Posted by Kerry Godes
Senior Manager, Worldwide Marketing and Operations

Earlier this week, Microsoft announced Windows Azure Mobile Services support for the Android platform, furthering the commitment to make it easy to connect client and mobile applications to a scalable cloud backend, regardless of platform.

The Android announcement builds upon the existing support for iOS, Windows Store, and Windows Phone 8 apps. By providing SDKs that support building native apps for a variety of platforms, Windows Azure enables companies to provide a first-class experience - regardless of device.

Posted by Nik Garkusha
Open Platforms Lead, Microsoft Canada

With all the open data that’s been made available by cities, states and countries worldwide, it makes sense to explore new ways to connect that data into various apps. At many Microsoft-hosted events, including this week’s Make Web Not War Hackathon, the objective is just that – to explore these new scenarios offered by open data and find ways to translate it into powerful apps and visualizations. 

This open data trend is increasingly relevant because of the substantial value in judiciously sharing data as a means to transform government services delivery. By enabling access to the data, individuals are empowered to draw their own conclusions and use the data to engage in their communities.

Last week I blogged about two perfect examples of Windows 8 apps that harness the power of open data and support community engagement, specifically the geo-enabled open source templates “Finder” and “Hero”.

Posted by Kerry Godes
Senior Manager, Worldwide Marketing and Operations

As part of ongoing collaborations with Drupal, Microsoft is participating in this week’s DrupalCon in Munich. After partnering closely with the Drupal community to make Drupal available on Windows, tomorrow’s sessions will highlight ongoing work with open source communities and Drupal developers, including how to quickly deploy Drupal sites on Windows Azure.

For more on the event, please see the Interoperability@Microsoft blog or stop by the booth and say hello!

Posted by Kerry Godes
Senior Manager, Worldwide Marketing and Operations

Industry standards are the bedrock upon which product and service interoperability are built. Cloud platforms supporting existing and evolving standards make it easier to interconnect through pragmatic “use cases,” or interoperability scenarios, which help customers transition to the cloud on their terms. That’s why Microsoft is dedicated to working with the ecosystem of cloud solution and service providers to provide an open, reliable and global approach to the cloud that centers on interoperability and standards.

Last week, the Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA) announced that Microsoft joined the organization as a contributor member to provide resources to the technical workgroups to further the development of open, industry-standard usage models.

"In line with Windows Azure's commitment to openness and interoperability, we are pleased to join ODCA and work with industry leadership on standards for the cloud," said Bill Hilf, General Manager, Windows Azure.

Posted by Kerry Godes
Senior Manager, Worldwide Marketing and Operations

This week the Windows Azure team released WebMatrix 3, the current version of the popular free web development tool, which includes support for popular open source apps and the ability to publish your site to the Cloud using Windows Azure Web Sites.

WebMatrix allows you to create websites quickly, using ASP.NET, PHP, Node.js, or HTML5 templates. You can also take advantage of the latest web standards, like CSS3 and HTML5, and popular JavaScript libraries such as JQuery.