ebaY sidebar for Internet Explorer 8

eBay has just launched a new sidebar offering in beta. I have been collaborating with eBay on this wonderful Internet Explorer 8 sidebar. What is unique is that they are the first Internet Explorer sidebar that utilizes Silverlight™ as part of the presentation layer opening up specific UI features to make the application standard out.

Here is a screen capture of the sidebar on the left running in Internet Explorer 8 on my laptop:

The sidebar utilizes eBay’s Services to obtain real-time information about the customer’s transactions, using an internet connection. Even when the user is not running Internet Explorer, a separate notification service (located visually in the tray) informs the user about important events.

Here is a short  video  on the eBay sidebar with Jonathan Gabbai Global Innovation Manager on the functionality and technical advantages of using Silverlight and IE8 features.

The eBay sidebar is a great example of “Software-Plus-Services” strategy as there is software that runs on a computer you control in this case it is IE8 and Silverlight, plus services delivered over the internet as eBay services, working together to enable cool new rich engaging experience for the eBay user and making both software and services better than either by themselves.

For more information on the eBay IE8 Silverlight sidebard, please see the following related articles:

Case Study: Coming Soon

Channel9 Video: eBay on IE8

Esurance Delivers Key Services to Mobile Channel via Microsoft Platform

Esurance, the direct-to-consumer auto insurance company, has been offering policies online since 1999. And today, most Esurance customers still purchase their policies through the company’s user-friendly Web site. At esurance.com, customers can get free quotes and compare prices instantly, making auto insurance shopping easier. Esurance recently turned to Microsoft and its software-plus-services strategy to help launch the mobile platform, esurance.tel.

Through this implementation model, Esurance was able to utilize the Microsoft .NET Framework to migrate applications to the Windows Mobile 6.1.

Esurance also integrated 2 additional services: a text-messaging gateway and a feature that allows claims customers to access photos of their vehicles in real time as they’re being repaired. By porting its applications to run in a mobile environment, Esurance can anticipate the needs of its tech-savvy customers, which will help boost customer acquisition and retention.

As part of the rollout, Esurance will make many of its critical Web applications available on mobile phones, including claims-related functionality, quoting, policy management, and billing services. By using the software-plus-services approach, Esurance is further delivering on its brand promise to be available for their customers 24/7.

Here is the Channel9 video that I recorded with Esurance on their Mobile Services and how they utilized Microsoft platform to deliver it:

For more information on Esurance’s new mobile platform, please see the following related articles:

Case Study:Online Insurance Company Claims the Mobile Space with New Service Delivery Strategy

Press Release:Esurance Turns to Microsoft’s Software-Plus-Services Strategy to Deliver Key Services to Mobile Channel

BizSpark Hits Significant Miletsone of 12000 Startups!

 

Two weeks back on May 6, 2009 marks a significant milestone for BizSpark  from the time it started 6 months back. The program has enrolled 12,000 startups which is significant achievement!

Microsoft BizSpark is a great DEAL!  It is a program designed to help accelerate the success of early stage startups by providing key resources – software, support, and visibility.

The qualification criteria is very simple (if you are a startup):

• Privately held software development startups in business for less than 3 years that are generating annual revenue under USD $1 million can join.
• Connect with a BizSpark Network Partner or a Microsoft BizSpark Champ to get your BizSpark enrollment code.  Or email me at Raj.Ramabadran@microsoft.com if you are not sure who to contact.
• Enrollment is free, however, at exit of the program, you just pay a USD $100 program offering fee.

Learn more about this wonderful program here.

Roadmap for Major Technology announced at TechEd

Thanks to Network World for their article, Microsoft’s software pipeline set to burst. The product roadmaps for the coming year were announced at TechEd this past week.

• Windows 7 offers key features for developers: Windows Touch, Taskbar, Scenic Ribbon, Scenic Animation, Sensor and Location Platform, Windows Installer 5.0, Internet Explorer 8, PowerShell 2.0. The release candidate is currently available publicly.
• Windows Server 2008 R2 offers new group policy features that will help with power management and cost cutting, Hyper-V improvements, File Classification Infrastructure, Server Core, APIs and tools to help your tune your parallel applications using NUMA, PowerShell 2.0, Windows Web Services, background services and tasks, Background Intelligence Transfer. The release candidate is currently available publicly..
• Exchange 2010 designed and developed to work on-premises and as an online service, and introduces a new integrated e-mail archive and features to reduce costs and improve the user experience. The public beta is currently available publicly.
• Microsoft Code-named ‘Geneva’ is an identity federation platform that simplifies user access and secure collaboration across organizational boundaries. The beta 2 version is currently available publicly.
• Microsoft Code-named ‘Dublin’ will be an Application extend Internet Information Services (IIS) to provide a standard host for applications that use workflow or communications. For more information, see Overview of WF 4.0, WCF 4.0, and Windows Server “Dublin”.
• Microsoft Code-named ‘Stirling’ is an integrated security suite that coordinates protection and visibility across desktops, servers, applications and the network edge a client console for Forefront security software. The beta 2 version is publicly available.
• Microsoft Project Code Named “Velocity” is a distributed in-memory application cache platform for developing scalable, high-performance applications. Community technology preview 3 (CTP3) is currently available publicly.
• Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 is being designed inside and out to give developers and development teams every advantage in getting groundbreaking applications to market—faster and easier than ever. The beta 1 release will be available soon.
• Windows Mobile 6.5 with Windows Mobile Marketplace, Windows Phone
• Windows Azure is a cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Azure Services Platform. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage Web applications on the Internet through Microsoft® data centers. Commercial availability for Windows Azure will likely be at the end of calendar year 2009. Currently available as community preview publicly.
• Microsoft Hyper-V™ Server 2008 R2 is addition of new features such as live migration and expanded processor and memory support for host systems, it allows organizations to consolidate workloads onto a single physical server. Publicly available as a release candidate.Will continue to be free.

• Office 2010 — including Office Web applications, SharePoint Server 2010, Visio 2010 and Project 2010 — will enter a technical preview in July 2009 and will release to manufacturing in the first half of 2010. Nominate yourself for the preview at Office The Movie.

• SQL Server 2008 R2 will empower end users to make better decisions through self services analysis (‘Gemini’) and self-service business intelligence code-named “Kilimanjaro.” It will help IT drive greater efficiency and reduce costs through new capabilities such as multi-server management and Master Data Services. The community preview is due by the end of 2009.
• Microsoft Code-Name ‘Madison’ is an appliance version of the database for massively parallel processing. It will be able to handle the most demanding data warehousing workloads spanning hundreds of terabytes of data and thousands of concurrent users at the low total cost of ownership (TCO) businesses have come to expect from SQL Server.

• Silverlight 3. introducing more than 50 new features, including support for running Silverlight applications out of the browser, dramatic video performance and quality improvements, and features that radically improve developer productivity. Currently in publicly available beta. Also includes Microsoft Expression Blend 3 Preview, Silverlight Toolkit, and .NET RIA Services.

For more details on the roadmaps, see

• Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 Anticipated for Holiday Release
• Simplify User Access, Secure Collaboration Across Organizational Boundaries with ‘Geneva’ Beta 2
• How to Get Started Leveraging Windows Server 2008 R2 Features
• ‘Velocity’ Preview Updates In-Memory Caching Platform
• Top 10 Scenarios; ISVs Add Customer Value with Windows 7 Features
• First Look of Visual Studio 2010, .NET Framework 4.0 Available On Demand During May, June
• Walkthrough to Get Your Applications Ready for Windows 7
• Opportunities for ISVs to Step-up, Subscribe, Upgrade, Switch to Visual Studio, MSDN
• Exchange 2010 Beta Highlights S+S
• Alpha Version of Windows Logo Testing Kit Ready April 14

Students can get current Microsoft technologies at Dreamspark.

Startup businesses can get current Microsoft technologies at BizSpark.

Yahoo! optimized IE8 Web Slice

If you are a Yahoo! Mail user and your currently using IE8 you will love the feature called the Mail Web slice that is available as part of Internet Explorer 8 optimized for Yahoo!. The Web slice gives signed-in users quick previews of their Mail right from a drop-down page within browser, so no matter where you are on the Web, your Yahoo! Mail is right there with you.  To use this feature – after downloading the Yahoo! optimized IE8 – make sure you’re signed into Yahoo!, then just click on the Y! Mail slice on the favorites bar whenever you want a preview of your Inbox.

So don’t wait download Internet Explorer 8 and start enjoying some of the cool features like Accelerator, Web Slice , Visual Search and many…many more rich features.

Additional  IE8 features optimized for Yahoo! can be downloaded at  ie8addons.

Eduify Innovates to the Edge – BizSpark, Azure..

Eduify, is a provider of web-bases solution for students and its mission is to give every student the tools and services they so critically need to become better writers and more importantly deliver to President Obama’s impetus to re-invigorate education in America.

So before we talk about Eduify capabilities here is a real life scenario of a high school kid going through a very scattered process writing a paper.

T1 – Starting to thinking about the paper while at home

T2 – Next starting then start writing on a word processor at school.

T3 – Next at a friends house searching for sources and copy the quotes down by hand

T4 – Next writing the bibliography at home

T5 – Next proofreading the paper while on the bus

T6 – Finally turn it in the paper

With Eduify, a student can start writing in their web browser, find guidance from the available paper templates available, do research within the editor, have those sources automatically formatted, run the paper through a proofreader and plagiarism checker, and ask for help from family or friends when necessary.

Eduify’s web service demonstrates how a startup can take advantage of Microsoft technologies to create an innovative solution and in this case work to improve education. Through the BizSpark program, Microsoft is helping startups like Eduify by providing them with a wide range of end-to-end software and Microsoft’s Azure Services Platform, a set of cloud platform technologies, to help them build a scalable and sustainable business.

Currently Eduify is in beta and here are some articles covering Eduify:

• TechFlash: New online student writing app, Eduify, based on Windows Azure
• PRWeb: Eduify Answers Obama’s Call to Help Students With New Service
• Eduify Blog: Launch :: We’re Answering President Obama’s Call to Help Students 
• http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/mix/docs/eduify.doc (Press Release)
• http://visitmix.com/News/Eduify-MIX09 (MIX09 interview with Dan Meritt VP of Marketing)
• http://www.microsoftstartupzone.com/Blogs/anand%5fiyer/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=57 (AI’s blog he is a Sr.Developer Evangelist on my team)
• www.microsoft.com/casestudies (coming soon)

The Azure Developer Challenge

new CloudApp(), a US based developer challenge, was launched today.  Its focus is to promote applications running on the Azure Services Platform.  This contest will have three categories of winners for applications running on the Azure Services Platform:

• best .NET application,
• top PHP application, and,
• community winner

Contest Dates:

• Monday, May 4: Contest Open
• Thursday, June 18: Submission deadline
• Friday, June 19: Community voting starts
• Thursday, June 25: .NET & PHP category winners announced at Structure 09
• Monday, June 29: Community voting ends
• Tuesday, June 30: Community winner announced

Here is what the winner gets ?

• Be featured on www.azure.com as well as at major Microsoft events
• Be featured in a video interview on Channel 9 with the application author
• Winners will be announced at Structure 09
• Receive cash ($):
  • .NET Applications Category winner: $5,000 Visa gift card
  • PHP Applications Category winner: $5,000 Visa gift card
  • Community winner: $2,500 Visa gift card

How do I get Started ?:

1. Join BizSpark if you’re a startup or an entrepreneur, to get access to tools for development and test
2. Register to join the contest
3. Sign up for the Azure Services
4. Download the SDKs and Tools

For more information see newCloudApp().com.