Artificial ignorance

Since we launched BizSpark last year, we’ve gotten a tremendous amount of interest from startups to join the program. As you may recall, we recently announced that 12,000 startups are now enrolled in the program worldwide.

We’ve heard from startups who exclusively use the Mac platform, but occasionally need access to Windows for development or test, having trouble downloading software in spite of being enrolled in BizSpark. While startups who are eligible to join BizSpark can access MSDN (our online software portal), the ability to download software from a browser that isn’t Internet Explorer hasn’t been an option unfortunately. Until now…

Now startups who are enrolled in BizSpark and use Macs (or non-Internet Explorer browsers in general) can get Windows through the ‘Top Downloads’ page on MSDN: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/securedownloads/bb608344.aspx (you’ll need an MSDN account to access the contents on that page) Continue reading

Today we are launching “new CloudApp()” a US-based developer challenge to promote applications running on the Azure Services Platform. This contest will have three categories of winners for applications running on the Azure Services Platform –

• a best .NET application,
• a top PHP application, and,
• a community winner.

What could a contestant win?

The winning submissions will:

• Be featured on www.azure.com as well as at major Microsoft events
• Be featured in a video interview on Channel 9 with the application author
• Winners will be announced at Structure 09
• Receive cash ($):
  • .NET Applications Category winner: $5,000 Visa gift card
  • PHP Applications Category winner: $5,000 Visa gift card
  • Community winner: $2,500 Visa gift card

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Microsoft BizSpark is a proud sponsor of the Web 2.0 Expo LaunchPad. The LaunchPad is an avenue for startup companies to pitch their ideas to the Web 2.0 Expo audience, which includes press, investors, corp-dev folks and others. Of the several submissions that were made by startup companies, my co-judges Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb and Matt Marshall of VentureBeat picked five finalists to present their ideas. What we will be looking in a winner is how a product can focus on what is essential and transformational in today’s market.

Each of these companies will get five minutes on stage to pitch: Continue reading

A couple of months ago, I met Dan Merritts from RSWP, Inc. at a coffee shop in South Park, San Francisco. It was a short meeting, but as soon as Dan described the idea that RSWP had been working on, I got really excited. Eduify is a web application that lets students edit and store documents, capture and discover research, find writing tutorials and safeguard against plagiarism. I remember spending countless hours in school looking for quotes and finding the right way to cite them.

Anthony Ha, from VentureBeat, has a good way of describing a student’s typical paper-writing process: Continue reading

SXSW is one of my favorite events – it brings together some of the most influential people in the tech world. Some call it ‘spring break for geeks’. I’m proud to announce that BizSpark is a sponsor of SXSWi Accelerator this year. From the SXSW Accelerator website:

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