Microsoft Search - Powered by PodTech.net

Facebook: Building Successful Social Media Campaigns For Their Site

Jennifer Jones — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 07:01:19 +0000

Both Electronic Arts and Microsoft have created social media campaigns for Facebook. Kevin Barenblat, CEO and Co-Founder of Context Optional discusses the creation of these campaigns on Facebook and how companies are making more social media connections through Facebook. Barenblat explains how Microsoft further developed the idea of a poke and geared it to the office. He also delves into how Electronic Arts taught more people about gaming with their gaming application.

Tags: context optional, EA, facebook, Jennifer Jones, kevin barenblat, Marketing Voices, Microsoft, social media

What’s New: Empowering your sales force, SAVO Group

Cydni Tetro — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 20:00:38 +0000

John O’Donnell, a Microsoft Dynamics ISV Architect Evangelist with Microsoft, met with Drew at Convergence 2008 to talk about the challenge of making a Dynamics CRM solution compelling for sales people and how his company’s product (SAVO) can help drive Dynamics CRM usage by making important sales information easy to find, manipulate and rate and therefore encourage sales professionals to access and update Dynamics CRM each day.

Tags: CRM, John O’Donnell, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, S + S, SAAS, SAVO Group, USISV

Student Creates Multi-Touch Software and Table for Science Project

Brad Baldwin — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 20:54:59 +0000

Here’s one student that takes the “Science Fair” to the next level. Bridger Maxwell, a high school student at Utah County Academy of Sciences (UCAS) decided to create a multi-touch table for his Science Fair entry–kinda like an iPhone screen, and Microsoft Surface on a budget.

The multi-touch experience allows for object movement, rotation, growing and shrinking, and even multi-hand, multi-person use. Inspired by movies like Minority Report, Maxwell leverages Apple OS X, code developed during Google Summer of Code called Open Touch, and his own code. The table, made from plexiglass and a dissembled Acer monitor, uses infrared light emitting diodes and an IR camera to detect and transmit fingertip motions as inputs.

Maxwell also expects to experience a future where multi-touch technology becomes a standard way to interact with applications, particularly for graphic manipulation and even gaming. Maxwell submitted his code back to the community at code.google.com/p/corkboard/ and has received coverage on Ars Technica and a local NBC news story.

Maxwell also expects to experience a future where multi-touch technology becomes a standard way to interact with applications, particularly for graphic manipulation and even gaming. While Maxwell didn’t get a summer internship on the iPhone team “this” year, has received coverage on Ars Technica and the local NBC news station. Not bad for a high school student.

Tags: Apple, Brad Baldwin, Bridger Maxwell, Google, iPhone, Multi-Touch, RockyMountainVoices, Summer of Code, Surface, Utah

MailShadow Syncs Outlook to Gmail and Google Apps

Brad Baldwin — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 22:28:04 +0000

Cemaphore Systems’ MailShadow for Google Apps keeps your Microsoft Outlook environment in sync with Gmail, Google Calendar, and Gmail Contacts. Make a change in one, and the other is instantly updated to reflect the change. MailShadow for Google Apps is receiving a lot of attention since organizations can eliminate the expensive infrastructure, hardware, and co-location facilities required by Exchange, but still allow users to leverage the client-side productivity features in Outlook.

Tracy Scott, the VP of Marketing at Cemaphore, shows the beta version of MailShadow for Google Apps to Brad Baldwin from Rocky Mountain Voices. And if you’re interested in giving it a try, the beta sign-up is still open.

Tags: Brad Baldwin, Cemaphore Systems, Gmail, Google, MailShadow, Tracy Scott

What’s New: IdeaBlade Agile Development in the Real World

Cydni Tetro — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 23:20:33 +0000

Hear how IdeaBlade, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, is using Agile Software Development to improve the quality of their product. In this session, William Leong, ISV Architect Evangelist, talks with Ward Bell, VP of Product Management at IdeaBlade, on how they have implemented Agile methods in their product development lifecycle. Since there are many ways to implement Agile development, it’s enlightening to see what has worked for this early pioneer of .NET application development tools.

Tags: Agile Software Development, IdeaBlade, USISV, William Leong

What’s New: Logotec Bringing Mobility to CRM

Cydni Tetro — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 23:12:31 +0000

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is a three-tier application that can help organizations manage front office processes, such as sales, marketing, and customer service, and serve as a development platform for business applications in different industry verticals. The platform aspects let you focus on your core needs by providing you rapid development toolkit, well documented SDK, outlook integration including offline access, mobile support, scalability including multi-tenancy, globalization support including multi-language & multi-currency, and power of choice when it comes to choosing deployment options. Sanjay Jain, ISV Architect Evangelist, speaks with Michal Klaja, CTO and Mark Frederiksen, BDM at Logotec Engineering to discuss their experience of adopting Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Platform to provide a Software + Service based Mobile solution to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 users.

Tags: Business Application Platform, Logotec Engineering, Mark Frederiksen, Michal Klaja, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, Mobile@Connector, S+S, Sanjay Jain, USISV

What’s New: Cincom Implementing Dynamics CRM

Cydni Tetro — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:33:27 +0000

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is a three-tier application that can help organizations manage front office processes, such as sales, marketing, and customer service, and serve as a development platform for business applications in different industry verticals. The platform aspects let you focus on your core needs by providing you rapid development toolkit, well documented SDK, outlook integration including offline access, mobile support, scalability including multi-tenancy, globalization support including multi-language & multi-currency, and power of choice when it comes to choosing deployment options. Sanjay Jain, ISV Architect Evangelist with Microsoft , speaks with Dan Nicholas, Sr. Director Product Research & Planning and Gregor Newland, Manager of Business Development & Alliances of Cincom Systems, to discuss their experience of adopting Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Platform to assist their complex manufacturing customers.

Tags: Application Platform, Cincom, Dan Nicholas, Gregor Newland, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, S+S, Sales and Product Configurator., Sanjay Jain, USISV

F5 and HP Partner to Optimize SharePoint Server 2007

Michael Johnson — Mon, 19 May 2008 15:00:01 +0000

HP ran tests on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 using F5 technology, and the results were dramatic: F5’s BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager with WebAccelerator improved throughput to the branch office by up to 8x in a symmetric configuration. Listen to this podcast to hear about the testing methodologies and results, discussed by Jimi Ibbett, senior member of the technical staff, Solutions Alliances Engineering at HP; Ryan Korock, solutions architect at F5; and Jeff Bellamy, senior business development manager at F5. You’ll also learn more about the HP-F5 partnership and F5’s Application Ready Network for Microsoft.

Tags: HP, Microsoft, SharePoint, F5, WebAccelerator, Jimi Ibbett, Ryan Korock, Jeff Bellamy, Application Ready Network, ARN

Xbox 360 Spring Showcase ‘08: Interview with Microsoft’s Shane Kim

Rio Pesino — Thu, 15 May 2008 18:49:59 +0000

The Xbox Spring Showcase wasn’t all about the latest titles. Microsoft Game Studio head Shane Kim spoke with The Reboot’s Rio Pesino and several other members of the media about a number of topics, including the Xbox Newton controller rumors, Blu-Ray, digital distribution and the evolution of Xbox Live.

Tags: Xbox, Microsoft Game Studio, Shane Kim, The Reboot, Rio Pesino, Blu-Ray

The Reboot: Xbox 360 Blu-Ray in the Works?

Rio Pesino — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:01:09 +0000

A new Xbox 360 Blu-Ray rumor is circulating around the Web. Chinese newspaper Economic Daily News claims a subsidiary of computer hardware firm Asus has been chosen by Microsoft to produce internal Blu-Ray players for the Xbox 360. Also in this episode of http://www.rebootshow.com The Reboot with Rio Pesino, the Grand Theft Auto sales war between Sony and Microsoft rages on, fans of the PC version of EA Sports’ Madden series get left out in the cold for the second straight year and a pole dancing game may soon be coming to the Nintendo Wii.

Tags: Xbox 360, Blu-Ray, Asus, Rio Pesino, Grand Theft Auto, Nintendo Wii

Defining Application Ready Networks with F5’s Ken Salchow

Michael Johnson — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 22:50:41 +0000

Ken Salchow, F5’s manager of technical marketing, talks about F5’s Application Ready Networks (ARNs). These road-tested architectures cover best practices and deployment support for specific solutions from F5 and major software vendors. F5 currently offers ARNs for Microsoft, SAP, and Oracle products. This podcast describes how ARNs benefit customers and why F5 believes they are important.

Tags: Application Ready Network, ARN, F5 Networks, Ken Salchow

Welcome to Classic ScobleShow

editor — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:40:44 +0000

It started with an innocuous audio interview with the then-President of the Products and Technology Group at SAP AG, Shai Agassi. Then came Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz, sitting at a table with an umbrella. It wasn’t long before Scoble introduced us to Thomas Hawk (investment advisor by day, ubiquitous digital media creator by night). There was the Golden Gate Bridge walk (spread over three parts!), and then came pumpkins — lots of pumpkins. Somewhere between the Golden Gate Bridge and the pumpkin patch, conversations with entrepreneurs like b5media Founder and President Jeremy Wright and SmugMug CEO Don MacAskill.

There was lunch with Bill Gates and another lunch with Mark Cuban. We met folks from Salesforce and Zillow, SocialText, Retrevo and Maxthon. We met political bloggers and a presidential candidate on the campaign trail.

But one of our favorites? It’s an interview with Microsoft’s Gary Flake on Photosynth.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

Robert Scoble is still the author of the incredibly popular tech geek blog, Scobleizer.com. He’s also the managing director over at FastCompany.tv, where ScobleShow editor and producer Rocky Barbanica is also now a senior producer.

Since that fateful first ScobleShow, Agassi has moved on to found Project Better Place, in order to pursue interests in alternative energy and climate change. Jonathan Schwartz is still at Sun, still blogging, and lots of the start-ups we met are still kicking around, some of them very successfully! It’s worth taking a few minutes to surf through the archives, or just wait to see what pops up in the Classic feed. Good for a few goofy laughs and a little insight into where we’ve been and where we might be going. Oh, and Thomas Hawk is still evangelizing for photo sharing and digital media, and still believes that the best pictures in the world have yet to be taken.

Tags: SAP, Shai Agassi, Sun Microsystems, Jonathan Schwartz, Thomas Hawk, b5media, Jeremy Wright, SmugMug, Don MacAskill, Bill Gates, Mark Cuban, Salesforce, Zillow, SocialText, Retrevo, Maxthon, Microsoft, Gary Flake, Photosynth, Robert Scoble, Scobleizer.com, FastCompany.tv, Rocky Barbanica, Project Better Place

What’s New: Client Profiles - Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Platform Adoption

Cydni Tetro — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 00:00:58 +0000

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, released to manufacturing recently, is designed with a single unified-code base for both on-premise and on-demand deployments. It enables customers to choose the right deployment model for their specific business and IT needs with flexibility to change deployment models over time. Sanjay Jain speaks with Kevin Wydra, vice president and director of R&D with Client Profiles, a successful ISV in the legal industry with their flagship application CRM4Legal, to discuss their experience of adopting Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Platform, value addition it brings to their big customer base of law firms, their innovative approaches of utilizing Agile SDLC Methodologies and cross-collaboration between on-site and off-shore teams.

Tags: Business Application Platform, Client Profiles, CRM, CRM4Legal, Dynamics, Kevin Wydra, Law, Microsoft, Sanjay Jain, Software + Services, USISV

What’s New: Axonom - Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Platform Adoption

Cydni Tetro — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 01:47:35 +0000

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, released to manufacturing recently, is designed with a single unified-code base for both on-premise and on-demand deployments. It enables customers to choose the right deployment model for their specific business and IT needs with flexibility to change deployment models over time. Sanjay Jain speaks with William Barrow, CTO of Axonom, a successful ISV with their flagship application Powertrak CRM, to discuss their experience of adopting Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Platform, value addition it brings to their big customer base, expanding global footprint and execution of their Go-Vertical strategy.

Tags: William Barrow, Axonom, Business Application Platform, CRM, Dynamics, Microsoft, Powertrak, Sanjay Jain, Software + Services, USISV, William Barrow

Microsoft’s Porcaro on Online Community

Jennifer Jones — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 07:01:20 +0000

As one of the world’s most renowned gamers, John Porcaro, Manager of the Online Community of Microsoft knows what is happening online whether it concerns games or not. He talks with Marketing Voices of online trends and where the world of online is headed.

The Reboot: GDC 2008 Highlights

Rio Pesino — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 07:01:48 +0000

A record 18,000 people attended this year’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, CA. The five-day event featured 400 sessions, the GDC career pavilion, keynotes by Microsoft’s John Schappert and Ray Kurzweil and other GDC-related events including an evening with Will Wright and Video Games Live. In this episode of The Reboot, host Rio Pesino gives his take on some of the highlights of this year’s event, including Logitech’s new GT5 Prologue racing wheel, Dark Sector and Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds.

Tags: Dark Sector, Game Developers Conference, Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds, John Schappert, Logitech, Ray Kurzweil, Rio Pesino, The Reboot, Video Games Live, Will Wright

What’s New: Workflow discussion with Configuresoft

Cydni Tetro — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:20:13 +0000

Jared Youtsey a senior developer from Configuresoft and Warren Wilbee, a Microsoft Architect Evangelist sit down and discuss how to utilize Microsoft’s WorkFlow Foundation and Windows Communication Foundation for building workflow enabled service oriented solutions. Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) is the programming model, engine and tools for quickly building workflow enabled applications. WF enhances a developer’s ability to model and support business processes. Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is Microsoft’s unified programming model for building service-oriented applications. It enables developers to build secure, reliable, transacted solutions that integrate across platforms and interoperate with existing investments.

Tags: Configuresoft, ISV, Jared Youtsey, Microsoft, US ISV, Warren Wilbee, Windows Communication Foundation, Workflow Foundation

What’s New — 422 Group, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Platform Adoption

Cydni Tetro — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:16:43 +0000

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, released to manufacturing recently is designed with a single unified-code base for both on-premise and on-demand deployments. It enables customers to choose the right deployment model for their specific business and IT needs with flexibility to change deployment models over time. Sanjay Jain sits down with Doug Wofford President & CEO, and Keith Beindorf VP Product Development of 422 Group to discuss their insights into build/buy/partner decision making process as well as share some key learning and experiences on developing with the MS CRM 4.0 platform.

Tags: Microsoft, 422 Group, Business Application Platform, CRM, Doug Wofford, Dynamics, Keith Beindorf, Sanjay Jain, Software + Services, USISV

The Reboot: The Death of the Xbox 360 HD-DVD Player

Rio Pesino — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:28:02 +0000

Microsoft has officially discontinued production of its Xbox 360 external HD-DVD player. The decision comes days after consumer electronics giant Toshiba announced that it will no longer produce HD-DVD products, essentially ending the HD-format war with Sony’s Blu-Ray. Video game juggernaut Electronic Arts wants to take over Take-Two Interactive and Sony’s Phil Harrison calls it quits. Those stories and more on this episode of The Reboot with Rio Pesino.

Tags: Microsoft, Xbox 360, HD-DVD, Sony Blu-Ray, Electronic Arts, Take-Two Interactive, Phil Harrison, The Reboot, Rio Pesino

The Reboot/GDC 2008: Xbox Blogger Breakfast

Rio Pesino — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 01:04:12 +0000

The Gamerscore Blog hosted a Xbox blogger breakfast for the media and video game blogging community. The event gave a selected number of journalists and bloggers the chance to speak with Microsoft’s Chris Satchell, John Shappert and Aaron Greenberg. In this audio version of The Reboot, host Rio Pesino takes you to the breakfast table, where topics discussed included XNA, HD-DVD, Xbox 360 shortages and Xbox Live Downloadable Content.

Tags: Aaron Greenberg, Chris Satchell, Gamerscore Blog, HD-DVD, John Shappert, The Reboot, Xbox Blogger Breakfast, XNA

Facebook Status Update

Jason Lopez — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 08:01:46 +0000

Last October, Microsoft invested $240 million in Facebook, suddenly placing Facebook’s value at a lofty $15 billion. Now, we see that revenues for 2007 came to around $150 million, while expenses still leave the company with a negative cash flow that could be as high as $150 million next year.

Microsoft’s recent move to acquire Yahoo!, which began with a telephone call from Microsoft CEO Steven A. Ballmer to Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang (a call that Ballmer later claimed was “definitely not a courtesy call”) prompted us to revisit the Facebook/Microsoft relationship - what it means for Facebook, and what Microsoft might have been thinking last Fall.

As Facebook moves to launch versions in Spanish, with more languages coming soon, analysts are looking again at the juggernaut, guessing about whether breaking into languages will erode its power as a single network around the world. Meanwhile, widgets and applications continue to proliferate, and Microsoft’s role in aiding advertising at Facebook continues to be a work in progress.

Forrester Research senior analyst (and former host of PodTech’s own Web Strategy show) Jeremiah Owyang speaks with PodTech’s Jason Lopez about Facebook’s evolving business.

Tags: Microsoft, Facebook, Steven A. Ballmer, Jerry Yang, Web Strategy, Jeremiah Owyang, Jason Lopez

What’s New: Quark’s Using Silverlight

Cydni Tetro — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:54:19 +0000

Are you trying to produce a fantastic user experience on the Web? Come spend 15 minutes with Kapil Tundwal and Mohan Dhandapani from Quark’s emerging technologies and Warren Wilbee (ISV Architect Evangelist for Microsoft). Their discussion provides a crisp view of the real world experience of a large software company who is leveraging Silverlight for use with their commercial software package.

Tags: Microsoft, Quark, Silverlight, Warren Wilbee

Vertafore and SmartClient Deployment

Cydni Tetro — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 01:24:15 +0000

How should SmartClient technology integrate with web solutions? VP Development at Vertafore Chris Kinsman talks with Microsoft Architect Evangelist Bruce Kyle about how and why SmartClient deployment of Windows Forms deliver the most value to its financial services customers in the AMS 360 product. And he describes how the Software + Services (S+S) company uses Internet Information Services (IIS) 7 in Windows Server 2008 to the update the data center.

Tags: Microsoft, smartclient, vertafore

The Reboot: CES 2008

Rio Pesino — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 01:01:55 +0000

The Consumer Electronics Show usually isn’t a big show for gamers, but this year’s event was expected to be different. CES dedicated more show floor space for its Gaming Showcase and there were even rumors that Microsoft’s Bill Gates would reveal a new version of the Xbox 360 at the event. Instead, gamers who attended CES were disappointed with no announcement of a new 360 and a Gaming Showcase that was lacking in video games. However, there were some major gaming annoucements made at CES. Sony used the event to promote new Playstation Portable applications and show off its most creative game yet, while Microsoft unveiled several new Games for Windows, including Turning Point: Fall of Liberty, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures and Space Siege. Texas Instruments also showed off its DualView technology, which could change the face of gaming forever. In this episode of The Reboot, host Rio Pesino gives you his take on what stood out at CES.

Tags: Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, Bill Gates, CES, BlogHaus, CESBlogHaus, DualView, Games for Windows, Gaming, Microsoft, Playstation Portable, PSP, Skype, Sony, Space Siege, Texas Instruments, Turning Point: Fall of Liberty, Xbox 360

Microsoft’s Xbox Live Blogger from CES

Robert Scoble — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 20:47:31 +0000

Larry Hryb is one of Microsoft’s most famous bloggers. He works on the Xbox Live team and visited the CES BlogHaus to talk about what he’s seeing.

Tags: Larry Hryb, Microsoft, Xbox Live, CES, BlogHaus, CESBlogHaus