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by Peter Galli on April 12, 2010 05:19am
As you may know, Microsoft announced last July the Live Services Plug-in for Moodle, a free download released under the General Public License v2 that integrates Microsoft's Live@Edu services such as email, calendar, instant messaging and search directly into the Moodle experience.
The move was very important for Microsoft in the educational space in Latin America, as adoption and usage are surging in the region for Live@Edu, Microsoft's free communication and collaboration solution that educational institutions can offer their students.
In fact, not only are adoption and usage surging in the region, but this is happening in unique and original ways with well known and socially relevant organizations that already understand how interoperability can work as a knowledge and collaboration enabler.
A good example of this is Instituto Ayrton Senna, which invests and works to create conditions and opportunities for every Brazilian child and adolescent so that they can realize their full potential as people, citizens and future professionals. The Moodle e-learning solutions used by the organization to qualified Brazilian citizens have been enhanced through its interoperability with Microsoft's Live@Edu services and technologies.
Another example is the IT Lab at Unesp (a public university in São Paulo State), which counts on Microsoft´s support to develop and research interoperability between different technologies. Along with Instituto Ayrton Senna, and using the Microsoft Plug-in, it has developed integration between Moodle e-learning solutions and Windows Live Services, including email, Messenger, calendar alerts, Bing, and others.
This integration allows users to access all these facilities through a unique sign-in, on the same screen and environment, with students able to log-in into Moodle using their Live ID.
"It is a good way of putting together, in one environment, the best of Windows Live - through Live@Edu - and Moodle," says Leandro Jekimim Goulart, Unesp IT Lab coordinator. "By integrating the services to the e-learning solution at Instituto Ayrton Senna, teachers are able to contact students through instant messaging, as well as organize online meetings," Goulart says.
Instituto Ayrton Senna has already supported over 11,64 million children and youth - the Institute counts on licensees, allies, partners, and contributors to support programs and actions - and some R$ 203 million has been invested since it was established in 2004.
by Peter Galli on April 09, 2010 02:09pm
Microsoft has just released the SQL Server Reporting Services SDK for PHP, which enables PHP developers to easily create reports and integrate them in their web applications.
The SDK offers a simple Application Programming Interface to interoperate with SQL Server Reporting Services, Microsoft's Reporting and Business Intelligence solution.
Developers will be able to use the SDK to perform common operations like listing reports in PHP applications, providing custom report parameters from a PHP Web form, and managing the style of the output formats to meet their needs.
This interoperability toolkit is now available for download from CodePlex as an open source project, and is open to feedback from the community.
As Claudio Caldato notes in his blog on the Interoperability @ Microsoft site, "best of all, these scenarios can be done using the free (as in 'free beer'!) SQL Server 2008 Express with Advanced Services edition.
This edition includes the SQL Server 2008 Express database engine as well as graphical administration tools and the Reporting Services server components for creating, managing, and deploying tabular, matrix, graphical, and free-form reports.
Microsoft's SQL Server 2008 Express Advanced can be downloaded here.
by Garrett Serack on April 07, 2010 09:04am
Last week, I blog'd about a new open source project that I've launched called "CoApp" (The Common Opensource Application Publishing Platform), which was also accepted today as a CodePlex Foundation project in its recently-announced Systems Infrastructure and Integration Gallery.
As I've mentioned on the project site, "CoApp aims to create a vibrant Open Source ecosystem on Windows by providing the technologies needed to build a complete community-driven Package Management System, along with tools to enable developers to take advantage of features of the Windows platform."
Ugh - a mouthful - and all chocked full of them shiny marketing words. (Uh ... yeah, I know I wrote that.).
So, what does that mean?
Well, while Windows provides some pretty good stuff for packaging applications in the form of Windows Installer* technology (aka "MSI"), the down side is that the open source community hasn't really picked it up in the same way that they have picked up packaging on other platforms where they create repositories and distributions of software, and so we're missing out on having these nice, consistent collections of all these great open source apps. That's where I really want to be.
‘Course, my pappy always used to tell me "it don't take a genius to spot a goat in flock of sheep" ... Sure, it's easy to see what the problem is, question is, how do we go about fixin' it?
Last fall, I started to sketch out what that should look like, and what it would take to get there. After a few months of poking the right people, I started to get agreement here at Microsoft that this really is a great idea, and we should be spending time on it. (And, ‘course, by ‘we' I mean ‘me.')
I know from personal experience with building open source software on Windows, that things are not only sometimes tricky, but often downright impossible to build correctly, and even harder to make sure the software is built in such a way that anyone on Windows could use it. I've come up with a plan for building a set of tools to help open source software build better on Windows, along with automating the packaging in such a way that will allow us to build yet more shiny tools to locate and install them.
Along with the tools, we're going to need to lay down some guidance on how to use them to build packages that play nice with each other-I want to make sure that I'm never running into "DLL Hell", never having to search for missin' bits, and always getting the right package for the right job. At the same time, I really want to use some optimization techniques to help open source software run better on Windows.
Starting with ApacheCon last fall, I began to reach out to people I know in open source communities, not only to get their buy-in that this is a good idea, but solicit their help. I've already secured a handful of folks who are interested in helping, and I can always use a few more.
Over the course of the next month or so, we'll be the filling in the details on what all of this looks like on the project site, and discussing the merits on the mailing list. From there, we'll begin to build the tools, and with a bit of luck, we'll start producing packages a few more months after that. We'll probably start with the packages that make the most sense (Apache, PHP and Python) and work our way out from there.
And just how does Microsoft fit into all of this?
Well, the folks here at Microsoft have recognized the value in this project, and have kindly offered to let me work on it full-time. I'm running the project; Microsoft is supporting my efforts in this 100%. The design is entirely the work of myself and the CoApp community, I don't have to vet it with anyone inside the company. This really makes my job a dream job - I get to work on a project that I'm passionate about, make it open source, and let it take me where it makes sense.
Sure, it's a large project, but I'm pretty sure that we're headed in the right direction. If you'd like to come out and help (or even just come get more details about what I'm talking about), you can start here.
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"* I know, some people don't particularly like MSI, but trust me, it's all in how it's used-ya don't blame the horse for throwin' a shoe."
by Peter Galli on April 06, 2010 12:21pm
Last summer, a new team within Microsoft, Education Labs, debuted the popular Live Services Plug-in for Moodle. Part of the charter for that team is to listen and quickly respond to educators' feedback so, when the team started to hear the positive feedback for that tool, they reached out to find out what other needs educators had with respect to Moodle, an open-source learning management system.
They quickly realized that, while educators liked the efficiency and time savings of the single sign-on that tool provided users of both Moodle and Live@edu, they also wanted other critical actions to be made simpler and faster. For example, they wanted to save time when using Office and Moodle together. Additionally, school administrators wanted to find out how to get the robustness of the SharePoint platform to underlie Moodle.
Today, the Education Labs team responded and launched a free Office Add-in for Moodle, as well as releasing a white paper on how to integrate SharePoint with Moodle.
Office Add-in for Moodle: As described in this blog post, this tool is easy to install and brings saving an Office document to Moodle down from some eight steps to around four. When uploading a lot of files to one or more Moodles, that can equate to a lot of time savings. As many educators use Moodle to upload their course content at the beginning of the semester, that upload now just got easier and faster.
You can download the tool, which is available in 6 languages, here.
In addition to saving Office documents to a Moodle, educators frequently need to update or edit those files on Moodle. Until now, if you needed to make changes to an Office document on a Moodle, you could click on it to open it, but then you had to save it to the desktop and then have to upload it again. Now, with the new Office Add-in installed, that eight step process goes to just one step: Save!
You can watch the Channel 9 video here.
White paper on integrating SharePoint as the file system for Moodle: In contrast to the Office Add-in, which is a free download of an actual piece of software, those schools already using SharePoint and Moodle have all the software they require.
They just need to follow the instructions in the white paper to give IT pros the ability to restore files accidentally overwritten or deleted by teachers using versioning and/or the recycle bin and/or the capabilities of SharePoint. In addition, SharePoint brings file search capabilities that Moodle does not have.
And, speaking of bulk upload, an educator can use SharePoint to add multiple files simultaneously to their Moodle. Note that even with the add-in, they will still upload a file at a time.
These initiatives all underscore how Microsoft is focused on providing compelling solutions that meet user needs, and that those solutions will continue to use open source tools like Moodle.
by Brett Shoemaker on March 31, 2010 10:01am
As you probably know, Microsoft submitted source code for the Hyper-V Linux Integration Services to the Linux Kernel Community last July to provide the integration that customers were looking for with Hyper-V.
The Integration Services (ISs) are now part of the Linux kernel (as of 2.6.32), and today we released enhancements to the Linux ISs, which will hopefully generate excitement on the part of users.
Today's beta release of Integration Services adds the following new functionality:
You can get your hands on the beta version of the new Linux Integration Components here.
Microsoft developed the ISs to enhance the performance of Linux when virtualized on Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V. The Linux Integration Services allow Linux to run in an "enlightened mode" on top of Hyper-V. Without this code, Linux runs but without the same high performance.
With support agreements in place with Novell and Red Hat and a continued commitment from Microsoft to have Linux be a first-class citizen on Hyper-V, customers with heterogeneous environments (like Auburn University) have even greater interoperability. Not only can they run Linux on Hyper-V, but they can also manage Windows and non-Windows applications and hypervisors using System Center. Timesync and SMP support are two key enhancements that were requested by our customers, and now they are here.
We will, of course, be contributing this code to the mainline Linux kernel. You can read more about this on the blog by Mike Sterling of the Virtualization team.
Now, time to get back to improving the experience of running Linux on Hyper-V!
by Peter Galli on March 26, 2010 10:40am
Brian Goldfarb, the Director of Product Management for Developer Platforms at Microsoft, recently participated at both MIX10 in Las Vegas and the Open Source Business Conference (OSBC) in San Francisco. I thought it would be interesting to get his thoughts about both events.
Peter Galli: Your passion for both open source communities and the open source approach to making software is something you discussed while speaking on "The Web is the Platform" panel at the recent OSBC. Can you elaborate not only on your passion, but also on how you've seen changes in Microsoft's overall approach to open source?
Brian Goldfarb: Microsoft's change in how it approaches open source began pretty significantly about seven years ago when I joined the company. One of my primary focuses was on helping bring a strong shift in the way Microsoft thinks about, participates in, and works with open source communities.
Today, this takes the shape of open source projects, code contributions, financial contributions, and other ways with a strong focus on being compatible with existing open source communities. From my team alone, we've made a number of investments in open source in the last year: These include contributions to the jQuery JavaScript Library, the Silverlight Media Framework (SMF), the Silverlight Analytics Framework (SAF), the Silverlight Control Toolkit, the AJAX Control Toolkit, and Project Orchard.
In addition to projects and code, we also worked closely with open source application communities like DotNetNuke, Drupal, WordPress and others via our work on the Windows Web App Gallery. Microsoft is delivering advertising to help increase the size of the ecosystem for these applications on Windows Server and IIS. This is great because it drives more opportunities for the ecosystems around these applications to service customers and monetize and it helps drive increased use of Windows - this effort has driven over 1.5-million application installations!
Peter Galli: Just how committed is Microsoft to Open Source?
Brian Goldfarb: Open Source is one of many business models that surround the creation of software. At Microsoft, while not always clear in the past, we are completely committed to open source as one way to address the needs of our customers, while advancing both the broader ecosystem of partners and developers and our business.
Peter Galli: You were just at MIX10. Tell me about some of the news there.
Brian Goldfarb: Well, Silverlight now brings a common infrastructure for plugins across a variety of devices. As a company we also announced an increasing commitment to HTML5 with IE9, implementing standards in a consistent way. Silverlight and HTML5 are complementary and symbiotic technologies serving distinct needs. At Microsoft, we are committed to playing a major role with both and delivering the experiences consumers increasingly demand.
HTML5 is a great iteration on the already popular AJAX technologies in market (we even created the X in Ajax J) and Microosft has great investments in tools (Visual Studio, Expression Web) and platforms (ASP.NET) to build HTMl5 sites. Silverlight pushes the envelope on what is possible, going beyond HTMl5 to enable scenarios not covered by standards in a consistent way across different devices. Also, we announced Microsoft is dedicating developers to actively contribute to the jQuery JavaScript Library and be active participants in the broader jQuery community.
Peter Galli: So how is Silverlight moving the Web forward?
Brian Goldfarb: Silverlight is focused on driving the bleeding edge of what is possible on the Web. We help enable companies to best design, develop, and deliver the engaging interactive experiences that their customers demand. With a single runtime, we span both the web, the desktop, and mobile devices making it easy for developers to write once and optimize the best user experience on each form factor.
We also focus on enabling a wide variety of applications -the highest-quality media experiences in 1080P HD, to business applications and enable them to run both in and out of the browser, on or offline - with a single runtime installation. Silverlight is helping drive new innovation for what can be accomplished through Web delivered content, whether it's IIS Smooth Streaming for Media, Pivot for data visualization and exploration, Deep Zoom for super-high resolution imagery and more.
Peter Galli: So, are there now two different groups of developers, mobile developers and Web developers?
Brian Goldfarb: No, as we announced at MIX this week, for Silverlight, there is no difference. More than 500,000 Silverlight developers are now mobile developers.
Peter Galli: With the proliferation of the Web and mobile devices, people are swimming in data. We are all suffering from data overload. Is data now the business model?
Brian Goldfarb: Not really - it's more of a trend to enable business opportunities - a trend more about enhancing consumer experiences, where the data is pervasive, and where you can connect to it from anywhere. With the growing availability of Web data you can easily create new richer front ends to existing websites (for instance the Microsoft Silverlight 4 Beta Client for Facebook, or the work being enabled by the Microsoft SDK for Facebook Platform) and it opens up a new world of possibilities to businesses to change the way we interact with data that already exists. We've done a lot of work with our partners around all this that puts a pretty face on data consumption.
OData is an example of how we are making it easier to share and consume data. With OData we are extending simple standards (AtomPub) to make it easier to build services that can be consumed by any front end.
Peter Galli: As we move towards a reality where the Web is the platform, the need for large scale enterprise frameworks is diminished. How do you reconcile that with the existing large frameworks?
Brian Goldfarb: Well, I think you have to have both. There needs to be room for comprehensive frameworks like Java as well as for agile frameworks. You have to do both, because you're serving very different customers.
When we talk to enterprise IT, they tell us to ship slower, while the OS community wants us to ship faster. We're able to deliver on both of these seemingly conflicting demands with steady releases of the .NET Framework and agile releases of software like Silverlight and ASP.NET MVC. We've done a ton of work to make Windows and IIS a great resource for running PHP apps. We're investing in Drupal, Word Press with the Windows App Gallery, and we're driving business to open source apps, creating energy and usage in these communities.
This benefits everybody and grows the pie for everyone. For example, we recently open sourced ASP.NET MVC 2, and Miguel de Icaza has it up and running on Mono already.
by Peter Galli on March 23, 2010 08:25am
More good news about Microsoft and Open Source coming out of Canada this week: Microsoft Canada and a Vancouver-based developer, Nitobi, are working together to help make government data more easily accessible and useful for citizens.
Nitobi, leveraging the City of Vancouver's Open Data catalogue and Microsoft's Open Government Data Initiative (OGDI) platform, has developed VanGuide, a web and mobile based social mapping application that enables citizens to tag, rate and comment on Vancouver landmarks and locations.
The codebase for the project has been released as an Open Source framework on Codeplex, to enable the creation of new community driven "mash ups", creating new opportunities for increased citizen participation and collaboration.
"We are using open source components with Microsoft technologies to quickly respond to business needs and create innovative mobile and Web applications. Our Vanguide application and the underlying Open Data Application Framework are clear examples of the power of open standards on the Microsoft platform, enabled by open source to make information available for all citizens," says Andre Charland, the CEO of Nitobi.
VanGuide is just one example of how Microsoft is working to build a vibrant application ecosystem around Open Data catalogues in Canada and around the world by leveraging the power of technology. Watch the related video here.
"Microsoft is open to Open Source. We actively foster application development using Open Data catalogues on a variety of application platforms to help government organizations meet their transparency, citizen participation and agency collaboration goals. By helping Canadian cities transform how they deliver services, our continued focus is on interoperability and helping close the digital divide," says Nik Garkusha, the Open Source Strategy Lead for Microsoft Canada.
This latest initiative is just one of the many ways in which Microsoft's Open Government efforts are being felt across Canada. Others include the use by Edmonton of the Open Government Data Initiative (OGDI) cloud-based solution from Microsoft for its Open Data Catalogue. The catalogue was implemented at minimal cost to the City using open source components and Microsoft's newest cloud operating system, Windows Azure.
Also, since the launch of Vancouver's Open Data Catalogue, local programmers have been working on applications , to make the data useful for the citizens of Vancouver. Apps like Vancouver Parking, Map Way and FreeFinders, are the result of a Microsoft sponsored competition to encourage the development of open government apps.
Local developers and municipal IT staff are also using open standards and application interfaces to easily retrieve data for use in innovative online applications that can help improve citizen services, enhance collaboration between public and private organizations and increase City transparency.
Microsoft is also currently working with the cities of Nanaimo and Calgary on new Gov 2.0 projects.
by Peter Galli on March 18, 2010 10:59am
Stuart McKee, Microsoft's National Technology Officer for the U.S., is set to take the stage at the annual Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco and deliver his keynote, "Microsoft and Open Source: A New Perspective."
In a blog post, McKee says that he will talk about the opportunities for open source applications running on and with Microsoft platforms - from Windows, to SharePoint to Azure - and how increased flexibility and choice for the consumers of these technologies are good for everyone.
"More than ever, we are continuing to improve interoperability with open source products and platforms in addition to working with customers looking to optimize their mixed IT environments. Interoperability is important not only for the business world, but also for state and local governments. That's because the business of government is really about outcomes, regardless of how solutions are created," he says.
Read the full blog post here.
by Peter Galli on March 16, 2010 11:15am
In his keynote address today at MIX10, Scott Guthrie, the Corporate Vice President of Microsoft's .NET Developer Platform, announced Microsoft is taking a more active role participating in the open-source, community-driven development of the jQuery JavaScript Library.
Microsoft will now work in concert with the jQuery JavaScript Library team to accelerate the creation of new features that make creating rich-web applications on any platform faster and easier.
Microsoft's first involvement with the jQuery JavaScript Library team is to propose a powerful feature making it easier for developers to build client-side, data-driven web applications and, as such, the company has contributed a templating engine for evaluation and improvement to the jQuery JavaScript Library.
The goal here is to help ensure this is a primary way to develop rich, JavaScript based client-side internet applications. Read more about this on Scott's blog and John Resig's blog.
And, going forward, the company also plans to assist in the development of both standards-based and ASP.NET based jQuery Plugins aimed to simplify interoperability between the two platforms, and Microsoft will now help make the jQuery JavaScript Library a primary development option on Windows. Microsoft is already a big, and longtime supporter of the jQuery JavaScript Library, and will include the jQuery JavaScript Library 1.4.1 in its releases of both Visual Studio 2010 and ASP.NET MVC 2 products.
As such, Microsoft is also adopting the open source approach to development that the jQuery JavaScript Library community uses, meaning the community can provide direct feedback and contribute to the materials that Microsoft's developers contribute to the jQuery JavaScript Library.
The jQuery Foundation will redistribute works provided under its own licenses.
Also announced at MIX10 was the release of new software development kits for the Open Data Protocol (OData), which make it easier for developers to access data from the cloud to create more compelling cross-platform Web applications.
by Scott Collison on March 09, 2010 06:00am
As we get ready for the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco later this month, Microsoft asked us to pull some statistics around how Windows plays in the broader Open Source ecosystem.
As you may know, the Geeknet network includes SourceForge, Slashdot, ThinkGeek, Ohloh, and freshmeat. Each month, we provide over 40 million geeks with content, connections and commerce.
What we found when we pulled the data was really interesting: starting with the fact that the amount of Open Source Software (OSS) that is Windows compatible has been steadily climbing over time, from 72 percent in early 2005 to some 82 percent in late 2009.
In terms of actual numbers, this means that some 350,000 Open Source projects are now Windows compatible, out of a total of about 433,000 Open Source projects.
This growth pretty much mirrors Microsoft's increased engagement with Open Source Software, with increased participation in open source projects, supporting open source applications on its platforms and even using open source code in some of its products.
What we also found was that the majority of new OSS projects starting today are operating system agnostic, largely thanks to the popularity of scripting languages and managed runtimes.
Interestingly, our research also found that Windows is the only operating system that runs all of the top 10 all-time most downloaded projects on SourceForge: eMule, Azureus/Vuze, Ares Gallery, 7-Zip, Filezilla, GTK+ and Gimp Installer for Windows, Audacity, PortableApps.com: Portable Software/USB, DC++, and BitTorent.
Also, of the top 25 all-time most-downloaded projects on SourceForge, 23 run on Windows, and 14 of them only run on Windows.
We will be available to discuss this, and other, data in greater depth at our Birds of a Feather lunch discussion at OSBC on Wednesday March 17, between 12h30 and 14h00. At the lunch we will focus on how open source development and proprietary development models are becoming increasingly complementary, and the trends we are seeing around open source development on Microsoft platforms.
I look forward to seeing you there for a lively conversation!
by Peter Galli on March 05, 2010 08:45am
Soma Somasegar, the Senior Vice President of Microsoft's Developer Division, has announced on his blog the beta of Microsoft Visual Studio Team Explorer 2010, which has cross platform support.
This release includes the Team Foundation Server Plugin for Eclipse as well as the Team Foundation Server Cross Platform Command Line Client.
"It works on Windows, Mac, Linux, and multiple flavors of Unix, providing access to the same source control, work item tracking, build automation, and reporting features that Visual Studio customers have benefitted from," Somasegar said.
Read the rest of his blog here.
This follows the acquisition last year of the assets of Teamprise, a then partner who provided access to Team Foundation Server from Eclipse and non-Windows platforms.
You can download the beta of Microsoft Visual Studio Team Explorer 2010 here.
by Stuart McKee on March 04, 2010 07:45am
It's no understatement to say that governments today are stressed to deliver more with much less. One difference with the private sector is the government's ‘inverse' relationship to the economy - the ‘worse' it gets, the more demand for services rises ... tax revenues go down, while demand on the system goes up.
State and local governments are really feeling the impact of the recession and are losing valuable resources. Many of the "easy" cuts have already been made, and tough decisions like layoffs, delayed projects, and reduced services are being implemented across the country. Yet even in this somewhat grim picture, there are people finding ways to improve government, providing services 24 hour a day, more efficiently and with greater impact.
As Microsoft's National Technology Officer for U.S. State and Local government's, I get the unique opportunity to work with a broad array of our customers, and see some of the creative approaches they are taking to solving very hard problems. So when I see someone doing it well, it really sticks with me
Last week, Microsoft hosted our annual Public Sector CIO Summit. More than 300 CIO's from across the US federal, state, local, and education leaders spent two days learning and listening to one other and discussing how Microsoft's technology strategy and roadmap helps them solve hard problems. There were several great stories, but there is one in particular I want to call out.
Like a number of cities, the City of Miami had implemented a 311 system. It started out as a phone based system allowing Miami's residents to report non-emergency issues around the City. Citizens could dial 311 to report issues such as potholes, street light outages, or missed trash pickup.
Of course those same citizens wanted to know that progress was being made, and started calling the call center to inquire about their issues. Since this can decrease efficiency, the city took a big step and decided to put it all online. Now, people can view the status of the request and monitor the progress of the request resolution. In addition, citizens have full visibility into the progress of other issues being resolved around the city.
Here's the really stunning part. The City of Miami, two people actually, was able to build a new system in less than eight days over the holidays, with no up-front costs - from inception to running. By deploying it in the cloud, they not only sped up development, but eliminated the need for costly infrastructure.
The solution takes advantage of virtually unlimited storage and processing power, provides the ability to quickly address service requests and implement updates even during peak times such as hurricane season. If things change, the City can bring the solution on site or move to a physical facility, all based on need and cost-effectiveness.
As a result, residents logging on to Miami 311 can see on average 4,500 issues in progress - not represented as a ‘list', but located on a map in relation to other projects in their neighborhood . A simple click on the map allows them to easily drill down to more and more specific details if they want.
In short, they have turned what used to be represented by a meaningless list of data into useful information, and created actionable and consumable knowledge that is relevant to the citizens of Miami. For Miami, their ‘service call to the city' becomes an interactive process they can follow - and the City has a new tool to manage and deliver outcomes.
Anyone who has ever built a public facing, enterprise-level application, knows how spectacular that is. Everyone who wonders how their government is doing can appreciate the value.
When the city made the move to the web, they chose tools they knew and software they trust. The Microsoft Windows Azure cloud platform made it easy to do, and they used both Bing mapping and Silverlight to build a user friendly front end.
They took advantage of the technology roadmap we have built, which lets them decide what belongs in the cloud and what belongs on premise - in effect, they put our annual $9-billion R&D investment to work for citizens of Miami, right now.
No delay. Lower costs. Great use of existing talent. Better citizen services. Fantastic.
Our customers have made decisions about how their enterprise technology infrastructure needs to meet their business requirements. We've built the platform that helps them deliver on those choices across a broad set of technologies, and not just those that have our name on it.
In fact, our customers get to choose which data center their data lives in; the technology they want to write applications to access that data; and the developer tools they use to write the code. The Microsoft cloud today supports open source technologies such as Eclipse, PHP, Ruby, Python and PERL running on the Microsoft Windows Azure platform in our data centers.
In doing so, our customers have choice and avoid the problem of creating a new silo of complexity. Instead, they are able to extend their on-premises environment to fit their goals in ways they are comfortable with. Turns out, it is OK to use a broad range of technologies, including Open Source software, with Microsoft solutions.
Now, something that is really cool: Miami is making their solution available to other jurisdictions (no surprise, most cities deal with similar challenges). I can't wait to see what the next iteration of contributions will be, as more thought leaders across the country engage.
Miami really is taking a lead, in very hard circumstances, and we're proud that our technology is part of that solution. But, as I said, it's about people solving problems.
by jcannon on March 01, 2010 10:22am
Peter Galli Open Source Community Manager
Peter leads Microsoft's Open Source community outreach, where he works closely with the internal Microsoft Open Source community as well as the broader Open Source communities. He is also the Editor of this blog.
Peter has a long association with Microsoft, starting in August 2000 when he joined eWeek, a magazine in the Ziff Davis Enterprise stable of publications, as a Senior Editor, covering software platforms - from Windows to Unix and Linux.
Stuart McKee U.S. National Technology Officer
Stuart joined Microsoft in June 2004 as the as the U.S. National Technology Officer. He is responsible for driving a comprehensive set of technical and business strategies for the U.S. Public Sector State and Local segment. As NTO he has both an internal as well as an external focus - shaping and articulating Microsoft's technology vision and strategy.
Prior to joining Microsoft, Stuart served as the Director of the Washington State Department of Information Services (DIS) on Governor Gary Locke's executive cabinet. As the DIS Director, McKee served as Chief Information Officer for the state and managed an internationally recognized agency which provides technology leadership and infrastructure for government organizations across Washington State. Stuart also worked as the VP of Global Internet Operations for the Walt Disney Company where he directed operations for a number of the Internet's most visible sites including ESPN.com, Disney.com, ABCNews.com and GO.com
Sandy Gupta General Manager: Technical and Marketing Strategy
Sandy Gupta is the General Manager of Technical and Marketing Strategy for the Open Solutions Group at Microsoft, where he brings the customer voice and requirements for the open source projects at Microsoft. Sandy works with companies that offer open source solutions to develop strategic partnerships, and engages with various open source communities.
Prior to joining Microsoft in 2008, Sandy spent about 17 years in the Unix industry, starting his career as developer for Unix kernel and device drivers at ICL. Subsequently Sandy worked as a senior executive at other Unix companies, where he drove their technology architectures and product roadmaps.
Sandy holds a Bachelors Degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Delhi and is an alumnus of Kellogg School of Management.
Anandeep is a senior program manager responsible for projects and operations of the Open Source Software Lab (OSSL) in Redmond, Washington. The OSSL, along with the Microsoft-Novell Interoperability Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, comprise the Open Source Technology Center at Microsoft.
The projects Anandeep is responsible for focus on supporting open source software on the Windows platform. These projects include support for PHP on Windows, enhancing tools and processes for building and deploying open source software on Windows and ensuring interoperability between Windows and Samba implementations of Server Message Block protocols.
Anandeep loves coming to work every day as he not only gets paid to work closely with cool technologies and cool people, but he also gets to pontificate and interact with the OSS community & bring their concerns to the Microsoft world. Someone pinch me!
Hank Janssen Principal Software Development Engineer: Linux Integration Components
Hank has been working with UNIX and later Linux as well as other OSS for about 20 years. He started working at AT&T doing a lot of kernel programming and worked on the SYSV Processed Scheduler used for digital telephone switches. He worked for many years mainly as an architect for large (and small) cellular telephone companies. Virtually all of that work was in or with UNIX, Linux and OSS related areas.
Hank's recent work at Microsoft included leading the Microsoft team behind PHP 5.3, participating in the first Microsoft contributions to several existing open source projects, and spearheading Microsoft's decision to contribute the Linux Integration components for Hyper-V to the Linux Kernel. Hank is now Microsoft's Principal Software Development Engineer for the Linux Integration components Microsoft contributed to the Linux kernel in July 2009.
Tom Hanrahan Director, Program Management
Tom heads the Linux/Windows interoperability work, including leadership of the Microsoft/Novell Interoperability Lab. This development lab undertakes much of the engineering work involved in the multi-year technical partnership with Novell. Tom brings 30 years of engineering, management and community development experience to this effort - and the larger Microsoft community.
Prior to joining Microsoft, Tom was the Director of Engineering at the Linux Foundation where he was responsible for managing a variety of technical initiatives. Earlier in his career, Tom led IBM's Linux Technology Center in Portland, and spent 11 years at Sequent Computer Systems in the early days of SMP (symmetric multiprocessing).
Jamie Cannon Open Source Community & Platforms Lead (Jamie is still at Microsoft, but has moved on to a new role)
Jamie's first interaction with computers was in 1989 when he recieved his first IBM x86 PC... most likely an IBM Ambra. DOS prompt and all,he was hooked. Years later, he would scare his parents and alienate friends by taking them apart, upgrading parts and generally spending unhealthy amounts of time disecting the operations of the machine.
When a friend of his set up a T1 line and SGI Irix machine in 1995 (for his business), Jamie was quickly hooked on the power of the Internet. Before joining Microsoft in 2003, he spent the intervening years getting his IT degree from New York University and freelancing in web development during the .com years.
Bill Hilf General Manager
Before joining Microsoft, Bill led IBM Corp.’s Linux/Open Source Software technical strategy at a worldwide level for the Emerging and Competitive markets organization. Before joining IBM, Bill was vice president of Engineering for eToys, where he helped build one of the premier e-commerce businesses on the Web. Previously, he worked as a software architect for multiple Silicon Valley-based software companies, such as CNET Networks Inc. and Black Sun Interactive. Hilf is a graduate of Chapman University Graduate School.
After that, while he kept his interest in technology (mainly through gaming), he drifted away from the technical details. Bill certainly never thought he'd end up at a technology company. But after several years in the law, he needed a different challenge, and what could be a bigger challenge than championing Microsoft in the open source community.He loves working here and being part of the team that is making a difference at this company.
Brett Shoemaker Senior Product Manager: Virtualization and Interoperability
Brett drives Microsoft's interoperability efforts with Linux within the virtualization and virtualization management space. His work includes gathering market intelligence and product management of the Linux Integration Services for Hyper–V.
After receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in business from Wake Forest University, Brett set out down the technology career path but quickly got sidetracked and ended up spending several years in management consulting. Determined to get more involved in technology, he returned to school and pursued my MBA from MIT's Sloan School of Management.
Sam Ramji Senior Director, Platform Strategy (Sam no longer works for Microsoft)
Sam started out on the Commodore PET 16K in the 70s, upgraded to one with a built-in tape drive (that was cool at the time!) and finally crawled into the 80s with a ZX Spectrum 48K. He find sit hard to remember whether he started playing games or programming first – and sometimes they were intermingled, hacking up existing games and learning silly tricks like PEEK and POKE to change the characters in a Dungeon Hack clone. Since then Sam has used Pascal, 68000 assembler, C, LISP, CLOS, C++, Java, VB, JSP, Javascript, VBscript, DCOM, J2EE, and 4GLs and macro languages that he'd much rather forget.
Sam still games often, but hasn't written production code in several years. He's been paid to write client, client/server, distributed, and web applications. Sam spent many years criticizing Microsoft and then was offered a chance to put his money where his mouth was and contribute to changing the company.
Garrett Serack Open Source Software Developer
Garrett Serack joined Microsoft in the fall of 2005 as the Community Program Manager of the Federated Identity team, and has worked with the companies and the open source community to build digital identity frameworks, tools, and standards that are shaping the future of Internet commerce and strengthening the fight against fraud.
In the summer of 2007, he transitioned to Open Source Technology Center at Microsoft where he works as a Software Development Engineer and operates closely with open source communities to improve the quality and performance of their software on the Windows Platform. Garrett has started a number of Open Source projects along with working as a committer on several other projects, including PHP itself.
Garrett's motto is: "I don't make the software you use; I make the software you use better on Windows."
Bryan Kirschner Director, Open Source Strategy (Bryan no longer works for Microsoft)
Bryan's first IDE was a hand-me-down IBM flowcharting template from when ANSI X3.5 was still in draft, a pencil, and construction paper. Building on that auspicious beginning in elementary school, he accumulated a degree in philosophy from Yale University, spent several years applying a passion for statistics and operational research to policy analysis in the public sector, then joined Microsoft in 1999.
At Microsoft, he was the Director of Open Source Strategy, having previously built a primary research team in the Product Support organization and crunched numbers in the Finance organization.
by Garrett Serack on February 23, 2010 04:40pm
I was thinking the other day, how long has it been since I'd first been exposed to Open Source software. Of course, the term "Open Source" hasn't been around that long, but really, the spirit of open source software has existed for a very long time.
From a one perspective, all the source code found in all those computer magazines (Byte, Compute!, Transactor...and so many more) that I read as a kid could be considered a form of Open Source - they published the source code, and let you play with it. I didn't think about it at the time, but I'm pretty sure they didn't explicitly permit unrestricted redistribution, but I can't say the magazines really cared about it one way or the other.
But there were those who did explicitly give their permission to redistribute it. Most often, they used terms like "Public Domain" to deliberately declare that it was OK to pass the code around.
In late 1985, I became aware of VDO - the "Video Display Oriented Editor" for CP/M which was distributed as source code (ASM!) alongside a binary of the program. It was the first text editor I ever used that supported the WordStar key bindings (ctrl-k, <key>) and, between VDO and the later spiritual descendent "VDE", I had those key bindings hardwired into my fingers.
Even today, I have an editor that uses WordStar bindings installed on Windows, and under Linux I typically install "Joe" right away.
For me, VDO was really special, because it was the first program that I didn't actually type in, that I got as a binary along with the source code. I found I could edit the source code and re-assemble it, complete with my changes.
Sure, the changes to the code were really quite minor, but I always felt that was where the power was - Making the software into what *I* needed. For me, that's always been the most important part of open source.
Since that moment, I've downloaded, compiled and modified a heck of a lot of software. Sometimes I give others the changes, sometimes it's just for me.
So, I gotta ask, when was your Open Source moment? What was the first piece of Open Source software you used? Did you play with the source?
Post it as a comment here or tag your reply on twitter: #myOSSmoment
by Peter Galli on February 16, 2010 10:50am
Microsoft is once again a Platinum Level sponsor of the annual Open Source Business Conference, which is being held at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco on March 17/18.
As part of this sponsorship, Stuart McKee, Microsoft's National Technology Officer for the United States, will be delivering a keynote address to attendees on Thursday, March 18 from 09h15 to 09h45.
In his keynote, titled "Open Source at Microsoft: Meeting customer, developer and partner needs through a diversified ecosystem," McKee will talk about the opportunities for open source applications running on and with Microsoft platforms - from Windows, to SharePoint to Azure - and how increased flexibility and choice for the consumers of these technologies is good for everyone involved.
As U.S. National Technology Officer, Stuart is responsible for driving a comprehensive set of technical and business strategies for the U.S. Public Sector State and Local segment. As the NTO he has both an internal as well as an external focus - shaping and articulating Microsoft's technology vision and strategy.
Prior to joining Microsoft, Stuart served as the Director of the Washington State Department of Information Services (DIS) on Governor Gary Locke's executive cabinet, where he managed that internationally recognized agency which provides technology leadership and infrastructure for government organizations across Washington State.
Stuart also worked as the VP of Global Internet Operations for the Walt Disney Company where he directed operations for a number of the Internet's most visible sites including ESPN.com, Disney.com, ABCNews.com and GO.com. His background also includes strategic planning and operational management of enterprise-wide systems for companies including Starwave and Infoseek.
Microsoft will also be holding a Birds-of-a-Feather session during lunch on Wednesday, March 17, so please join us there for an interesting discussion.
In addition on Thursday, March 18 from 3pm to 3:50pm, Brian Goldfarb, the Director of Developer Platforms at Microsoft, will participate on a panel titled "The Web Is the Platform," along with Chris Blizzard from Mozilla, Dion Almaer at Palm and Dave Mcallister at Adobe.
We look forward to seeing you there!