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

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.

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.

MIX09 Big Announcements!

I just got back from the MIX09 event that happened at Las Vegas earlier this week and here are some of things that was announced at Mix09:

Announcing the Microsoft Web Platform: Web Platform Installer 2.0 Beta and Windows Web Application Gallery!

The Microsoft Web Platform has a goal to deliver the best platform to developers for building their Web applications. Microsoft is delivering the platform, tools, and applications that development organizations, communities, and developers need.  The Microsoft Web Platform offers a complete ecosystem for building and hosting web sites, services, and applications.  It is designed to interoperate with both ASP.NET and PHP, and integrate easily with community applications and products in the market today.

The Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 (Web PI) is a free tool that makes it simple to download, install and keep up-to-date with the latest components of the Microsoft Web Platform, including Internet Information Services (IIS), SQL Server Express, .NET Framework and Visual Web Developer.  In addition, install popular open source ASP.NET and PHP web apps with the Web PI.

Windows Web App Gallery is a community hub of free and popular .NET and PHP applications for you to use as building blocks for creating dynamic web solutions.

Silverlight 3 Beta (Developer release).   This is a very exciting release.  Some of the interesting new features that the platform provides include:

• Support for Higher Quality Video & Audio. With support for native H.264/Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) Audio, live and on-demand IIS7 Smooth Streaming, full HD (720p+) playback, and an extensible decoder pipeline, Silverlight 3 brings rich, full-screen, stutter-free media experiences to the desktop.
• Silverlight 3 contains new 3D graphics, animation features, hardware accelerated effects and text improvements that enable designers and developers to create next generation Web visuals.
• Improved RIA Productivity. New features include:
  • Silverlight 3 is packed with over 60 high-quality, fully skinnable and customizable out-of-the-box controls
  • Deep Linking. Silverlight 3 includes support for deep linking, which enables bookmarking a page within a RIA.
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
  • Enhanced Data Support: Element to Element binding, Data Forms, New features for data validation, Support for business objects
  • Improved performance through Application library caching, Enhanced Deep Zoom, Binary XML, Local Connection.
• Out of Browser Capabilities. The new out of browser experience in Silverlight 3 enables users to place their favorite Silverlight applications directly onto their PC and Mac, with links on the desktop and start menu—all without the need to download an additional runtime or browser plug-in. Also, the new offline features enables Silverlight applications to work whether the computer is connected to the Internet or not.

· Also the other major announcement at MIX was the launch of Internet Explorer (IE8). This latest version is faster than IE7 by 80% in common micro-benchmarks. In side-by-side measures of speed in opening the top 25 websites worldwide, IE8 was as fast or faster than Firefox and Chrome.

· Some of the major features of IE8 are its better tab handling, a niftier search bar, a more useful address bar, and new tools that deliver information directly from other Web pages and services. Some of the security features include the anti-malware protection, and better ways to protect your privacy and most noticeable new features are Accelerators and Web Slices.

· Additional information on the release is available at Internet Explorer 8. In addition some of the IE8 Add-ons from some of our partners is available at here. You also can see some of my previous posts on IE8 here

Free Web Hosting & Web Tools from Microsoft

Here is a excellent *FREE* offering from Microsoft and our top web hosting partners.

• Free hosting for 60 days
• Free Microsoft Expression Web ($299 value) and Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition
• Free $100 Microsoft adCenter search advertising credit

The Microsoft Web Platform

Rock solid Web hosting on Microsoft’s most up-to-date Web platform, including:

• Windows Server 2008
• IIS 7
• ASP.Net
• SQL Server 2008 Web
• PHP and MySQL
• Expression Web and
  Visual Web Developer Express
• Click here for a complete list of the Microsoft Web Platform components

This is a good example of our commitment to Interop and more importantly validation of our Software Plus Sevice strategy for providing customers to building consistent rich applications and with choice of hosting with our partners or in our cloud.

So Startup(s) grab this opportunity and also for Enterprise who are at looking at ways to reducing cost or exploring new scenarios this will great to try out.

Azure Service Plaform Videos

As some of you had left comment in my blog post on “Azure” wanting additional  tutorial and here’s the first of a comprehensive set of HDI’s (“How Do I …?”) on the entire Azure Services Platform.

Here are some of the HDI’s you will find there:

• How Do I: Get Started Developing on Windows Azure?
• How Do I: deploy a Windows Azure Application?
• How Do I: Store Blobs in Windows Azure Storage?
• How Do I: Leverage Queues in Windows Azure?
• How Do I: Get Started with .NET Services?
• How Do I: Get Started with the Live Framework?

Additional here is a a great series (ongoing) on cloud computing and related concepts, and the Microsoft platform and strategies by David Chou, an Architect Evangelist at Microsoft (friend and colleague)::

• Cloud Computing and the Microsoft Platform (2009.01.13)
• Multi-Enterprise Business Applications (MEBA) as Cloud-Based Next-Generation B2B Business Processes (2008.12.01)
• Cloud Computing and User Authentication (2008.08.19)
• Cloud Computing and Microsoft (2008.07.31)
• Cloud Computing and Software Clients (2008.07.31)
• Describing Cloud Computing (2008.07.25)

Architect Council | The Importance of the Client March 25-26, 2009, Mountain View & San Francisco

 

Over the last couple of years, there has been a lot of innovation around of technologies that make it easier for the end user of an application to interact with systems.  This innovation has been a boon for the end user because it has provided them a more natural interface with systems that span the web, computer, and phone.  However, this has caused the complexity of systems architecture and development to increase.  The focus of this session will be on how to prepare and manage this complexity within your organization.

Facilitated by Microsoft, the premise of this event is to provide an open forum where architects can meet to discuss technologies with their peers.  This forum will provide first-hand experience and best practices that will enable its members to learn from each other and transfer knowledge.

Please join us for this *FREE* event which will provide great opportunity to learn, share and network with your peers and other company leaders. Also don’t forget there will be free give aways (hint..hint..Zune)

EVENT SUMMARY

The Value of the Client – In the past, the choice of how an end user interacts with an application has been dictated by IT and often without regards to the usage.  Recently, as the population has become more tech savvy and are experiencing interactions on the web, computer, and the phone their expectations have increased tremendously.  Many organizations now have to support multiple standards and technologies to accommodate their user base.  We will discuss the opportunities and challenges this presents.

The Changing Face of the Web – The web has changed from a static collection of data to an application platform.  In many cases, JavaScript and AJAX have enhanced the experience to enable more advance application scenarios.  In other cases, the Rich Internet Application using technologies such as Silverlight and Flash can bring the experience to a new level.  In this session we will discuss the web and in particular the investments Microsoft is making in this technology.

Creating Powerful Applications on Computers and Devices – The web has been a boon to application development and deployment, but it doesn’t always fit every scenario.  There are certain classes of applications which provide a better experience when running on a device and utilizing local hardware.  The ubiquity of the mobile device has also extended the expectations of users with anytime/anywhere access. 

The Future of the Client – The pace of change in client technologies over the past few years has been tremendous and is expected to continue to evolve.  From support of new device types such as tables and walls, to continued improvements in interactions on the web, client, and the phone the client will become more and more important from a technology perspective and more strategic to the organization.

AGENDA

12:15 PM  Arrival

12:30 PM  Lunch and announcements

01:00 PM  The Value of the Client

01:45 PM  The Changing Face of the Web

02:45 PM  Creating Powerful Applications on Computers and Devices

03:45 PM  The Future of the Client

04:15 PM  Raffle and close

REGISTER

To register, please click on the link below or call 1.877.MSEVENT (1.877.673.8368).

March 25, 2009 | Mountain View, CA

Microsoft Corporation

1065 La Avenida St.
Building 1 Mountain View California 94043

Registration Link:

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032399662&Culture=en-US

Event ID: 1032399662

March 26, 2009 |San Francisco, CA

Microsoft Corporation

835 Market Street #700
San Francisco California 94103-1901

Registration Link:

 http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032399663&Culture=en-US

 

Event ID: 1032399663

*Referral code not required to register.*

MSDN Developer Conference coming to San Francisco (Only $99.00)

The nature of software development is radically changing are you ready ?

We’re bringing the PDC to you! For just $99 you’ll get the best of the PDC in your own backyard and hear all of the exciting announcements around the Azure Services Platform and Windows 7.

Other sessions include the latest developments in .NET, Silverlight, Surface, Parallel Programming, Live Mesh, and more.
Register today so you can stay current in an ever-competitive job market, enhance your engineering skills and gain access to the next generation of tools and technology. The cost to attend is just $99. And, did we mention that attendees will get some cool giveaways? 
If you are a developer who missed the PDC but enjoys diving deep into the Microsoft platform or you are responsible for the technical strategy of your organization, then the MSDN Developer Conference is for you.
Don’t miss this premier developer event. Click the Register Now button or visit www.MSDNDevCon.com to learn more and register today!
Hope to see you at the MDC!!

SeaDragon on iPhone

 

Back in July’08 I had written a post about Deep Zoom as part of the Silverlight 2 cool features that originated from SeaDragon which is a Live labs project which provide users a new way for people to interact with content.  It allows users to explore collections of super high resolution imagery, from a 2 or 3 megapixel shot from a digital camera to gigapixel scans of museum pieces, all without waiting for huge file downloads.

The Seadragon capabilities is already made its way into TouchWall, Microsoft Surface and also available in Silverlight as can be seen at the Hardrock site.

Today Livelab brings “Seadragon Mobile” to iPhone for viewing giga-pixel images. You can browse Deep Zoom Images that you can create from your own pictures or your Photosynth collection or anybody else’s.

There is a excellent video by developer Ben Vanik about this new experience that SeaDragon Mobile can provide on mobile devices.

Seadragon Mobile is available for free at the iTunes App Store.

is really cool !