TOPTHAT

TopThat's competitive network lets people upload and tag their best images and videos capturing life's random moments, crazy stunts and top performances and pit them against others to see who can TopThat!  It boasts a responsive design making it available on any mobile device through a web app or via the traditional desktop experience. TopThat delivers a platform for SMBs to host competitive participatory marketing campaigns.  In turn these competitions provides them the perfect opportunity to develop brand lyalty and increase a brand/business' social presence.  For their consumers, it increase engagement and creates brand promoters out of them as they use their social graphs to promote their entries and thus your brand.

BRANDON CARUANA

With over 10 years of development experience, Brandon is a knowledgeable and skilled professional. He has extensive experience using a number of industry standard legal, financial, social networks and user generated content systems and developing software to integrate those systems together seamlessly. Enthusiasm, commitment, organized, team work skills and leadership qualities are some of the characteristics recognized by past employers and colleagues; all of which have been demonstrated by an exceptional quality of work in his career history.

BIZSPARK

BizSpark is for startups who are developing software! So if that's you, and you've been doing so for less than 5 years, made less than a million in revenue per year, have less than 10 employees and are privately owned then welcome to BizSpark! What do you get? Free software, cloud hosting and more. More >>

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Architecture Summary

• Multi-user cloud-based system.
• ASP.NET MVC4 (Razor) based frontend hosted in multiple instances of Web Roles (Cloud Services).
• Windows Azure SQL Database-based backend.
• Built to scale seamlessly to meet user demand and support multiple geographic locations while ensuring maximum performance.

BURTON SOFTWARE/ICICLE

Icicle is a cloud-based software system that enables food-related companies to develop and maintain HACCP food safety plans and undertake inspections in order to ensure safe products. It is designed for use by business involved in any aspect of food or food-related industries that require food safety plans or inspections. Icicle supports data acquisition and automatically generates food safety plans at the click of a button. Changes to individual ingredients, materials, processes or packaging are automatically propagated throughout the system, insuring that generated plans are current and fully synchronized across many product lines produced at multiple plants. Icicle assures transparency and accountability by enabling inspections to be designed and recorded electronically by in-house personnel, consultants, second or third-party auditing groups. It extends the traditional food safety paradigm by enabling other types of certifications, such as kosher and organic to be managed from within the same system. 

STEVE BURTON

Steven is a software creator who helps companies become more effective by developing new software technology. He has a wide range of industry experience and has developed systems both domestically and abroad.  Steven's strong business acumen and exceptional technical knowledge enables him to quickly grasp the essential nature of businesses and develop solutions that solve problems using innovative technologies. Prior to founding Burton Software, Steven held positions VP of Research and Development, CTO, and Chief Software Architect.  He has developed applications for organizations such as BC Hydro, the BC Ministry of Education, and the Anaesthesiologist Society of BC.

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This is the story of Frozen Mountain.

FROZEN MOUNTAIN (from Frozen Mountain)
Frozen Mountain is an experienced provider of innovative solutions to common business problems using the latest in web technology. We enable customers to stay on the forefront of web-based innovation, while minimizing their risk and development costs. We offer an assortment of products, services, and domain expertise, from pre-built software packages to hosted services to customized application development.

We develop our products with an "ear-to-the-ground" approach to ensure that we are providing solutions that are relevant and effective in meeting the business needs of an evolving web environment. We work very closely with our clients, helping them to establish an understanding of their own needs and how their requirements can be realized in a modern web-oriented architecture (WOA). This approach simultaneously gives users the rich internet experience they have come to demand and provides clients with a maintainable, extensible, and therefore cost-effective, solution.

ANTON VENEMA
As the technical visionary, Anton is responsible for ensuring that Frozen Mountain's products and services exceed the needs of today and predict the needs of tomorrow. His technological intuition, vast knowledge base, and extensive academic background provide a strong foundation upon which Frozen Mountain's innovation can thrive. Anton joined Frozen Mountain after many years of working as a freelance technical consultant for numerous companies, including Siemens and the Kenan Institute for Engineering, Technology and Science. His professional career in developing web-based applications started in high school before any formal training. He now holds a joint degree in Computing Science and Linguistics, with a focus in statistical algorithms and computational linguistics. He has worked in the field for over 9 years.

Host Jonathan Rozenblit is always on the search for stories of Canadian developers who have either built new applications using Windows Azure services or have migrated existing applications to Windows Azure. Canada Does Windows Azure shares their stories.

This is the story of RESAAS.

RESAAS
RESAAS is a technology company that has built a fully-integrated technology platform to service all participants of the real estate industry, including professionals, such as realtors and mortgage specialists, and home buyers and sellers. The Company's mission is to connect real estate professionals, mortgage specialists, home buyers and sellers through our enterprise technology platform and allow them to communicate in "real time", allowing for faster and easier communication between industry participants. RESAAS' enterprise technology platform is built on Microsoft Windows Azure.  

ANDREW THOMPSON
Andrew Thompson is the VP of Engineering at RESAAS and is responsible for all aspects of RESAAS' scalable technology platform built on top of Microsoft Windows Azure. He has prior experience as a software engineer building applications with C# .NET, Java and C/C++ languages using Agile and continuous integration/deployment practices for medical, financial, digital media and social based technology companies. He currently resides in Vancouver, Canada and has a technical blog at http://andrewmatthewthompson.blogspot.ca.

Host Jonathan Rozenblit is always on the search for stories of Canadian developers who have either built new applications using Windows Azure services or have migrated existing applications to Windows Azure. Canada Does Windows Azure shares their stories.

This is the story of Find It EZ.

FIND IT EZ SOFTWARE CORP    
Find it EZ Software Corp. is a software development tool vendor with headquarters in the heart of the Silicon Vineyard, Kelowna, BC, Canada.  Find it EZ was founded in 2010 as a spin-out of Bits n' Bytes Software Inc. with customers throughout the USA, UK, Canada and Australia who depend on its automated change impact analysis software, Find it EZ Code Search.  Now available in three editions, Find it EZ is the global leader in innovation of software for developers, by developers with the first and only source code analysis tool that runs in the cloud, powered by Windows Azure.

More on Find It EZ

• BizSpark Start Up of the Day
• Global TV News interview 

KEN GNAZDOWSKY
Ken Gnazdowsky, a recipient of the Governor General of Canada bronze medallion, began his post-secondary education at Brandon University on an academic scholarship and has worked in the software development industry for over 25 years. Ken is co-founder and President of Find it EZ Software Corp., creators of the Microsoft award-winning product, Find it EZ Code Search.

Host Jonathan Rozenblit is always on the search for stories of Canadian developers who have either built new applications using Windows Azure services or have migrated existing applications to Windows Azure. Canada Does Windows Azure shares their stories.

This is the story of Connect2Fans.

CONNECT2FANS
Connect2Fans set its mission to create a platform which artists, athletes, entertainers, organizations and teams of all sizes can use to sell a variety of products directly to their fans. Using a PayPal account, any individual or small entertainment enterprise can enjoy the power of the Web to sell event tickets, CDs, MP3s, and other memorabilia directly to their fans. This direct-to-fan sales approach dramatically reduces the present day costs for both buyers and sellers. C2F only charges the seller a very modest fee for this transaction service. What the buyer sees is what the buyer pays; no more annoying add-ons.

JASON LAVIGNE
Jason Lavigne is the Lead Software Architect for Connect2Fans and a co-founder of the company. He has been developing software on various technologies, including Microsoft, for over 25 years and most recently in the event ticketing segment of the entertainment industry.

Host Jonathan Rozenblit is always on the search for stories of Canadian developers who have either built new applications using Windows Azure services or have migrated existing applications to Windows Azure. Canada Does Windows Azure shares their stories.

This is the story of OptMeIn.

OPTMEIN COMMUNICATIONS
OptMeIn was launched in 2011 to help brands and consumers connect across email, social media and mobile applications. Its unique system and customer-centric approach creates a trusted relationship by putting the user in control over the medium and the message and giving clients the tools to reach the right customers in the right place at the right time.

TREVOR DEAN 

Trevor is a software engineer who has spent the majority of his professional career working with Microsoft technologies dating back to Visual Basic 5.0. Trevor started his career in production support and worked his way up to a lead developer position and eventually found himself leading a development team building and maintaining enterprise solutions. Trevor has spent the last 3 years as the Director of Technology for Big time design Inc. and has recently Co-Founded OptMeIn communications Inc.

CHRIS FRYER
Chris is a software developer with experience in aspects of software engineering, including software design, application programming, systems architecture, and QA testing. Starting out his career in Microsoft SQL Server and JavaServer Pages (JSP), the demand for more knowledge and curiosity lead him on the path to gain further knowledge. His current emphasis is in Microsoft .NET technologies including C#, ASP .NET and Microsoft SQL Server.

Host Jonathan Rozenblit is always on the search for stories of Canadian developers who have either built new applications using Windows Azure services or have migrated existing applications to Windows Azure. Canada Does Windows Azure shares their stories.

This is the story of Agility.

AGILITY INC.
Agility is a cloud-based content management system.  It allows you to manage content across all digital channels including your website, mobile site, mobile apps, and social media pages from a single browser-based interface.  Agility integrates with best-of-breed solutions for video management, ad serving, search, analytics, email marketing and more.  Implement Agility yourself or work with our services team and partners.

JOEL VARTY 
Joel is the Director of Research and Development at Agility Inc in Toronto,  cloud-based software for managing internally produced and user generated content across web, mobile and social media. He has over 12 years' experience with Web application technologies and architectures, both from a product and a consulting perspective. Most recently, Joel drives the development of Agility CMS, improving bits of core functionality or encouraging others to take Agility to its limit.  

Host Jonathan Rozenblit is always on the search for stories of Canadian developers who have either built new applications using Windows Azure services or have migrated existing applications to Windows Azure. Canada Does Windows Azure shares their stories.

This is the story of Agile Business Cloud Solutions.

JEF KING
Jef has worked in the software industry for twelve years. Over this time he has experienced a range of responsibilities in various industries. His passion for technology and motivating teams has kept his drive and focus strong. Early on in his career he showed an entrepreneurial spirit, starting multiple small companies. He departed from this to learn more about the software industry by working with larger companies, such as Microsoft. These diverse experiences have given a very unique perspective on teams and software engineering. Since moving back to Vancouver he has built several highly productive software development teams, and inspired others to try similar techniques.

JAIME BUEZA
Multi-discipline software engineer with experience in technical leadership, front-end architecture, user experience design, performance optimization, platform integration (Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Omniture, WebTrends), mobile web application development, product management, and open source initiatives. Specializing in HTML/CSS/JavaScript and passionate about making the web a better place for everyone by building tools, helping developer communities, and illustrating a shared vision of an open platform to users, developers, designers, and stakeholders.

AGILE BUSINESS CLOUD SOLUTIONS
We bring developers cloud-based performance analysis and real-time application monitoring systems. We are dedicated to helping you transition new or existing workloads onto Windows Azure. Our open-source initiatives help developers quickly and easily get into the cloud and start leveraging some of the amazing new technologies that are offered.

Host Jonathan Rozenblit is always on the search for stories of Canadian developers who have either built new applications using Windows Azure services or have migrated existing applications to Windows Azure. Canada Does Windows Azure shares their stories.

This is the story of Epilogger.

EPILOGGER
People share their entire lives. But memories on the web are fragmented. Epilogger unite all your social memories to discover and relive events.

CHRIS BROOKER
President and co-founder of Epilogger. He masterminds the code and idea along with his partner in crime!      

Host Jonathan Rozenblit is always on the search for stories of Canadian developers who have either built new applications using Windows Azure services or have migrated existing applications to Windows Azure. Canada Does Windows Azure shares their stories.

This is the story of Druida.

DANIEL FIRKA
Daniel Firka is the founder and CEO of DRUIDA Software & Consulting, chief architect, designer, and developer of the Druida SPAC software. He is an Industrial Engineer and a Sociologist, has obtained a MSc in Biomedical Engineering, and is currently finishing his MSc in Statistics at the University of Toronto. He is also a certified Quality and Reliability Engineer by the American Society for Quality (ASQ). He is a Director at the Argentinean Institute for Quality, and in his spare time, develops software for advanced biomedical applications.

DRUIDA
DRUIDA is a company specialized in consulting and software development for Quality Assurance and Statistical Analysis. For almost 20 years it has developed a set of solutions covering several business needs related to Continuous Improvement, all under the flagship product named SPAC. The product discussed in this interview, SPAC IPP, as an auditing tool to evaluate suppliers and internal departments.

Since its creation DRUIDA has leveraged Microsoft technologies to achieve high quality software. The latest innovation is the deployment of SPAC IPP on Windows Azure.