Innovation for Partners in the UK : ISV

Structured Search

ukpartner — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 13:38:24 GMT

Ardentia Search was an early adopter of Windows Presentation Foundation and enrolled in the UK ISV Early Adopter Program (aka Touchdown). We had the good fortune to work with Ardentia Search throughout the development and migration from Java to .NET 3.

A few months ago we set up a briefing with Ardentia Search and Philip Howard of Bloor Research. Philip recently wrote an interesting article about structured search and included Ardentia Search in his analysis. You can read the article here.

To see both video and paper case studies from Ardentia Search, visit www.innovate-uk.com.

- Paul

Technorati tags: WPF, Ardentia Search, Search

Hold up, I don't even know what SaaS means

ukpartner — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 18:29:00 GMT

Everyone on our team is thinking about SaaS and what it means to our partners. This is a particular area of interest for Eric, who has the architectural background and ~~painful memories~~ learning from the ASP-days to make sense of it all and ensure we're providing sound advice to our partners.

I recently posted that SaaS is not the future but Software + Services is a candidate. Every time I talk with partners I'm reminded that they have a business to run and can't always afford to be on the latest trend. Software + Services (aka SaaS), however, is really starting to cross the line from "nice to know" to "need to know".

This Wednesday I'll be hosting one of our larger UK partners for an Envisioning Session in the UK Microsoft Technology Centre. I'll cover three topics:

What does People_Ready Business really mean
Software + Services (SaaS)
User Experience Matters

The bit I've been stuck on is SaaS. How can I get everyone up to a level playing field in the first few minutes so we can have a healthy discussion about SaaS? Videos tend to work well for this sort of thing, so I started searching around YouTube and found this one. It's not bad so I might just use it.

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- Paul

Technorati tags: SaaS, S+S, MTC

Free technical seminars for ISVs wanting to know more about the Microsoft Office 2007 Open XML document format

ukpartner — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 20:07:00 GMT

The Microsoft Developer and Platform Group will be hosting two half day technical sessions aimed at Microsoft partners, especially ISVs, focusing on Microsoft Office Open XML, the new document format for Microsoft Office 2007. Theses sessions will cover the new format, and explore how they can be used within applications and systems.

Some potential scenarios include:

Creating multiple, customised documents without automating Microsoft Word
Drop custom data packets direct into Microsoft Excel spreadsheets from a database feed
Swap style and images and text in documents by injecting XML
Archive documents

If you have looked at working with Microsoft Office documents in previous releases, you will be pleased to discover that, based on partner feedback, the new Office XML Formats are compact, robust file formats that enable better data integration between documents and back-end systems. This new format is designed to make it easy for applications to create and manipulate documents, opening up a whole variety of opportunities for applications to integrate document production, archiving, etc.

This session is aimed at Architects, Senior developers and System Designers, and some familiarity with .NET framework is desirable to obtain the most from this event. The day will be a mixture of presentations, demos and discussions, and to keep a small informal atmosphere, the event is constrained to a maximum of 20 people (2 per company), to ensure lots of opportunity for discussion.

To Book

This event is being run twice

20th March 2007, 1pm – 4pm. Microsoft Campus, Thames Valley Park, Reading, Berkshire, RG6 1WG.

To book: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032331093&Culture=en-GB

22nd March 2007. 9:30am – 1pm. Microsoft Campus, Thames Valley Park, Reading, Berkshire, RG6 1WG.

To book: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032331106&Culture=en-GB

- David

Why Vista Matters to Developers

ukpartner — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 00:42:33 GMT

A good article on the importance of Vista for developers. I particularly like this article because you hear from customers and partners directly on what Windows Vista means to them and their business. A few good quotes:

"Perhaps even more profound, if somewhat less groundbreaking, is that the .Net Framework 2.0—on which 3.0 sits—is also included, thus making Vista the first version of Windows that ships ready-to-run .Net ClickOnce Smart Client applications and any other .Net application," Brust said. "That's big news. Since .Net apps, when shipped without the framework, can be extremely small, the release of Vista makes it possible for .Net apps to ship as casually as Visual Basic apps could years ago once the VB run-time started shipping as part of Windows."

Jim Arrowood, an enterprise architect with Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, in Tulsa, Okla., said, "One major benefit gained out of the box from Windows Communication Foundation for Dollar Thrifty was the ability to offer different Web service endpoints built upon a single code base." Arrowood is working on a new car rental system for Dollar Rent A Car and Thrifty Car Rental that will be based on Vista.

The New York Times' Times Reader, a Vista-based beta application, is one such [killer] application, he said. "It's the visuals and the underlying capabilities made manifest in killer applications that will convince consumers to upgrade," Schadler said. "It took only one application to convince me: the Times Reader."

You can read the full article over on eWeek.

The First UK Innovation event for 2007

ukpartner — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 15:48:33 GMT

Software partners that view Innovation as a key ingredient to success should stop by on January 18th. We're holding our first software partners Innovation day in 2007 and will run through both commercial and technical aspects of innovation - and how Microsoft can help.

Registration is quite full, but if you register soon you should still be able to secure a spot.

Click here to register.

Technorati tags: Microsoft, Innovation, UK, ISV

Innovation = Profit?

ukpartner — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 14:25:13 GMT

You're a developer, architect, maybe even CTO at a software company. You're constantly challenged to decide should we innovate, increase support in existing products, change our roadmap, start from scratch...

You've got a lot on your mind, it's not easy. I know because I go out with my team to speak with lots of partners and am starting to really understand the many challenges you face.

A recent paper released by IDC helps provide justification for those that work a bit harder, innovate a bit faster, and work with Microsoft a bit closer.

The software industry is facing growth rates of 7.7% up to 2010 but competition and customer expectations are increasing. It's not easy, but we're trying really hard to help technical people innovate and stay ahead - this paper shows those efforts are paying off for our partners.

Read the paper here.

Technorati tags: ISV, Partner, UK, Innovation

What is Innovation?

ukpartner — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 14:00:00 GMT

Technically speaking, it's the introduction of new things or methods.

Innovation is a topic I've debated with many people, including professors at Instituto de Empresa (translated), colleagues, and in my own head. It's a tough one, who innovates and who doesn't? Does innovation matter if you're profitable and forecast growth? Is innovation too risky for established companies? People often debate if Microsoft innovates and to me that question is irrelevant. Microsoft is a platform company and well over 90% of our business is done through partners. In some cases we make the call to step back and deliver the end product (XBox, Zune, etc) but most of the time we bank on partners delivering innovative products into the market.

So the real question is not does Microsoft innovate, but does Microsoft enable their partners to innovate?

You might ask, does innovation even matter? I think the FT says it best:

Innovation used to happen by chance, if it happened at all.
Not any longer. Today, the world's most forward-thinking companies see innovation as an engine for growth and, therefore, something that must be strategically managed and securely harnessed. It is the new currency of competition. It is the key to organic growth and wider profit margins. It is, in short, the Holy Grail of business in the 21st Century and companies must keep innovating if they are to keep growing. [link]

So why is our team focussed so heavily on partner innovation? We see it as the key competitive advantage to software partners and we want to do everything possible to ensure Microsoft's partners are successful today and tomorrow. To put it even more bluntly, your success is our success.

What do you think: does Microsoft enable our partners to innovate?

post by Paul Murphy

What is this blog? This will be a technical voice to the 4,000 independent software vendors (ISV's) and 6,000 custom development software (CDS) partners in the UK. The target audience for this blog will be developers and architects within those organizations and our goal is to provide you with specific resources and insight to help you and your companies succeed with innovation.