Azure, get to know the invisible friendly giant

The Windows Azure Platform … what is it and what can it do for you. That’s what we want you to find out. You can read stuff on websites or watch some video’s but it’s always good to meet people and interactively discuss what you want to know.

So … If you’re wondering why there’s so much fuzz about Azure but you don’t really know what it is and how you could benefit from it, then consider putting this in your agenda:

We are organizing an informal evening combining drinks with info at a location near you

• 16/01: Brussels (Microsoft Offices – Da Vincilaan 3, Zaventem)
• 17/01: Ghent (De Zebrastraat – Zebrastraat 32/001, Ghent)
• 18/01: Antwerp (Grand Café Leroy – Kasteelpleinstraat 46, Antwerp)

Her’s how we planned the evening:

18.30h – 19.00h:

Welcome with food and drinks

19h – 19.45h:

What the Windows Azure platform is and what’s in it for you?

Expect a non-technical business approach explaining the platform with the help of scenario’s and real life examples. (applications for devices and mobile, social media marketing campaigns, departmental apps on premises and/or in the cloud, Extend SharePoint to the public cloud, highly-scalable and worldwide websites or applications)

19.45h – 20h:

short break

20h -20.30h:

How to get started with the Azure platform

Learn where to start and how to get help from Microsoft. We’ll also include some pricing examples.

20.30h – 21.30h

Drink & discussion

We encourage interaction and questions during the presentation but we also foresee some time for discussion during a drink.

If you’re not sure this is something for you or if you have some questions, feel free to contact Tom Crombez via v-tocrom@microsoft.com.

Otherwhise : Register now (limited seats per location)

Have a great Christmas and enjoy the New Year!

Microsoft Innovation Center: Lots of Sessions for the Fall

The Cloud technologies offer you access to IT services at a reduced cost with increased flexibility. But what is exactly the Cloud, and how can it help concretely your business?
It is to answer this question that Microsoft and the MIC Brussels offer you this month a set of trainings to help you find out how the Cloud can bring concrete answers to you.
On 20th of October, don’t miss your monthly networking event MIC’s ThursDay, organized in partnership with BECI dedicated to how SMEs can innovate and benefit from Cloud services with concrete testimonials from the startup Getyoo and BECI!

SPECIAL OFFER: For the ones among you that will attend 2 MIC’s ThursDays between September and December 2011, you will receive a MIC Brussels Membership card for 2012 (Value of 499€) giving you free access to the MIC events for 2012 !!

Discover now the MIC Brussels new program for the following weeks:

Technical workshops for Developers.

• 20 & 21^st / 10: Windows Azure Camp: 2 days to learn how to develop on Windows Azure !
  If you can’t make it in October, there’s the session in November as well!
• 14 & 15 /11 Windows Azure Camp
• 9 & 10/11/11: Call for projects: Develop your application on Windows Phone 7.5 (alias Mango)
  If you can’t make if for the November session, there’s a session in December as well!
• 8 & 9/12/11: Call for projects on Windows Phone 7.5

Other sessions on the Cloud:

• 28/11: How can Windows Azure help my business? 
• 28/11: Windows Azure for ITpros and Developers
  You can also register to the December sessions:
• 12/12: How can Windows Azure help my business 
• 12/12 : Windows Azure : for ITpros and Developers 

MIC’s ThursDays:the MIC Brussels monthly networking event: With inspiring startups, Best practices sharing and testimonials!!

• 20/10 : MIC’s ThursDay in October : The Cloud – an opportunity for SMEs and entrepreneurs! Testimonial from the Startup Getyoo and BECI
  Last opportunity to register!!
• 17/11 : Mic’s thursDay in november : Marketing 2.0 : Are you a white belt or black belt master ?

Workshops on Office 365 : find out how using this new simple Cloud collaboration tool can increase your productivity and reduce your cost.

• 8/11: Boost your productivity with Office 365. Simply.
• 14/12: Boost your productivity with Office 365. Simply.

Architecture design sessions:There are still places in November and December. We offer you an individual one-to-one to discuss your IT strategic choices (platform, architecture, or strategic technical choices.. ) with our MIC Expert David Hernie.

• 25/11 : ADS session 
• 14/12: ADS session

Remember: If you have any questions, if you are interested in partnering with MIC Brussels, or you wish to understand what the MIC Brussels can do for you ?Come and meet the MIC Brussels team at the Welcome Days.!

• 29/11 AM : Welcome Day at MIC Brussels
• 29/11 PM : Welcome Day for entrepreneurs @ MIC Brussels 
• 20/12 AM : Welcome Day at MIC Brussels 
• 20/12 PM : Welcome Day for entrepreneurs @MIC Brussels

Choose the right session, whether you are an entrepreneur or not

Looking forward to seeing you at MIC Brussels!

Q8 campaign by These Days runs on Windows Azure

These Days, a respected and well-known innovative digital marketing agency in Belgium and Microsoft partner, realized a campaign for the petroleum company Q8. Customers can register online and win free petrol.

The campaign is available through www.q8fuel.be. You simply need to register and for every fill at a Q8 station you get an additional chance at winning free petrol. If you’re lucky, you could even get one year of free petrol at Q8 ! All prizes add up to more than 50.000 € of petrol.

In order to secure the scalability and availability of the web application, These Days made advantage of the Windows Azure Platform to build, host and scale the application.

The Windows Azure platform allows to focus on development and not infrastructure: there’s no need to buy servers or dedicate resources to infrastructure management and automated service management shields you from hardware failure and routine maintenance.

These days has profound existing skills with Visual Studio and .NET to build compelling applications so they went for a complete Microsoft stack. Nothing stops you however from building apps in Java, PHP or Ruby using Eclipse or other tools.

Everything you might want to learn about  the Windows Azure Platform is also bundled in one single training kit with videos, demos, code, labs, etc.

If you want to get started with the Windows Azure Platform but still have questions/remarks, don’t hesitate to contact agency@microsoft.com.

MIX11 – A recap you can’t afford to miss

MIX, is a gathering of developers, designers, UX experts and business professionals creating the most innovative and profitable sites on the web. This year’s event offers two days of keynotes streamed live and approximately 130 sessions available for download.

Sessions range from content strategy, usability and design topics to technical, code-based topics. You can watch the most  important announcements that were done during the keynotes of day 1 and day 2 but here are some of the
highlights:

-     Perhaps the biggest announcement at MIX11 was the release of IE10 Platform Preview 1, just a month after shipping IE9 RTW.  Microsoft showed-off several amazing experiences built on IE9, including World’s Biggest Pac-man and  htttp://foursquareplayground.com. All demo’s are available at  http://ietestdrive.com

- New Opportunities and Capabilities for Windows Phone are coming later this year: IE9 for Windows Phone 7, multi-tasking, ringtone API, new languages support  (including Dutch), … If you want to get started now: All Windows Phone Developper tools are free.

- Windows Azure: Windows Azure helps developers build, host and scale web applications through Microsoft datacenters. New capabilities announced include services that accelerate application performance and enable secure and open access to Web applications through popular identity providers, including Microsoft, Facebook and Google. There was also a specific announcement on Umbraco and it’s Azure support. Umbraco is a very popular open source, .NET-based CMS application that is powering over 85K sites today.

- WebMatrix updates: WebMatrix is a free web development tool from Microsoft that includes everything you need for website
development. Start from open source web applications, built-in web templates or just start writing code yourself. It’s all-inclusive, simple and best of all free.

-  Silverlight 5: Microsoft also announced the immediate availability of the beta for Microsoft Silverlight 5, which provides advances in rich media and application development. New capabilities include Hardware Video Decode, for
enhanced video quality and performance. More information and a download of the beta are available at http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight.

- The Kinect for Windows SDK: a programming toolkit that will enable researchers and enthusiasts to access Kinect device
capabilities for  computers running Microsoft Windows 7 will become available. Check out the website for the SDK.

Recommendation: Watch the Day 2 keynote and browse through all available sessions and pick out the ones you find
interesting !