architecture, Enterprise Service Bus, Software as a Service.'85 it is hard these days to find an Architecture concept that is not about services. Whether you are interested in decomposing your business in services, gaining agility via services or reaching new opportunities by aggregating services, this track will explore Services from many angles through many lenses, all accruing to this year's theme of Software + Services.

or

We look forward to seeing you at the event!
Yours sincerely,

Marcos Pinedo
Director - Platform Strategy
D&PE Asia Pacific

Agenda

TIME

ACTIVITY

09.00am - 09.30am

Keynote Address

09.55am - 10.15am

SOA: The Road Ahead
Lawrence Lim
Director. SOA Business Development
NYP-SITF SOA Centre

10.15am - 11.15am

Software + Services: Microsoft's Vision for SOA, SaaS, Web 2.0
Michael Platt
Microsoft Corporation

11.15am - 11.30am

Refreshment Break

11.30am - 12.30pm

Office Business Applications - The Wave is Here
Khawar Ahmed
Senior Product Manager
Microsoft Corporation

12.30pm - 01.30pm

Lunch

Breakout Track 1 - Architecture/Software + Service Track

01.30pm - 02.30pm

Why Business Architecture is so Important to Enterprise Architecture
John Eldridge
Microsoft Singapore

02.30pm - 03.30pm

Architecture Implications of Software as a Service
Fred Chong
Microsoft Corporation

03.30pm - 04.00pm

Refreshment Break

04.00pm - 05.00pm

Web 2.0 and SOA: Architectures and Technologies
Michael Platt
Microsoft Corporation

05.00pm - 06.00pm

Architecting SaaS Applications
Fred Chong
Microsoft Corporation

Breakout Track 2 - Web/Office as a Platform Track

01.30pm - 02.30pm

Web 2.0 in the Enterprise
Michael Platt
Microsoft Corporation

02.30pm - 03.30pm

Building Composite Applications
Atanu Banerjee
Microsoft Corporation

03.30pm - 04.00pm

Refreshment Break

04.00pm - 05.00pm

OBA Examples
Khawar Ahmed
Microsoft Corporation

05.00pm - 06.00pm

Anatomy and Patterns for an Office Business Application
Atanu Banerjee
Microsoft Corporation

06.00pm

End

*Agenda is correct at the time of printing. The organizer reserves the right to make changes to the Agenda.

Supporting organizations:

www.IASAhome.org

If you are unable to view this message, please copy and paste this link into your browser
http://www.ap-businessit.com/msforum/index.html

May 16^th, 2007
Intercontinental Hotel / Singapore
Dear Architects,
Please join us for RAF07, the Microsoft Regional Architect Forum Southeast Asia, which will be held on May 16th, 2007, in Singapore.
RAF is Microsoft’s premier gathering of strategic architects and other key influencers from enterprises around South East Asia. The Regional Architect Forum SEA promises to be an invigorating and lively event, with key technology leaders from Microsoft sharing their vision with you and listening closely to your business needs and business vision.

The theme for SEA RAF07 is Software + Services.
Services are everywhere. Global business collaboration is driving organizations of all sorts — from manufacturers to logistics providers to telecoms to governments — to become business service providers. Business applications — the software that integrates these services into manageable processes — are sourcing business services from an increasingly heterogeneous network of providers. To embrace the Software + Services model, we must understand how to both provide and consume business services. What do business applications that consume external services look like, and what do they need from their service providers? How can an organization become a trustworthy business service provider? How do we manage and govern a service portfolio that extends beyond the boundaries of the organization? How will S+S foster people-driven productivity, and what new metaphors are emerging to make the power of S+S available to everyone?
Join us at RAF07 to explore this new direction both for technology architecture andfor the collaboration between organizations around the globe.This event showcaseskey learnings from industry specialists brought to you by Microsoft Corporation.
Service Oriented Architecture, Enterprise Service Bus, Software as a Service…'85 it is hard these days to find an Architecture concept that is not about services. Whether you are interested in decomposing your business in services, gaining agility via services or reaching new opportunities by aggregating services, this track will explore Services from many angles through many lenses, all accruing to this year’s theme of Software + Services.

OR

We look forward to seeing you at the event!
Yours sincerely,

Marcos Pinedo
Director - Platform Strategy
D&PE Asia Pacific

Agenda

09.00am – 09.30am

Registration

09.30am – 09.55am

Keynote Address

09.55am – 10.15am

SOA: The Road Ahead

10.15am – 11.15am

Software + Services: Microsoft’s vision for SOA, SaaS, Web 2.0

11.15am – 11.30am

Refreshment Break

11.30am – 12.30pm

Office Business Applications – The Wave is Here

12.30pm – 01.30pm

Lunch

01.30pm – 02.30pm

Concurrent Tracks
Architecture / Software + Service Track

• Why Business Architecture Is so Important to Enterprise Architecture

Web / Office as a Platform Track

• Web 2.0 in the Enterprise

02.30pm – 03.30pm

Concurrent Tracks
Architecture / Software + Service Track

• Architecture Implications of Software as a Service

Web / Office as a Platform Track

• Building Composite Applications

03.30pm – 04.00pm

Refreshment Break

04.00pm – 05.00pm

Concurrent Tracks
Architecture / Software + Service Track

• Web 2.0 and SOA: Architectures and Technologies

Web / Office as a Platform Track

• OBA Examples

05.00pm – 06.00pm

Concurrent Tracks
Architecture / Software + Service Track

• Architecting SaaS Applications

Web / Office as a Platform Track

• Anatomy and Patterns for an Office Business Application

06.00pm

End

Venue

Intercontinental Hotel Singapore

80 Middle Road
Ballroom, Level 2

Date

May 16^th, 2007

*Agenda is correct at the time of printing. The organizer reserves the right to make changes to the Agenda.
Supporting organizations:

www.IASAhome.org

I am organising the first Architect Council on 19 April. This council will provide an unique opportunity for technical decision makers/senior architects to meet, network and discuss industry-wide issues. They will also share their ideas and experiences, hear about Microsoft's architectural positioning. The aim is to promote the development of a wider and more engaged Singapore architect community. The architect council is formed through exclusive invitation and all members will get to meet once every 2 to 3 months. In between, members will also get regular updates on upcoming technologies, conferences, workshops, trainings and covering real world topics relevant to enterprise, infrastructure and solutions architects.

                For the first session, I will be covering an overview on Microsoft application platform. The second part of the session will be a sharing session on Office Business Application (OBA) by a visitor from MS Corp, Chris Bryant. Chris Bryant is the Senior Product Manager of the Office Platform team based in Redmond. Chris was a lead developer on the Access team for 11 years and spent 2 of those years also doing development for the SharePoint team before joining the business group as a product manager for the Office Platform.  He is currently responsible for evangelizing the use of Office as a platform for building OBAs.  He brings his technical background in software development as experience to draw from when brainstorming possible OBA scenarios with customers and/or partners. 

We have been talking, and will continue to talk about Office Business Applications (OBAs) to enterprise customers and ISV partners for the past few weeks.

As a follow-up, we will be organizing a Hands-On Lab session targeting technical developers which will cover enterprise business application development with Microsoft Office client and server products.  This is an excellent opportunity to get actual hands on coding experience with developing solutions with Word, Excel, InfoPath and SharePoint Server.

The first 3-day session is slated to take place between 12^th – 14^th March 2007.   Please help forward this to your colleagues as well as you see fit. Due to expected response, we will like to limit the training to two persons per customer.

Oh yeah - most importantly, the training is provided FOC.  

Venue: Microsoft Singapore Level 22, Microsoft Innovation Centre

RSVP: onghelen@singnet.com.sg

Building Business Applications with Microsoft Office Systems 2007 Platform
Meticulously designed over the years, Microsoft Office 2007 helps increase individual impact, simplify collaboration and streamline business processes.
To enrich your experience with the launch, we are pleased to invite you to a three-day comprehensive Hands-on-Lab session with Microsoft Office 2007 client and server technologies. Learn a new paradigm to unlock business value from the world’s leading productivity platform. Here, you can also learn to take advantage of Microsoft Office 2007 for sharing, analyzing, managing information and connecting to Line-of-Business (LOB) applications like never before.

In the coming months, you can also look forward to:
               - Architecture Guidance
               - Application Compatibility Labs
               - Technical Support during Development

Date: 12th - 14th March 07
Venue: Microsoft Innovation Centre, Level 22, One Marina Boulevard, Microsoft

Be prepared
Find the resources you need to make the most of partner opportunities with the 2007 Microsoft Office system.
Find information
Check out the information Worker Solutions Competency and learn how to unleash untapped revenues and business potential.
Start learning
Get the training you need to meet your customers* needs more efficiency, build new revenue streams around Microsoft Technologies, and stay ahead of the market in the Partner Learning center.

Day 1 - Office Client Theme (9am - 6pm)

Topics

• Developer Roadmap
  Office Client Enhancements
• Office Extensible File Format
• Building Template-based Solutions
  Developing Office 2007 Solutions

Day 2 – Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) Theme (9am - 6pm)

Topics 

• MOSS 2007 Core Architecture
• MOSS Storage
• Developing and Deploying MOSS Applications
  MOSS Core Development

Day 3 – Office Server Services Theme (9am - 6pm)

Topics

• Building Forms Solutions
• Working with Excel Services
• Creating Portal Applications (Workflow, Search, BDC)
  Security Integration

RSVP
To register E-mail:  onghelen@singnet.com.sg or call Helen Ong at 9764 1354

The value of what people do in the digital space has increased in recent years. The Internet itself has become more complex, criminalized and diabolic. Online identity theft, fraud, and privacy concerns are on the rise. At Microsoft, we believe that many of the dangers and uncertainties of today's digital experiences can be a thing of the past!

At the forthcoming Microsoft Enterprise Application Development Platform Update, our experts will speak on how leading-edge technologies can help solve some of the fundamental challenges & security issues of this digital era. They'll also look at how the latest application development platform from Microsoft can be leveraged to augment user experience, and address organizational concerns.
The speakers will touch upon:

- Windows Communication Foundation
- Windows Presentation Foundation
- Windows Workflow Foundation
- Visual Studio Team System
- Digital identity Management
   & Windows CardSpace

Do join us. And discover new ways to make the digital space safer and better!

Quick event details:

Tue 27 Feb 2007
1:00 pm - 6:00pm (registration starts at 1:00 pm)
Singapore Management University, Conference Hall 1, Level 5, SMU Administration Building

More information: http://mssg.earth9.com/singapore/edm/2007/02/08/digital.html

Register at: casey@techmexeventsasia.com or call 65508963 

I replied to a Customer today who asked about the major Microsoft technical events (TechEd, specifically) in 2007, and thought the information may be useful for others as well.

Microsoft Mix07 event

Brief: MIX is Microsoft’s conference for Web designers, developers and decision makers who make their living at the forefront of the consumer web. Join the conversation with Microsoft and others on how to harness the latest technologies, unlock new revenue opportunities, reduce development costs and improve customer experience. MIX is for cutting-edge Web professionals designing and building next-generation experiences.

Speakers this time round include Ray Ozzie (Chief Software Architect) and Scott Guthrie (General Manager in Developer's Division for user-experience technologies / products team such as ASP.NET, Atlas, WPF, etc.)

More info (including online registration) available at VistMIX site.  

Pricing: USD $1195 (15% off if you register before March 15)

To have an idea of what event may cover, look at the MIX06 content now available online here.  (I recommend looking at Bill Gate’s keynote presentation and the overview videos)

Microsoft Tech-Ed 2007

June 4 – June 8, Orange County Convention Center (OCCC) at Orlando

Brief: Tech-Ed is Microsoft’s deep technical sharing / training sessions with our customers, with technical sessions and hands-on labs presented by Microsoft product teams, partners and leading industry experts. There are also vertical industry solutions virtual track, and Microsoft IT Virtual Track. A wide range of topics is usually covered – from Smart Client to security to high-performance computing. So this should be useful for the Board’s IT teams as well.

More info at Microsoft Tech-Ed site (registration opens on week of January 15);

Content from previous Tech-Ed sessions can be found here. 

Microsoft PDC 2007

October 2 – October 5 (Pre-conference September 30 – October 1), Los Angeles, California

Brief: PDC is yet another exciting annual event where Microsoft typically announces upcoming technologies & products. From Somasegar's blog entry -- "PDC focuses on the strategic vision for the Microsoft platform over the course of the next couple of years or so, and we emphasize technology capabilities and architecture more than training at this premier conference."  You can read the rest of the entry here.

In the past, cool stuffs such as Windows Communications Foundation (WCF), Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Office 2007 were first unveiled in the PDC. Will be exciting to see what'll happen this year.

The current placeholder site is at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/events/pdc.

Start marking the calendars!