Take advantage of this special about mobility scenarios to dive a little deeper into one of the hot topics of the moment during the summer months. We have information geared to fit in with your busy schedule. Only have 30 minutes or half a day to spare? Choose from the basics through to the best tools and resources for getting to know these important mobile scenarios like the back of your hand.

Mobility scenarios is the third topic that we're diving into this summer. You can expect one last topic by mid-August on leveraging the Web.

So keep an eye on your mailbox and dive in this summer with MSDN!

Explore and dive into mobility solutions

Over the last couple of years, demand for mobile and remote work solutions has been growing.  This demand is being accelerated by various factors: on one hand, the technology for allowing this is commoditizing (e.g. smartphones, tablet PCs, ubiquitous Wi-Fi access); on the other hand, people are growing more and more accustomed to mobile applications, allowing them to be 'online' any time, anywhere (e.g. social media applications such as Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, etc.); finally, as traffic density and the associated economic and social impact are continuously growing, telecommuting is becoming the norm in many organizations.

As an independent software vendor (ISV), how easy is it for your customers to accommodate remote and mobile work scenarios using your application?  Does it require significant network or hardware investments (e.g. VPN  infrastructure)?  Does the application need a network connection all the time or do you support offline scenarios?  Can you take advantage of new device form factors and user experiences, such as smartphones, tables PCs and multi-touch?

Have a look at our website and discover a handpicked choice of articles, white papers and videos explaining how you can add support for mobile work scenarios and make them a competitive advantage for you as an ISV.

Speaker : Nick Trogh

Other interesting Summer Campaigns :

- For Developers : Windows Phone 7 Mango, Visual Studio 2010 ALM, HTML5

- For IT Professionals : Virtualisation(Part 1), Desktop Deployment, Virtualisation (Part 2)

- For Architects : Cloud Power, the Windows Azure Platform, Cloud Patterns and Practices

So are my printer and I best buddies? Well, we’re more acquaintances. It does its job, gives me know trouble, but you’ll agree with me, after losing it so many times in frustration, it’s tough to love your printer. You may drone on to friends and colleagues about your new phone, tablet or notebook, but you’re not likely to give them an impromptu demo of your printer any time soon.

That may well change with HP’s latest range of printers, and the HP PhotoSmart eStation in particular caught my eye.

Take a decent, All in One printer (with 802.11n Wi-Fi, scanner and fax) and whack a 7” detachable touchscreen tablet on the front, which serves as control panel and web browser, including news, weather, email , ebook reader and more. That in itself is cool convergence, but then add a dash of HP’s new ePrint feature, which lets you print Microsoft Office documents, PDFs, Images and web pages whilst on the road by email, and we’re starting to get into “bore your friends” territory. Add a library of web apps from social networks like Facebook and other providers and now we’re talking about a printer you can friend.

With all of these features, I’m not sure whether this printer is still a “printer”, or whether a new “More Than All In One” category needs to be invented – but I’m ready to forget the crimes of the past, and get to know this printer a little better.

A Microsoft Surface machine has been installed in Vegas’s Hard Rock Cafe where a combination of Microsoft technologies that also includes Silverlight, SharePoint, and Windows are used in combination to present the company’s online collection of rock memorabilia to diners. Even cooler, the Cafe features something called the “Rock Wall,” an 18-foot-wide, 4-foot-tall touchscreen showcase of the Hard Rock’s treasures just like those found on Memorabilia website here.

This unique, customized experience lets Cafe diners interact with the rock history showcase on the giant glass screen while waiting for a table. They can also interact with the collection using a Microsoft Surface computer to zoom in and out of the memorabilia. The collection, which includes things like handwritten lyrics by John Lennon and Michael Jackson’s sequined glove, consistently draws a crowd eager to play with the Microsoft technology.

In addition to the Rock Wall and Surface computer, the Cafe’s customers can also interact with the memorabilia collection using 19” touchscreens installed in the restaurant’s booths.