Microsoft released the public beta of SharePoint 2010 in November of last year receiving accolades for its rapid business application development platform from the likes of InfoWorld, as well as Global 1000 customers.
Confer, Liaise, Leverage Software, Loqu8, Huddle.net, Calinda Software, and Cortex Intelligence, several of the most innovative emerging Enterprise 2.0 companies will test these development capabilities as they build their applications on top of the SharePoint 2010 platform in a one week competition - the first ever SharePoint 2010 SocialFest, to be held on the MSFT Silicon Valley Campus during the week of January 25th. These companies were selected because they demonstrate strong potential to extend the SharePoint 2010 platform in one of the fastest growing areas of enterprise software - social computing. Yammer made the list, but unfortunately cannot attend.
Not only will the developers receive around the clock SharePoint development and engineering expertise, they will present to a tier one group of venture investors, Fortune 500 customers and SharePoint/E2.0 experts:
Vispi Daver, Partner, Sierra Ventures
Mike Kwatinetz, General Partner, Azure Capital
Vivek Mehra, Partner, August Capital
Sergio Monsalve, Principal, Norwest Venture Partners
Helen Loh, Vice President Digital Marketing, Charles Schwab & Co.
Andy Zimmerman, Portal Manager Corporate Communications, McKESSON
Jeff Dachis, CEO, Dachis Group & co-founder, Razorfish
Owen Allen, Senior Product Manager, SharePoint
Christian Finn, Director, SharePoint
Tom Rizzo, Senior Director, SharePoint
This is an invite-only event. If you are a startup interested in learning about future events or more about BizSpark and BizSpark One partnering please refer to the Microsoft Startup Zone home page .