Memo from Marketing

Investigate, Innovate and Interoperate

Tony Bailey — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 23:15:21 GMT

I often get asked what the “IP” in the Microsoft IP licensing team I work in stands for. It’s “intellectual property”.

IP licensing is a possible way to innovate, creating new products. It is also an opportunity to interoperate, finding ways to make products work together.

Drilling down a little further IP licensing offers a way to innovate by using the latest research and technologies from Microsoft without spending years trying to create your next big thing alone.
The IP licensing team also offers protocols, protocol specifications and components for licensing to help companies interoperate. This help might be especially important for companies developing high value add-ons and feature-rich solutions that run on Microsoft products.

Innovation is being driven hard in Microsoft Research. Helping companies “interoperate” with our licensing of protocols, protocol specifications and components is also high on the list and complements the efforts around “ interoperability ” and “ standards “

Intellectual property licensing might suggest a licensing process mired in legalese and lawyers. We’re working hard to make that not the case. Take a look at the research, protocols, components and technologies available today for licensing.

My Data is Backed Up. Or is it?

Tony Bailey — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 23:01:01 GMT

An area of technology we've licensed out recently addresses the issue of backing up encrypted data without decrypting or manipulating the data. Why such a big deal? Maintaining multiple versions of encrypted documents that can be unique for each user based on different encryption keys can be a storage capacity killer.
A company called Datacastle has developed a "block level" backup solution for encrypted files.

"Block level" is where the actual 1's and 0's are captured from the hard drive typically eliminating backup failures related to open files.

Datacastle's approach is to represent a specific document by a Data DNA map. This map states what Data DNA is needed and in what sequence it needs to be stitched together to give you back what you think of as your version of a document at a specific moment in time. It is this Data DNA that is backed up into a backend vault.

Datacastle further improved on their approach by licensing a Microsoft research technology called Convergent Encryption that allows the Datacastle solution to share Data DNA elements across all the users within a vault. This is important because each user device has its own cryptographically random encryption key.

It's another example of an ISV that is licensing Microsoft technology to create a market-leading approach without spending endless months trying to figure out an in-house solution. Datacastle may well have created their next big thing.
Check out more research, technologies, components and protocols available for licensing at www.microsoft.com/iplicensing

Exchange ActiveSync: You Have Painless Email

Tony Bailey — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 06:13:51 GMT

For anyone that’s ever wondered “just how does my mobile device synchronize with my Exchange email, contacts and calendar?” I have a simple backgrounder for you.

An enabler of this “syncing” capability is Exchange ActiveSync® in Microsoft® Exchange Server. Exchange ActiveSync is a server-side technology. Your Exchange ActiveSync-enabled device will synchronize mailbox items through a wireless connection without using a desktop computer, cradle, and desktop synchronization software. We’ve come a long way since the days of dial tone Internet and forever waiting for email to arrive onto a [often heavy] laptop.

Several companies have licensed the Exchange ActiveSync specification to enable their devices and technologies.

The current list of licensees as of 10.3.08 are:

Check out the other technologies, protocols, research and components available for licensing to startups, entrepreneurs and ISVs here.

Stock Market Data Without The Brain Freeze

Tony Bailey — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 21:02:12 GMT

The average retail investor (you, me) is often faced with more investment data than they can consume or make decisions on. Enter Intellectual Property Licensing and the Microsoft Solver Foundation. The Microsoft Solver Foundation can perform optimization techniques on a set of solutions to a problem or query.

For example, if I want to know "what are the highest performing mutual funds investing mainly in energy stocks as a percentage on return in the last five years?" The Solver Foundation can provide the tools to search randomly to find a list of good solutions and then find the optimal solution within that listing. That's about as plain a description I could think up.

www.zignals.com were trying to crack the problem of stock market data overload for retail investors. Zignals worked with Microsoft and developed a Solver solution that will focus on producing easy-to-use stock and market alerts.

This is another good example of startups, entrepreneurs and ISVs using Microsoft research and technologies to create their next big thing. Check out more here www.microsoft.com/iplicensing

That Next Big Thing - Tag You're It

Tony Bailey — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 05:27:49 GMT

My team continues to make progress working with start ups, entrepreneurs and ISVs. We recently licensed out a technology called World Wide Media eXchange (WWMX). WWMX enables the indexing of a large volume of geotagged photographs and provides the tools to access them via a geographic browser. WWMX was invented by Kentaro Toyama, when he was with the Interactive Visual Media group at Microsoft Research in Redmond, Washington, USA.

WWMX essentially associates digital photographs with the GPS coordinates at which they were shot.

www.planeteye.com caught wind of WWMX and built a whole new web experience around travel planning.

Making travel plans usually requires visiting scattered Web sites to get various bits of information that then need to be pieced together.
PlanetEye pulls all of this information about attractions, hotels, restaurants and the like onto one site, and then it enhances this content with WWMX-geotagged user-generated content.

Check out the other technologies available to license at www.microsoft.com/iplicensing

Start – A Conference for Entrepreneurs

Marketing — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:18:00 GMT

Find an exciting line-up of successful startup founders, investors, and lawyers at Start, a conference geared at equipping talented entrepreneurs with advice on the crucial steps of starting your company, effectively pitching your idea, and potential pitfalls to avoid. Hear Anand Iyer discuss common problems entrepreneurs who are bootstrapping or starting up their own companies face today and the array of tools, products and services that can help them get off the ground easily.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

9:00 am – 9:00 pm

Cowell Theater, Fort Mason

San Francisco, California

Microsoft Research Technologies Available With Less Overhead

Tony Bailey — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:06:39 GMT

The Microsoft Intellectual Property (IP) Licensing team helps facilitate the licensing of Microsoft’s research technologies to startups, entrepreneurs and ISVs. There are several technologies in the long list that can help you create your next big thing with just a few clicks. Take a look at the site and here are some these “low-touch licensing” two-or-three click steps technologies:

www.microsoft.com/iplicensing

1. Cross-Device Image Viewer
http://www.microsoft.com/iplicensing/productDetail.aspx?productID=12

2. Interactive Image Cutout
http://www.microsoft.com/iplicensing/productDetail.aspx?productID=2

3. Microsoft Mobile Video Optimization (Portrait)
http://www.microsoft.com/iplicensing/productDetail.aspx?productID=40

4. Mobile Picture
http://www.microsoft.com/iplicensing/productDetail.aspx?productID=29

5. Photo Auto-Cropping
http://www.microsoft.com/iplicensing/productDetail.aspx?productID=32

6. Detours
http://www.microsoft.com/iplicensing/productDetail.aspx?productID=14

Fast Tracking Your Next Big Thing

Tony Bailey — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:53:47 GMT

Microsoft’s Intellectual Property (IP) Licensing Team Can Mean Fast Tracking Your Next Big Thing.

The Intellectual Property (IP) Licensing team facilitates licensing Microsoft research and technologies to ISVs, entrepreneurs and startups.

We’ve launched a web site at www.microsoft.com/iplicensing

We’ve also published some strong evidence of the momentum behind our efforts.

1. Licensing Watermarking Technology Positions Small Company for Market Leadership

2. Licensing Exchange ActiveSync Attracts Mobile Manufacturers and Customers

3. Licensing Exchange ActiveSync Helps to Further Distinguish Mobile Innovator

4. Inrix Keeps Drivers on Track with Predictive Traffic Information

5. Nokia Integrates Business Mobility with Exchange ActiveSync, Expands Consumer Choice

6. Chinese Company First to Market with Technology That Turns Photos into Cartoons

7. Mobility Start-Up Zooms to Market in Just 18 Months

8. Data Protection Software Company Creates Next Big Thing to Protect PC and Laptop Data

Incubation Week at Silicon Valley Microsoft

Marketing — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:09:00 GMT

This week, Microsoft is hosting a week-long event that supports startups and students at the Microsoft Technology Center in Silicon Valley. You can view the progress in action at the Incubation Week Facebook site.

Participants receive one day of training and three days of active prototyping and development time on their chosen application. The final day consists of packaging and reporting to a panel of judges.

The week-long event promises to open up the possibilities of both students and startups.

Next round of high potential UK companies to join the Microsoft Startup Accelerator Programme announced

Marketing — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:00:00 GMT

Dan’l Lewin, Corporate Vice President, Strategic and Emerging Business Development, Microsoft, announces most recent additions to the scheme during London visit

Tuesday, 10th June 2008 – Microsoft UK has announced the next five companies to join the Microsoft Startup Accelerator Programme which provides leading-edge and early-stage technology companies with a range of support services and advice to help them succeed.

The companies joining the programme are Huddle, Pingar, WAYN, Artesian Solutions and Umee. They join ten other businesses identified by Microsoft for their high-growth potential and because they present opportunities where Microsoft’s support can make a real difference. Microsoft UK will enrol an additional five companies by October 2008 which will mark the end of the programme’s first year and bring the total number of companies on the scheme to 20.

Companies joining the programme are given access to tools and services to accelerate their commercial success by Microsoft. The support ranges from consulting services and early access to technologies to software, licenses, channel and marketing support, with technical guidance on the latest Microsoft technologies and platforms, such as Microsoft® Silverlight™ and Windows Live™ Services. These support activities are tailored to the needs of each business in order address the diverse range of challenges that early-stage companies face.

Visiting London on the UK leg of a European tour, Dan’l Lewin, Corporate Vice President, Strategic and Emerging Business Development at Microsoft, said; “Programmes like ours are important because they help make the connections that can be the difference between success and failure. The UK has some of the most creative entrepreneurs in the world and we believe that by nurturing their talent, both technically and by supporting their business development activities, we can help them achieve great things.”

The Startup Accelerator is one component of the Microsoft Emerging Business Team’s wider activities to help new businesses and encourage innovation in the UK. While the Startup Accelerator is only available to a small number of very high potential start-ups, Microsoft has a range of programmes available to anyone who would like to start a software business. For example, the Microsoft Empower programme provides all the desktop and server software people need for five developers, managed newsgroup support and a telephone advisory service. This is part of a long term strategy to cultivate innovation and help more entrepreneurs succeed.

The new companies joining the programme are:

Huddle: A network of secure online workspaces designed to help people ‘work better together.’ Huddle offers a simple, secure and low-cost online service that saves time, effort and makes work a bit more fun. With Huddle you can instantly create a network of collaborative team workspaces combined with online productivity tools. The business has grown 50% a month and was voted on the UK’s top 20 web 2.0 companies (March 2008, startups.co.uk)
Pingar: A platform that aggregates the most valuable, subscription only content on the internet, providing customised reports at no cost to users while generating and sharing advertising revenue with the content owners.
WAYN (Where Are You Now): WAYN is the fastest growing travel and lifestyle social networking community website in the UK. WAYN is present in 193 countries and membership has grown from 45,000 users in March 2005 to over 12 million today. WAYN helps people keep track of contacts from around the world and make new friends based on where they are now, where they have been and where they are going.
Artesian Solutions: Provides software that delivers smart insights derived from the internet about your prospects, customers, competitors and the market, presented as headline news, delivering competitive advantage driving sales productivity at critical stages in a sales or product development cycle. Uniquely combines insight with collaboration, social networking and sharing capabilities in a web 2.0 framework. Several early blue-chip customers are already trialling the software.
Umee: Umee enables content owners to extend their online video services to multiple social networks and communities such as Facebook, Live Messenger and MySpace. The video services are based upon ‘discovery’ - where users discover new content using recommendation and sharing. Uniquely, Umee enables the sharing of video clips between these online communities as well as within them.

More information about Microsoft’s emerging business programmes, including the Startup Accelerator and Empower, can be found at: www.microsoftstartupzone.com/uk

More information about the Emerging Business Team can be found at: http://www.microsoft.com/business/startups/default.aspx

PDC2008 Registration Opens with Preliminary Sessions

Marketing — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 23:59:00 GMT

Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference (or PDC) is a conference for software developers, normally Windows developers. It covers new and upcoming technology from Microsoft, and so only occurs in the years when there is something new to talk about.

The wait is over! The public PDC2008 site just went live, and you can now register for the conference (and save $200 if you register early). We've published a preliminary set of topics that represents only a fraction of the over 160 sessions you'll see at the event. Topics include software + services, Windows 7, a deep dive on Silverlight and its graphics pipelines, SQL Server Data Services Architecture for scale, Windows Mobile, extensible BitmapEffects and Pixel Shaders in WPF, how we use Team Foundation Server for our huge Microsoft projects, a new technology that makes it easy to build business applications in Silverlight, how to develop for Live Mesh, and more. It's brain busting content at its best. And, we’ll do it all PDC-style: so deeply technical that your brain will hurt. Based on your feedback, we’re including more 400-level, deep technical content this year. We’ll also have hands-on labs where you can work directly with our latest bits.

And, for just $400 more, show up a day early and attend our pre-conference sessions. These are all-day-long, deep-dives on today's technology delivered by both Microsoft and recognized third-party experts. For example, Advanced Windows Debugging will be presented by Mario Hewardt and Daniel Pravat, the guys who wrote the excellent book by the same name. Some of my other favorites are Concurrent, Multi-core Programming on Windows and .NET, Performance by design using the .NET Framework, and who could resist the urge to go under the covers with Charles Petzold for WPF Code and Concepts.

We're doing social at the PDC this year, so be sure to join our Microsoft PDC Facebook group, our PDC2008 Twitter feed, and the Microsoft PDC2008 group on Flickr. You might also want to subscribe to the PDC blog for key information and updates about the event. Note that the PDC blog feeds the public web site, so no need to subscribe in both places.

Last, show your PDC2008 spirit! Grab some of the blog bling and wallpaper.

This is going to be an amazing event!

DataWeb brings Hosted SaaS tool development to the Business User

Kenik Hassel — Mon, 19 May 2008 16:18:00 GMT

DataWeb Corporation (http://www.dataweb.com/) is a hosted platform provider for web application development and is helping business people accomplish their jobs more effectively, using its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) tools. DataWeb’s platform is unique in that it enables applications to be created by businesspeople with moderate technical skills, not just developers. All of the tools a businessperson needs to develop, manage and deploy very sophisticated applications are delivered through the browser; nothing is downloaded to a local computer.

DataWeb’s HostRAD™ (Hosted Rapid Application Development) platform is a completely browser-based tool providing fully-hosted, turnkey solutions for developing, deploying and running custom applications on the web. DataWeb leverages Microsoft technology in its hosted environment using Microsoft Windows Server, Windows Internet Information Server (IIS), and SQL Server.

HostRAD™ allows users to define and edit data tables, layout data-centric web pages, edit HTML, write scripts and manage multi-level security, building all kinds of web applications. Users access HostRAD from any Internet-enabled computer, eliminating the need to install client software and keep different versions and libraries in sync. The results are low-cost, high performance, secure online applications built to your business requirements. Many businesses have used the HostRAD Platform to manage complex sales processes; issue invoices to customers; control and manage inventory and achieve better control of multi-step work processes.

These businesses range from tiny to enterprise scale customers. A case study recently authored by DataWeb highlights how their platform has been used by Microsoft Certified Partner, OpSource (www.opsource.net), a Santa Clara, CA-based developer of SaaS enablement and delivery platforms.

OpSource's products and services are designed to help other software companies to establish and offer web-based SaaS solutions to their clients. Using DataWeb's HostRAD, OpSource was able to create a web-based application that consolidates all of their customer and sales data into a single online database. The OpSource DataWeb application serves as a central repository for all customer and sales information used by each of OpSource's three internal groups.

Once the client, product, or service data is entered into the OpSource DataWeb application, it can then be imported into an Excel spreadsheet. The user can then create a Refreshable Web Query in Excel that will automatically retrieve current data from the OpSource DataWeb application and update that data in the Excel spreadsheet on demand.

This basic Excel spreadsheet, integrated with a Refreshable Web Query, can then be circulated around to all the members of all the OpSource groups. When OpSource employees need a real-time report of the latest up-to-date customer and sales data, they simply open their Excel spreadsheet and use the Refreshable Web Query to import the latest data from the OpSource DataWeb application. The Refreshable Web Query automatically populates the fields in the Excel spreadsheet with the latest customer and sales data.

For an in depth look into DataWeb and OpSource, go to the DataWeb web site for more detail.

Microsoft Research Silicon Valley Road Show 2008

Marketing — Wed, 14 May 2008 17:07:00 GMT

A Glimpse Into Technologies of the Future

We are pleased to invite you to the fourth Microsoft Research Silicon Valley Road Show on Thursday, May 22, at the company’s Mountain View campus to personally experience some of the recent innovations coming out of Microsoft’s research labs.

Rick Rashid, senior vice president of research, and Roy Levin, director of the Silicon Valley lab, will kick off the event during a keynote session.

Following the presentation, researchers will provide demonstrations in an interactive setting, showcasing some of the innovative projects that the Microsoft Research group is working on in the areas of search, graphics, security, privacy and more. Microsoft researchers will also be present to discuss their work and how Microsoft Research is advancing the state of the art of computing.

The Microsoft Research Silicon Valley Road Show 2008 is open to the public, so feel free to share this invitation with friends and colleagues.

Schedule of Events: Thursday, May 22

12:00-1:00p Registration
1:00-2:00p Keynote Session & Audience Q&A
2:00-4:30p Demo Room Open

Location:

Microsoft Mountain View Campus
Building 1
1065 LaAvenida
Mountain View, CA

Registration information:
Don’t miss this opportunity to speak with Microsoft researchers about their work and experience the latest innovations coming out of the labs.

Register now using RSVP code MSREmploy, as space is limited.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Explore the Possibilities of the Next Web at ReMIX08 Silicon Valley

Marketing — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 17:52:25 GMT

Explore the Possibilities of the Next Web at ReMIX08 Silicon Valley

Whoever said that what happens in Vegas has to stay in Vegas? Join us at ReMIX08 Silicon Valley and continue the conversation between designers, developers and business decision makers exploring the possibilities of the next web. Get the latest scoop on building richer web experiences with Silverlight 2 and incorporating Windows Live services. Jump into the discussion with industry leaders on the future of social networking, open source and Web 2.0.

This event will feature a keynote from Scott Guthrie who runs Microsoft's Silverlight and ASP.Net development teams. The event in Vegas SOLD OUT, so get a jumpstart on registration as this event promises to sell out too!

To register (it's FREE!) click here.

It’s Happening Here
Thursday April 17, 2008
8:00am – 4:45pm
Microsoft’s Campus in Silicon Valley
1065 La Avenida Street
Mountain View, CA 94043

For directions please click here.

SD Forum: Using Ruby and Rails for Innovation and Creativity

Marketing — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 01:58:00 GMT

April 18-19, 2008 | San Jose, California | The Tech Museum of Innovation

In the past three years, Ruby has become one of the most talked-about programming languages, and Ruby on Rails has become the framework of choice for many new web applications.

At the conference:

· Hear John Lam, IronRuby Guy and Open Source Ambassador, Microsoft, talk about IronRuby, Microsoft's Open Source implementation of Ruby that runs real Ruby programs (and yes, Rails is a real Ruby program)—everywhere that .NET runs today, from Windows to Mac (via Silverlight) to Linux (via Mono).

· Learn from experts who have built successful Ruby applications in both the startup and enterprise spaces

· Learn and use the newest features in Ruby 1.9 and Rails 2.0 releases

· Explore the latest Ruby on Rails development in the social networking platform

· Harness the potential and power of Ruby, including best practices