Microsoft Principal Architect Evangelist Brian Loesgen speaks with Bryan Hall, co-founder of San Diego, CA-based startup Embarke. Bryan explains why they found in using the Azure platform compelling. Bryan shows the interfaces in the Embarke API, and shares best practices they learned along the way.

About Embarke

Embarke is the distribution center for all of your user's social conversations.  Your customers can initiate conversations with their contacts, regardless of which networks they're connected through. For example: One of your users could start a 4-way conversation with someone on Facebook, another in Email, and another on Twitter. None of those people would have to go anywhere special to be a part of that conversation.

Like an antivirus for consumer privacy, PrivacyCentral exposes privacy threats to consumers, provides analysis and reports via a risk profile and risk score, and then empowers consumers with the ability to remove detected threats and monitor for future threats.

In this video, Privacy Central's CEO and founder, Zoiner Tejada, speaks with Microsoft Principal Architect Evangelist Brian Loesgen. Tejada discusses the benefits Privacy Central realized from building on the Azure platform, and how they run their Ruby crawlers on Azure. Tejada also goes on to share some lessons learned along the way during their development cycle, and offers up some tips for people new to the platform.

About Privacy Central

Privacy Central is a San Diego CA-based startup and is a member of Microsoft's BizSpark program, it is the first service to allow the consumer to regain full control over their sensitive information.

PrivacyCentral is dedicated to protecting consumer privacy, with powerful tools designed to make protection simple.

About BizSpark

Microsoft BizSpark is a global program that helps software startups succeed by giving them access to Microsoft software development tools, connecting them with key industry players, including investors, and providing marketing visibility to help entrepreneurs starting a business

Interview with Auzzy Inc.'s David Steketee http://www.auzzy.com/, a NYC based startup and their experience participating in the NYC AzureCamp with a very innovative solution for Windows Azure during the event on April 22nd in NYC.

Bob Isaacs from Microsoft interviews David about his experiences rapidly developing and deploying a Windows Azure application. During the only 1.5 day lasting event, that was targeted to Startups and ISVs in the New York
City metro area, David developed a domain and website marketplace. This is a great example of how startup companies can leverage Windows Azure to rapidly develop MVP (Minimal Valuable Solution) to test the target market and create revenue.

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Kinect Sports: Calorie Challenge

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... we are a mere 2 episdoes away from reaching 100!  Leave a comment or send mail to Ping@microsoft.com if there is anything special you'd like to see for the 100th episode.

Built using ASP.NET MVC and jQuery, founder Aaron Coleman had to migrate off of traditional hosting and onto Azure the day he discovered he had won the White House’s contest. He needed to scale quickly in anticipation of the press Food Buster was going to receive. Aaron explains how he was able to adapt his ASP.NET application to take advantage of Azure’s native features and redeploy everything in a day.

Aaron of FoodBusterGame.com talks with Aaron Stannard, Start-up Developer Evangelist.

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Other ISV Videos

For videos on Windows Azure Platform, see:

• Accumulus Makes Subscription Billing Easy for Windows Azure
• Azure Email-Enables Lists, Low-Cost Storage for SharePoint
• Crowd-Sourcing Public Sector App for Windows Phone, Azure
• Credit Card Processing for Windows Phone 7 on Windows Azure

For videos on developing for Windows Phone 7, see:

• State and Local Governments for Windows Phone 7 applications.
• Talking  with Karmak.com about business applications on Windows Phone 7
• BinaryDads talk about building applications for Windows Phone 7
• Game Design and Development in Silverlight for Windows Phone 7

For other videos about independent software vendors (ISVs):

• Quark Extends SharePoint for Dynamic Publishing
• ProModel Adds Simulation, Visualization to Microsoft Project
• Slingbox Maker Sling Media Describes Cross-Platform Commitment to Silverlight
• Thumb-Driven Workflow on Windows 7 Slates from Blue Dot Solutions

Up to Date News for ISVs and Software Developers

See US ISV Community blog.

Links:

• Glo Bible
• Windows Client
• BizSpark Home Page
• Ignition Showcase
  

Abby Fichtner, Microsoft Evangelist for Startups, went to Dogpatch Labs Boston to meet with Localytics’ founders to talk about what Localytics does and to learn how developers can integrate Localytics into their own Windows Phone 7 applications.

Learn more in Localytics’ announcement.

As it turns out, Microsoft’s technologies are powering a lot of applications we take for granted as being "Web 2.0" apps. Some examples you may be familiar with include Lijit, Pageflakes, Xobni, loopt, Me.dium, Clarizen, DOCCENTER, Zumobi, Plentyoffish, and YuMe. The very best example I can think of, though, is MySpace. Yes, one of the world's largest social networks runs Microsoft technologies on their back end. 

The MySpace Story

MySpace has the second-highest traffic of all sites on the web, with an estimated 38 million unique visits per month, more than 65 million registered members, and 260,000 more users signing up every day. The site hosts around 430 million images and has recently added MySpace Music, a section dedicated to streaming music from artists around the world. But when you think MySpace, you don’t think Microsoft, do you? Yet it’s Microsoft that helped MySpace get off the ground from day one and scale up to the size it is now.

When MySpace’s membership reached 9 million, for example, parts of the site were converted to ASP.NET and immediately the company saw performance improvements and lower overall CPU usage. By the time MySpace hit 17 million users, the ASP.NET backend was expanded even more and MySpace deployed a large-scale dynamic caching engine which ensured that profile pages were always available and quick to load.  The company also moved to 64-bit Windows Servers at that time which allowed them to add more RAM and reduce the number of machines they needed to run the site.

More recently, MySpace rolled out new code built with ASP.NET 2.0 and the performance results had the CPU usage dropping from 85% to 27% across profile pages and reduce the number of servers required to deliver the page volume by 40%. Today, MySpace runs in a scalable, federated environment using SQL Server 2005, Microsoft .NET 2.0, and Microsoft Internet Information Services 6.0 on Windows Server 2003 64-bit editions. The company’s 4000 servers are spread across 3 data centers and use more than 3000 disks.

Of course, most startups aren’t going to reach the size and scale of MySpace, but if Microsoft can help that company succeed, just imagine what they can do for the little guy. When looking into this topic further, I found an excellent summary of the different ways a startup can receive help from Microsoft, as described by Don Dodge here. That list included things like marketing support and the partner sign-up form.

Introducing BizSpark

Today, there’s another option that can be added to that list: BizSpark. Microsoft is now officially offering their support to startups through this new program. With BizSpark, everything a startup needs to get off the ground is being offered for free for three years. This program provides software, support, and visibility for those participating.

Specifically, startups will receive the following:

Software

Development Tools, Platform Technologies and Production License

• All the software included in the Microsoft® Visual Studio® Team System Team Suite (VSTS) with MSDN® Premium subscription
• Expression® Studio Version 2
• VSTS Team Foundation Server (standard edition)
• Production use rights to host a “software as a service” solution (developed during participation in the BizSpark Program, on any platform) over the Internet, with regard to products including:
  • Microsoft Windows Server® (all versions up to and including Enterprise)
  • Microsoft SQL Server® (all versions)
  • Microsoft Office SharePoint® Portal Server
  • Microsoft System Center
  • Microsoft BizTalk® Server
  • Microsoft Dynamics® CRM (coming soon)
• In addition to the core program offering, BizSpark startups will be eligible for other Microsoft offerings, such as:
  • Microsoft Azure™ Services Platform

Support

Startups receive MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network) based subscriptions which provides access to a broad range of Microsoft tools and technologies that enable teams to design, develop and test software solutions.  MSDN Premium subscription also includes access to MSDN’s expert information resources for developers, such as:

Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN)

• Managed newsgroups support:  For developers the first port-of-call for answers is usually the community.  If not effectively answered by the community, posts to the MSDN Newsgroups from MSDN subscribers will be picked up by Microsoft engineers within 2 business days.

• Online Concierge. MSDN Online Concierge is a chat-based service, providing subscribers with a guide to the rich online resources of MSDN.com – which includes resources such as:

• MSDN Library, an essential source of information for developers using Microsoft tools, products, and technologies, which includes how-to and reference documentation, sample code, technical articles, and more. 
• Developer Centers, which pull together content and resources around specific products and technologies .
• Forums, which provide resources for getting answers to technical questions.

Technical Support

Two technical support incidents per startup. Each incident is managed by Microsoft until they are resolved, no matter how many calls it takes.

Customer Support

Unlimited BizSpark program support for non-technical issues.

Visibility

Through the Bizspark DB online directory, startups have the opportunity to profile their company and gain exposure to potential investors, partners, and customers.  From time to time, Microsoft will feature certain startups on the Microsoft StartupZone website. 

Why BizSpark?

Although BizSpark has been designed to offer companies an alternative to free open-source software, the addition of the free technical support is also an appealing option. What’s really interesting about this offering, though, is the possibility of extending your startup onto the newly announced Windows Azure platform. This new cloud OS provides a robust alternative to the current crop of cloud platforms and allows a company's application(s) to integrate with other types of Windows Services including SQL Services, Live Services, and .NET. This makes BizSpark a great way to get started with a new Enterprise 2.0 application that integrates with Active Directory, for example, or a consumer-based Live Mesh-enabled application, perhaps.

Maybe your startup won’t ever grow to the size of MySpace, but it does, at least you started off on the right foot. Companies can sign up for BizSpark here: http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark.