Students from NUI Maynooth and Sligo IT represent Ireland at Microsoft Imagine Cup World Finals in Paris

DUBLIN: July 2nd 2008 - Microsoft today wished the Irish finalists from NUI Maynooth and Sligo IT the best of luck as they headed off to Paris to represent Ireland at Microsoft’s Imagine Cup 2008 World Final. Worldwide this year saw the highest ever number of students entering the Imagine Cup, with over 200,000 entrants from over 100 countries around the globe. The Imagine Cup, which is now in its sixth year, challenges students around the globe to ‘Imagine a world where technology enables a sustainable environment’.

Paul Rellis, Managing Director, Microsoft Ireland, said today: “Microsoft Imagine Cup has become the World Cup of software. In 2003, we had a thousand competitors from 15 countries—our first winner now has his own company with 27 employees—fast forward to 2008 and the Imagine Cup has attracted over 200,000 students from 100 countries. Microsoft is proud to have two teams representing Ireland heading to Paris. We have no doubt that these teams are world beaters and in with an excellent chance of bringing home a prize. 

“Microsoft’s vision with Imagine Cup is to inspire the next generation of technology and business leaders to stimulate local economies around the world. As you can see from this group of students, inspiration is contagious—and it definitely goes both ways.”

Team AcidRain from NUI Maynooth have built an optimized, embedded conversion kit which offers a novel solution to the problem of reducing carbon emissions through enabling plant oil powered engines. They have set out to create a “one size fits all” kit.  This embedded solution will convert any diesel engine to run on any plant oil whether it be olive oil, rapeseed oil or sunflower oil to name but a few! There challenge starts today as they take the ferry with their diesel free car to Holyhead and continue their journey to Paris from there.

Sligo IT students, ParkIT, are proposing an application which enables the provision of real time parking information. Using cameras and software, it monitors car park spaces and can determine when a space vacant. This information would then be sent to a central database, which would be used to drive a real time parking information system that provides users with available parking data near their location on request.

Acidrain and ParkIT will now compete with students and projects from around the world at the final in France.  The overall prizes include a chance to Silicon Valley to take part in the Imagine Cup Innovation Accelerator.  It propels Imagine Cup software design champions into the next stage of developing their innovative ideas as a business.

The Microsoft Imagine Cup 2008 Gold sponsors are Enterprise Ireland and Riverdeep Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing. Other sponsors include Lenovo, Imag!ne Telecommunications and Lero, the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre.

About the Imagine Cup

The competition, which is open to all third level colleges and universities, consists of nine categories spanning team-based challenges like software design and short film to individual challenges involving algorithms and game programming. Students’ work will reflect valuable, real-world solutions that address the pressing global environmental issues while giving them the opportunity to compete for generous cash prizes. http://www.imaginecup.ie

To find out more about Microsoft Ireland please visit www.microsoft.com/ireland/about.

Actions enhance opportunities for developers to work with Microsoft’s high-volume products.

Redmond, Washington: June 30th, 2008 — Microsoft today announced several new actions that deliver upon the commitments set in its Interoperability Principles to increase the openness of its products, drive greater interoperability, and provide increased opportunity and choice for developers, partners, customers and competitors.

Highlights of the actions announced today include: posting Version 1.0 releases of technical documentation for Microsoft protocols built into Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007; posting nearly 5,000 pages of new technical documentation for the Microsoft Office binary file formats for Word, Excel and PowerPoint (.doc, .xls, .xlsb and .ppt); and making significant strides in the company’s efforts to foster more open engagement with other members of the IT community.

“Today’s actions represent Microsoft’s continued fulfillment of the commitments it made in its Interoperability Principles,” said Craig Shank, general manager of Interoperability at Microsoft. “Microsoft’s cumulative posting of approximately 50,000 pages of technical documentation on MSDN provides consistent, open access for all developers, which enhances the ease and opportunities for working with Microsoft’s high-volume products. Moreover, our work with partners, competitors and customers to engage in the technical nuts-and-bolts of real-world interoperability provides great ongoing opportunities for collaboration to address the challenges of today’s diverse IT environment.”

Ensuring Open Connections

As part of its commitment to ensure open connections to its products, Microsoft has posted on MSDN (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc216514.aspx) Version 1.0 releases of technical documentation for Microsoft protocols built into Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. Microsoft posted preliminary versions of this protocol documentation in April of this year, solicited input from the community, and factored this input into the Version 1.0 releases posted today.

As a result of the documentation, developers working with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 protocols will have additional resources to develop products that work with Microsoft Office 2007 client applications. In addition, developers working with Exchange Server 2007 protocols will have additional resources to build applications that directly communicate and store information related to e-mail, calendar, contacts, voice mail and task tracking with either Exchange Server 2007 or Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. This documentation provides comprehensive information about how these Microsoft products interact with other Microsoft products, which will assist developers creating new products and improving existing solutions.

“The protocol documentation has been very straightforward and has really enabled our developers to get up to speed on what they are looking at and implement the solutions in the Unified Access Control products as quickly as possible,” said Rich Campagna, senior product manager, Service Layer Technologies, Juniper Networks Inc.

In addition to posting this documentation, Microsoft also published a list indicating which of the published protocols built into the following products are covered by Microsoft patents or patent applications: Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft Windows Vista (including the .NET Framework), and Microsoft Windows Server 2008. In addition, Microsoft published the reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing terms and low pricing available to those who choose to take a license to the patents covering the protocols in these products that are used to communicate with other Microsoft products. This information is easily accessible at http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/intellectualproperty/protocols/default.mspx.

It is important to note that open source developers, whether commercial or non-commercial, will not need a patent license for the development of implementations of these protocols or for the non-commercial distribution of these implementations, according to Microsoft’s Patent Pledge for Open Source Developers.

Promoting Data Portability

Delivering on its interoperability principle of promoting data portability, the company posted on MSDN (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc216514.aspx) nearly 5,000 pages of new technical documentation for the Microsoft Office Word, Excel and PowerPoint binary file formats (.doc, .xls, .xlsb and .ppt). Access to this technical documentation, in addition to documentation provided earlier this year, will make it easier for developers to enable applications to read and write files in these binary file formats, thus enhancing the ease of moving data from one application to another. This documentation is available to anyone on a royalty-free basis under Microsoft’s Open Specification Promise (OSP).

Fostering More Open Engagement

In addition, Microsoft made a number of strides in its effort to foster more open engagement with the IT community, in particular through its Document Interoperability Initiative, which kicked off earlier this year. Since then, Microsoft has hosted a series of regional roundtable events and labs around the world — in Seoul, South Korea; Beijing, China; and Munich, Germany — bringing together more than 30 partners and competitors to test interoperability between existing implementations of Open XML Format and the OpenDocument Format (ODF) on a variety of platforms and devices, including Mac OS X Leopard, iPhone, Palm OS, Symbian OS, Linux and Windows Mobile.

“Microsoft’s Document Interoperability Initiative event was a very productive, collaborative forum,” said John Addesso, senior project manager, DataViz Inc. “Working with colleagues in the industry to come up with real-world interoperability solutions was very gratifying and helped us in our product development efforts. We look forward to engaging in future opportunities.”

Based on input received through the DII and other events and forums, Microsoft is launching the following projects:

1. Working with Beihang University to develop Uniform Office Format (UOF) translators for Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint so that users will have more options to open and save UOF documents in Microsoft Office 2007 and 2003; more information can be found at http://uof-translator.sourceforge.net.

2. Designing a new translator to read from Open XML to HTML, which will provide the opportunity for independent software vendors(ISVs) to enable their customers to launch Open XML documents using lightweight browser-friendly applications; more information can be found at http://www.codeplex.com/OpenXMLViewer.

3. Developing PowerTools PowerShell commands for Open XML to enable IT administrators to perform document management tasks; more information can be found at http://www.codeplex.com/PowerTools.

Continued Commitment to Expanding Interoperability

Today’s software users operate in an increasingly diverse IT environment that is rich with many products and services from many companies. Microsoft’s Interoperability Principles are part of the company’s broader effort to deliver real-world interoperability solutions to customers through product design, community participation, access to technologies, and engagement with standards bodies. The latest updates regarding Microsoft’s Interoperability efforts can be found at: http://www.microsoft.com/interop.

Related Links

• MSDN Open Specifications Web site

• Microsoft Protocol Programs Web site

• Microsoft Interoperability Web site

• UOF Add-In for Microsoft Word

• OpenXML Document Viewer

• PowerTools for Open XML

Customers reap the benefits of server consolidation and business continuity projects plus integrated management tools to manage physical and virtual resources.

Dublin: June 26th, 2008 - Microsoft today announced the release of Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, the hypervisor-based virtualization technology that is a feature of select versions of Windows Server 2008. With nearly 1.5 million copies of the Hyper-V beta version distributed around the world, customer interest in virtualization is moving from evaluation to deployment in production environments.

Virtualization can help companies maximise the value of IT investments; from decreasing the server hardware footprint, energy consumption and the cost and complexity of managing today’s IT systems, to increasing the flexibility of the overall environment. Microsoft’s strategy and investments in virtualization, which span from the desktop to the data centre, help IT professionals and developers move toward Microsoft’s Dynamic IT initiative whereby they can build systems with the flexibility and intelligence to automatically adjust to changing business conditions by aligning computing resources with strategic objectives.

Hyper-V offers customers a reliable and scalable virtualization platform with high performance that plugs into customers’ existing IT infrastructures and enables customers to consolidate some of the most demanding workloads. In addition, the System Centre product family provides customers with a single set of integrated tools to manage both physical and virtual resources, enabling customers to create a more agile and dynamic data centre.

“Our Irish customers are finding that they can now consolidate workloads of underutilized server machines onto a smaller number of fully utilized machines. Fewer physical machines leads to reduced costs through lower hardware, energy, and management overhead, plus the creation of a more dynamic IT infrastructure,” commented Bill O’Brien, business manager, Server products at Microsoft Ireland.

The Integrated Approach

To accompany Microsoft virtualization technologies like Hyper-V, Microsoft’s System Centre family of solutions provides management tools to configure, operate, deploy and backup both physical and virtual servers from the data centre to the desktop, all from a single pane of glass. With proper management tools and processes, customers can control the power of virtualization and become agile, while still maintaining control. This can help prevent such issues as “virtual server sprawl”—one of the challenges that can be introduced by the increased use of server virtualization.

Ironically enough, this virtual equivalent of physical server sprawl stems from the ease with which virtual machines can be created. Some IT teams have allowed multiple groups within the organization to create their own virtual machines, only to lose track of them later. This kind of uncontrolled usage can lead to legal and security concerns.

Scalability, Cost and Performance Benefits

Scalability and cost were prime considerations in today’s global market, the Irish economic market is no different.

Hyper-V’s scalability derives from its support for multiple processors and cores at the host level and improved memory limits at the host and guest level within virtual machines. This enables customers to scale their virtualization environment to support a large number of virtual machines within a given host and to take advantage of quick migration for high availability across multiple hosts.

Microsoft itself has been using Hyper-V in production environments, including heavy-traffic Web properties such as MSDN, TechNet and Microsoft.com. MSDN has over 3 million average page views per day; TechNet has over 1 million average page views per day; and Microsoft.com has more than 38 million average page views per day. By the end of June, Microsoft.com is targeted to be 50 percent virtualized with Hyper-V.

A Familiar Platform

A major differentiator for Hyper-V compared with alternatives is the familiarity of the Windows platform. Hyper-V has been designed as a Windows feature, which customers know, so those with Windows Server certification will be familiar with it; the people who have all the in-house skills on Windows Server will know how to use it.

To help both customers and partners assess if their existing servers are good candidates for virtualization using Hyper-V, Microsoft has released the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 3.1 Beta to help accelerate virtualization planning and deployment. The final release of MAP 3.1 is expected in July and will be available for free at: http://www.microsoft.com/MAP.

In addition, more than 130 independent software vendors (ISVs) have certified a total of 150 applications on Windows Server 2008. Symantec, Diskeeper and IBM DB2 are the first three vendors to achieve the new Hyper-V designation for Certified for Windows Server 2008. The Hyper-V designation identifies applications that have been independently tested to exploit Hyper-V capabilities and meet mission critical expectations in a virtualized environment.

Along the same lines, original equipment manufacturer (OEM) vendors such as Dell, Fujitsu-Siemens Corp., Fujitsu Limited, Hitachi, HP, IBM NEC and Unisys are already qualified to ship and create systems with Hyper-V. In all, 84 different systems from server and white-box vendors are already logo qualified for Windows Server 2008 and Hyper-V. More information can be found at: www.windowsservercatalog.com.

The Road Ahead

Customers can now download the final version of Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.

There have already been over 1 million evaluations of Hyper-V and with this release, IT organizations everywhere can move it from the lab to production to fully experience the benefits that Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 can bring.Customers can also use System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, now in beta, to help them best configure and deploy their hypervisor-based environments.

New customers and partners can download Hyper-V at http://www.microsoft.com/Hyper-V today. Customers who have deployed Windows Server 2008 can receive Hyper-V from Windows Update beginning July 8.

Related Links:

- Hyper-V Download Web site

- Windows Server 2008 Web site

- Microsoft Virtualization Web site

- Windows Virtualization Team blog

- Windows Server Division blog

- Server and Tools Business News Bytes blog

Maynooth: June 12th 2008 – A second Irish team have qualified for the global finals of Microsoft’s Imagine Cup 2008, the company’s global student technology competition.  The team from NUI Maynooth have qualified with their project Acidrain which offers a unique fuel conversion kit which enables diesel engined cars to use vegatable oil as fuel.  As part of their entry they plan to drive their car to the Imagine Cup World Finals in Paris this July fuelled by sunflower oil!

Now in its sixth year, Imagine Cup challenges students to "imagine a world where technology enables a sustainable environment". Most fuel conversion kits require a second fuel tank, which takes up boot space, and also manual switches, making them both expensive and inconvenient. These traditional approached also require the vehicle to start up on diesel and then switch over to vegetable oil once the engine is at operating temperature.

Team AcidRain is building an optimized, embedded conversion kit which offers a novel solution to the problem of reducing carbon emissions through enabling plant oil powered engines. They have set out to create a “one size fits all” kit. This embedded solution will convert any diesel engine to run on any plant oil whether it be olive oil, rapeseed oil or sunflower oil to name but a few!

Aodhan Coffey, from the Acidrain said, “We’re delighted to have been chosen to represent Ireland in such a prestigious competition. My brother, Cathal, was part of NUI Maynooth team last year and won a prize at the Imagine Cup World Finals. He made the trip to Silicon Valley and even got to meet Bill Gates. As a team we can’t wait to take on the challenge of driving the car to Paris and when we ‘hopefully’ make it there we can’t wait to win! We’d like to thank Microsoft for giving us this opportunity.”

Paul Rellis, Managing Director, Microsoft Ireland congratulated NUI Maynooth saying, “We were thrilled with the standard and quality of the projects entered into the 2008 Imagine Cup. It is great to have so many students in Ireland interested in technology and developing projects to enable a sustainable environment. I am particularly intrigued by NUI Maynooth’s project and I’m looking forward to seeing how their drive to Paris goes. ”

This is the second year that Ireland has hosted a national Imagine Cup competition.  It attracted entries from Universities, third level colleges and Institutes of Technology across the country with over 520 students registered for the competition from colleges, north and south of the border. Students from Sligo IT have also won a place in the Microsoft Imagine Cup World Finals for their project ParkIT.

ParkIT are proposing an application which enables the provision of real time parking information. Using cameras and software, it monitors car park spaces and can determine when a space vacant. This information would then be sent to a central database, which would be used to drive a real time parking information system that provides users with available parking data near their location on request.

Acidrain and ParkIT will now compete with students and projects from around the world at the final in France.  The overall prizes include a chance to Silicon Valley to take part in the Imagine Cup Innovation Accelerator.  It propels Imagine Cup software design champions into the next stage of developing their innovative ideas as a business.

The Microsoft Imagine Cup 2008 Gold sponsors are Enterprise Ireland and Riverdeep Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing. Other sponsors include Lenovo, Imag!ne Telecommunications and Lero, the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre.

Microsoft joins with veteran entrepreneur, venture investors and Enterprise Ireland to set up new company that will bring a cutting-edge resource to market.

DUBLIN: June 11th, 2008 — Microsoft today joined Zignals, a start-up company, in announcing the launch of a beta online service set to transform investing for the active trader. Zignals will provide retail investors with state-of-the-art decision-support tools and access to a financially savvy online network that shares its own independently rated investment strategies. The beta launch of Zignals will focus on personalized services for the investor – easy-to-use alerts that can be tested, tailored and delivered directly to any e-mail address, personal digital assistant (PDA) or mobile device; intuitive charting and technical analysis –  all developed using the very latest Microsoft technologies, such as Silverlight.

Zignals was created through the collaboration of the Microsoft IP Ventures team, Enterprise Ireland, successful entrepreneurs Pat Brazel and Scott Tattersall, Manresa Partners and angel investors.

“The complete absence of personalized service and access to powerful yet usable decision-support tools is often cited by smaller investors as a key constraint on improving the performance of their investment decisions. This is where we plan to change the status quo. Zignals responds to this need by democratizing trading for the online investor,” said Pat Brazel, CEO of Zignals. “Microsoft has provided us with the resources and the technology to develop personalized communication services and optimize trading strategies using the yet-to-be-launched Microsoft Solver Foundation technology. The highly intuitive services we are building will open up a whole new world for the retail investor who wants to maximize the effectiveness of their investment efforts without spending every waking hour peering at screens.”

“IP Ventures continues to have success in bringing together entrepreneurs, venture capital and governments to launch new companies, like Zignals, offering exciting technologies, around the world,” said Dan’l Lewin, corporate vice president of Strategic and Emerging Business Development at Microsoft. “Microsoft offers entrepreneurs cutting-edge technology and an experienced team to work with to help them bring a new product or service to market. This close collaboration helps ensure long-term success for the new company and their future consumers.”

Dan'l Lewin, Corporate Vice President, Strategic and Emerging Business Development,  Microsoft Corporation; Pat Brazel, Zignals; Michael Moriarty, Enterprise Ireland pictured at the announcement in Brussels earlier today.

Enterprise Ireland, the enterprise development agency of the Irish government, made the original introduction of Brazel to IP Ventures, which resulted in the establishment of Zignals.

“We are delighted to be supporting the establishment of Zignals in Ireland.  We are greatly encouraged by the strong partnership with Microsoft that will bring an exciting innovation to the market while creating a new enterpriser in Ireland,” said Frank Ryan, CEO of Enterprise Ireland.

Innovative Programme Connects Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs With Microsoft Innovation

Microsoft launched the dynamic IP Ventures programme in May 2005 to expedite the commercialisation of new innovations developed through the company’s significant research and development investment. The programme is available globally and is frequently updated with new technology offerings. Some companies taking advantage of the IP Ventures opportunities include Skinkers, Wallop Technologies Inc. and Zumobi Inc.

About Zignals

Zignals offers a variety of online services that are set to transform the world of financial investment by democratizing the investment services that are available to the active trader in the financial markets and by providing access to a financially-savvy online network which shares its own independently-rated investment strategies. Zignals was established in partnership with Microsoft and other investors, and has developed its services using Microsoft IP-protected technology. The Zignals beta release is available from June 11^th.

Boston: June 9th, 2008 — Microsoft today announced the Podcasting Kit for SharePoint (PKS), an open source initiative that helps partners and customers accelerate the development and deployment of podcasting solutions. Microsoft made the announcements today at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference, an event that brings together the latest trends and practical information about Enterprise 2.0 in one place.

The need for social-computing tools is a natural extension of digital collaboration and is increasingly becoming incorporated into business productivity solutions. According to an April 2008 Forrester Research Inc. report, “Global Enterprise Market Forecast: 2007 to 2013,” 56 percent of North American and European enterprises consider Web 2.0 to be a priority in 2008, and the market will increase from $764 million in 2008 to $4.6 billion by 2013. Microsoft is helping to lead that trend by providing the social-computing solutions and platforms today in SharePoint Server that balance end-user empowerment without sacrificing IT control.

Screenshot: Podcasting Kit for Sharepoint

“What we refer to today as Enterprise 2.0 will tomorrow just be considered a natural part of the way we all work,” said Tom Rizzo, director of SharePoint Server at Microsoft. “SharePoint is leading the Enterprise 2.0 revolution by providing a comprehensive business productivity platform that combines traditional collaboration solutions with newer social-computing technologies in an enterprise-capable product. Using rich blog, wiki, RSS, mashup and social-networking solutions combined with the enterprise content management and search capabilities of SharePoint, SharePoint customers are well positioned to deliver real Enterprise 2.0 solutions today.”

Partners Betting on Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Social-Networking Capabilities

Microsoft is tapping into the power of its network of partners to foster innovation that complements the existing social-computing technologies it delivers with SharePoint Server. As a result, more partners are turning to the productivity platform as the foundation for social-computing, as evidenced by a number of new social-computing technologies from the following companies:

Atlassian Pty. Ltd. Microsoft partner Atlassian offers the SharePoint Connector for Confluence, a leading enterprise wiki. With the connector, Confluence and SharePoint Server integrate by providing bidirectional content embedding and linking, cross-product search, and single sign-on. More information can be found at http://www.atlassian.com/sharepoint.

Awareness Inc. Awareness integration with SharePoint Server allows SharePoint Server users to seamlessly engage with external-facing Web 2.0 communities from within SharePoint Server. More information can be found at http://www.awarenessnetworks.com/what/sharepoint.asp.

blueKiwi Software. The blueKiwi SharePoint connector and blueKiwi OfficeAssistant, a set of components that enable the integration of blueKiwi’s enterprise social software suite with SharePoint Server and Office, provide SharePoint Server customers with dynamic expertise identification, social-network visualization, and an aggregated view of all conversations happening across the entire enterprise.

Connectbeam Inc. Connectbeam, a Microsoft partner, is announcing Spotlight Connect for SharePoint, a bookmarking and tagging add-on module to its enterprise social search-and-discovery application. A demo of Connectbeam’s integration with SharePoint Server can be found at http://www.connectbeam.com/demo/sharepointintegration.

Leverage Software. Leverage Software’s innovative Web 2.0 social-networking tools extend the reach of a SharePoint Server implementation and allow a company to connect with and learn from its customers, partners and corporate alumni, while maintaining the security and privacy demands of the enterprise.

NewsGator Technologies Inc. NewsGator is announcing NewsGator Social Sites 2.0 plus Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, which delivers positive and tangible social-computing business results.

Telligent Systems. Through its REST API, mail gateway, shared authentication and single sign-on, Community Server Evolution provides deep integration and interoperability among Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Active Directory and Telligent Community Server, an industry-leading social-computing and online-community platform built on Microsoft .NET.

Tomoye Corp. Tomoye is delivering a SharePoint Server-ready offering to enable organizations to deploy communities of practice using proven process and technology.

WorkLight Inc. WorkLight is announcing its new WorkLight for SharePoint, which enables SharePoint Server users to more securely view and update information from SharePoint Server through familiar consumer tools such as Windows Vista gadgets and Facebook applications.

Customers Benefit From SharePoint Server’s Social-Computing Features

SharePoint Server also is rapidly becoming the collaboration tool of choice for many organizations. According to an April 2008 Forrester report, “Topic Overview: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007,” 96 percent of enterprises are considering, planning on, in the process of or have already completed deploying at least some part of the Microsoft Office system server software. For example, Pfizer Inc., the world’s largest research-based biomedical and pharmaceutical company, uses SharePoint Server blogs and wikis for collaborations among its worldwide employees.

“SharePoint gives us a powerful social-computing tool for collaboration,” said David Biersach, Pfizer’s associate director of Document and Collaboration Solutions. “We have teams distributed all over the world, and the ability to create wikis and blogs helps everyone stay on top of rapidly changing information and team dynamics in real time.”

Podcasting Kit for SharePoint

Demonstrating its commitment to bring the latest innovating trends of social-networking technologies to its customers and partners, Microsoft today announced the release of the PKS, a free, open source initiative that provides organizations with a centralized, easy-to-manage solution to create, manage and distribute podcasts. Built on the SharePoint Server and Microsoft Silverlight platforms, and compatible with the Zune, Windows Mobile devices, PCs and other devices that play podcasts, the PKS provides a new medium to record and distribute video and audio information via the Internet and intranet. The Microsoft sales organization implemented the PKS internally over the past year.

Additional features of the PKS allow users to do the following:

• Access audio or video podcasts on PCs, Windows Mobile devices, Zune devices and any other devices that play podcasts
• Share content by producing personal podcasts and publishing content on PKS
• Connect and engage with podcasters via integrated instant-messaging programs
• Find the most relevant content using a rating system, tags clouds and search functions
• Receive automatic podcast updates by subscribing to RSS feeds, fully compatible with Zune and other devices that play podcasts
• Play podcasts in real time using Silverlight and progressive playback

Many organizations are now using podcasting technology to provide company news, improve training and increase employee participation. Accenture, a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, participated in the PKS pilot program, along with its client BT Group plc. Accenture is using and extending the kit’s capabilities to offer Web 2.0-based learning and collaboration solutions, coupled with its experience in Microsoft technologies, to its global client base.

“Corporate and public-sector learning organizations have traditionally only addressed 20 percent of how employees learn,” said Tom Hoglund, global lead of Accenture’s Collaboration and Knowledge Management Practice. “The PKS, combined with Accenture’s learning and collaboration experience, enables our clients to facilitate and accelerate learning exactly when and where it is needed, independent of location or device. That’s a huge advantage.”

Customers can download the PKS at CodePlex, Microsoft’s open source project hosting Web site at http://www.codeplex.com/pks.

More information about SharePoint Server social-computing is available at http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint/capabilities/collaboration/overview.mspx.

More information on Enterprise 2.0 Conference is available at http://www.enterprise2conf.com.

Initiative launched for Northern Irish businesses to access candidates with ICT skills

Belfast: 4th June 2008 - Based on the model established in Ireland to provide unemployed people with ICT skills to access employment, FIT NI (Fastrack to Information Technology Northern Ireland) has launched a new industry initiative providing ready access to candidates with in-demand ICT skills in Belfast today.

Aimed at helping those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds to upskill to new levels and access high calibre ICT jobs, FIT NI is based on the Irish model which was established nine years ago. The Irish initiative has a 64% success rate of progressing its participants with private sector employers.

Supported by major indigenous and international companies, FIT NI – is a unique private sector response to labour shortages of ICT skills across all industry sectors.

Launching the event, Billy McClean, FIT NI’s Northern Ireland Programme Manager, said:

“As the recent US NI Conference demonstrated, interest in Northern Ireland as an investment location has never been higher, despite the global uncertainty sparked by the credit crunch and rising energy prices. But is the local workforce fit for purpose?

“Overseas investors will only locate in Northern Ireland if we can maintain a healthy flow of employees with key skills such as ICT. There are already worrying signs though that the local ICT labour market is beginning to overheat, despite the fact that at 27.5% Northern Ireland has one of the highest rates of economic inactivity in Europe.

“Given that employers are finding it increasingly hard to find ICT literate employees while there’s a ready supply of untapped talent which has difficulty accessing job opportunities, FIT NI believes that it provides a solution which can tackle social marginalisation whilst also improving Northern Ireland’s competitiveness.”

Also speaking at the event was Fiona Mullan, Microsoft’s Ireland’s Director of HR: “In just nine years FIT has provided over 6,000 Irish people with the technical and software skills they needed to access employment opportunities in the Celtic Tiger’s burgeoning ICT sector. Now that Northern Ireland is beginning to reap the benefits of a stable political environment it’s vital that it has the people available to take advantage of any uplift in employment opportunities. Northern Ireland has a rare window of opportunity to sell itself on the world stage – it would be tragic if potential investments were lost due to artificial shortages in the labour market caused by a failure to engage effectively with those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.”

FIT NI has already run a number of pilot programmes in the Belfast area in collaboration with local training providers and community organisations. Over 250 people have completed the process with a significant number progressing into employment or further education. FIT NI now has plans to launch similar programmes throughout Northern Ireland and is looking to work closely with private sector partners and local training providers.

Roy Adair, CEO of the Port of Belfast, one of FIT NI’s local supporters, said: “FIT NI is a great example of how businesses can help society at large while at the same time improving the economic conditions in which they operate. These are exciting times for Northern Ireland, but we want to ensure that as many people as possible can access the new economic opportunities which the future holds. I’ve heard it said that if opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door. That’s exactly what FIT is and I encourage other businesses across Northern Ireland to get involved and support the scheme.”

FIT partners across Ireland include firms such as AIB, Alchemy, AOL, Belfast Trust, CSC, Danone, Dell, Eircom, BT, Halifax, HP, IBEC, IBM, Kainos, Liberty, Lionbridge Technology, Allstate Northern Ireland, Microsoft, MyHoliday.ie, Oracle, Siemens, Skillsoft, Symantec, Uniphar, Origin Enterprises and Welocalise.

Find out more about FITNI at: http://www.fitni.org.uk/

Dublin: May 26th, 2008 - Microsoft Ireland today announced that Cathriona Hallahan has been appointed as managing director of Microsoft’s Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) Operations Centre (EOC) based at the Microsoft campus in Sandyford, Co. Dublin. Cathriona replaces Paul Rellis, who was recently appointed as managing director of Microsoft Ireland. In her new role Cathriona will be responsible for all commercial operations at EOC which includes logistics, supply chain management and financial support for the EMEA region.

Cathriona is a veteran of Microsoft having worked in a variety of European and global roles over the past 20 years. In more recent times she has had global responsibility for the Microsoft Business Services (MBS) operations. Under her leadership MBS Operations has been transformed through the development of a global organisation. The global programme management model developed by Cathriona is now a model for all of Microsoft’s commercial business worldwide.

Commenting on the appointment Paul Rellis, managing director, Microsoft Ireland said: “Cathriona brings fantastic experience and passion to this important and strategic role in Microsoft’s EMEA operations. The EOC is at the heart of ensuring that we deliver a positive experience to customers and partners throughout the whole of Europe, Middle East and Africa. Cathriona’s vast expertise and knowledge built up over 20 years at Microsoft will ensure that the business will continue to thrive and grow in her hands.”

Cathriona joined Microsoft in 1986 as an accounts clerk in the finance department. Over the course of 10 years she held various roles including cost accountant, accounts supervisor and finance manager. During this time Cathriona contributed to some revolutionary changes in Microsoft EOC history. Today the EOC provides key support for Microsoft’s business across EMEA including logistics, supply chain management and all key processes in support of Sales, Marketing and Services across 85 countries.

Cathriona said: “As a veteran of Microsoft and having worked in a range of different roles across the business, I am looking forward to the challenges of running the EOC. One of my most important priorities will be the continued growth and development of the EOC, particularly expanding capabilities to support new business models and markets for all our customers and partners across the region.”

New ERP solution helps businesses thrive in a competitive global marketplace by controlling costs, managing risk, and increasing employee productivity

Dublin: June 3rd, 2008 - Microsoft today announced the general availability of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009, an adaptable business management solution that offers powerful new capabilities to help growing multisite organisations streamline processes, reduce operational costs, manage compliance, and drive informed decision-making across their organisation.

As businesses expand globally so do the complexities of managing accurate business insights and standardising operations across multiple locations. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 enables customers to manage complex financial and supply chain processes across teams and locations more easily. For example, the new software can run multiple legal entities on a central installation and provide a single, integrated view of financial and supply chain information from facilities around the world, helping organisations simplify global planning. Advanced planning and reporting scenarios, such as consolidation or budgeting, are offered through integration with Microsoft Office Performance Point Server.

“With its innovative role-based user experience, improved reporting and BI capabilities, and improving platform harmonisation, Microsoft Dynamics products should be on ERP selection shortlists for a variety of SMBs, particularly those that use Microsoft’s server-based products,” wrote Forrester’s Ray Wang in the April 2008 report, “Microsoft Dynamics Gets Renewed Focus.”  “Multisite companies should consider Dynamics AX.” 

Another business challenge that growing companies face is the increasing pressure to meet global and local regulatory compliance, a complex and costly problem that has been a top priority for CEOs and CFOs. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 delivers core features to help companies limit these risks and lower total cost of compliance, including:

• A compliance centre that provides one central, integrated view of internal controls, key performance indicators (KPIs) and other compliance data;
• Embedded workflows that automate business processes, enforcing standard operating procedures to limit organizational risks while still enabling organizations to quickly respond to changing market needs;
• Country specific functionality to help customers more easily comply with local regulations in 36 countries.

”Managing risk is an integral part of my job, and Microsoft Dynamics AX makes my job easier,” said John Elmer, vice president, information systems, and controller, Rodgers & Hammerstein. “I can access critical company information from within the Executive Role Centre and see a 360-degree view of our global IT and finance operations, ranging from compliance risks to how the company is tracking against forecasts.” Rodgers & Hammerstein, based in New York, represents a wide variety of entertainment copyrights for more than 200 writers, including Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, through its theatrical, concert and music publishing divisions.

In a fast-paced world, people need software that helps them do their jobs more effectively and with minimal training. To increase productivity and foster more confident decision-making, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009’s RoleTailored design gives employees access to critical business data through the following new features:

• A Role Centre that prioritises tasks and real-time information for a majority of business functions;
• A user interface that looks and feels like familiar Microsoft Office software to help employees ramp up quickly, resulting in higher user productivity and more consistent adherence to business processes;
• Self-service business intelligence tools using Microsoft Business Intelligence technologies to deliver standard KPIs by role and simplify end-user reporting, which results in more informed decision-making and integrity of information across the organization. Preconfigured KPIs and reports enable customers to start immediately.

“Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 helps increase user productivity, supports standard business processes, and provides easy-to-use features which lead to higher user adoption,” said Conor Wickham, Microsoft Dynamics Ireland. “Dynamics AX 2009 helps to streamline traditionally time consuming business processes and management, delivering the right information to users when and where they need it.

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 integrates with other leading Microsoft technologies, maximising the benefits of any company’s overall IT investment. Benefits include:

• Enhanced security, reliability and scalability though integration with Microsoft SQL Server 2008. For example, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 can compress the database size by 60 to 80 percent, which can lead to lower hardware and data maintenance costs;
• Reduced operational complexity and IT management overheads with improved control through interoperability with Windows Essential Business Server 2008;
• Improved ability to manage and administer projects through integration with Microsoft Office Project Server;
• Easy communication with remote employees, customers, and trading partners through integration with Microsoft Unified Communication.

Availability

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 is available in Ireland immediately.

http://www.microsoft.com/ireland/dynamics/default.mspx

About Microsoft Dynamics

Microsoft Dynamics is a line of financial, customer relationship and supply chain management solutions that help businesses work more effectively. Delivered through a network of channel partners providing specialized services, these integrated, adaptable business management solutions work like and with familiar Microsoft software to streamline processes across an entire business.

Dublin: May 23rd 2008 – Microsoft is today announcing the availability of a new service, Windows Live SkyDrive, which provides computer users in Ireland with five gigabytes of free online storage. Windows Live SkyDrive is offered by Microsoft under the Windows Live umbrella of online services. It provides customers with access to their files and information anywhere and anytime they have access to the web, as well as options for conveniently sharing material they create with other people.

You can sign up for Windows Live SkyDrive at: http://skydrive.live.com

Windows Live SkyDrive provides three folder options for customers to store files and information: Personal, Shared, and Public.

1. Personal Folder - The information in the Personal folder is secured with the customer’s user name and password.
2. Shared Folder - The Shared folders are secured with the user names and passwords of those the customer chooses to share with.
3. Public Folders - Public folders are open to everyone on the web.

Windows Live SkyDrive is an important building block in Microsoft’s software plus services vision, and gives consumers flexibility and choice in sharing and storing their information.

Move enhances customer choice and interoperability with Microsoft’s flagship productivity suite.

Dublin: May 22nd, 2008 - Microsoft is expanding the range of document formats supported in the Office productivity suite, offering customers greater choice and more flexibility among document formats, as well as creating additional opportunities for developers and competitors.

The 2007 Microsoft Office system already provides support for 20 different document formats within Microsoft Office Word, Office Excel and Office PowerPoint. With the release of Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) in the first half of 2009, the list will grow to include support for XML Paper Specification (XPS), Portable Document Format (PDF) 1.5, PDF/A and Open Document Format (ODF) v1.1.

When using Office 2007 SP2, customers will be able to open, edit and save documents using ODF and save documents into the XPS and PDF fixed formats from directly within the application without having to install any other code. It will also allow customers to set ODF as the default file format for Office 2007. In order to also provide ODF support for users of earlier versions of Microsoft Office including Office 2000, Office XP and Office 2003, Microsoft will continue to collaborate with the open source community in the ongoing development of the Open XML-ODF translator project on SourceForge.net.

In addition, Microsoft has defined a roadmap for its implementation of the newly ratified International Standard ISO/IEC 29500 (Office Open XML). IS29500, which was approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in March, is already substantially supported in Office 2007 and the company plans to update that support in the next major version release of the Microsoft Office system, code-named “Office 14.”

Microsoft is also committed to providing Office customers with the ability to open, edit and save documents in the Chinese national document file format standard, Uniform Office Format (UOF).  It is done so today by supporting the continued development of the UOF-Open XML translator project on Sourceforge, and Microsoft will take additional steps to promote the distribution and ease of use of the translator.  As UOF develops and achieves market adoption in China we will distribute support for this format with Office to our customers in China. 

Consistent with its interoperability principles, in which the company committed to work with others toward robust, consistent and interoperable implementations across a broad range of widely deployed products, the company has also announced it will be an active participant in the future evolution of ODF, Open XML, XPS and PDF standards.

Microsoft will join the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) technical committee working on the next version of ODF and will take part in the ISO/IEC working group that is being formed to work on ODF maintenance. Microsoft employees will also take part in the ISO/IEC working group that is being formed to maintain Open XML and the ISO/IEC working group that is being formed to improve interoperability between these and other ISO/IEC-recognised document formats.

The company will also be an active participant in the ongoing standardization and maintenance activities for XPS and PDF and continue to work with the IT community to promote interoperability between document file formats, including Open XML and ODF, as well as Digital Accessible Information System (Daisy XML), the foundation of the globally accepted DAISY standard for reading and publishing navigable multimedia content.

“This announcement underlines our commitment to provide Office customers with greater choice among the document formats they wish to use, and enhances the interoperability between those different formats and the software applications that implement them,” said Richard Moore, Information Worker, business manager at Microsoft Ireland. “We are increasing the openness of our products and also participating actively in the development and maintenance of document format standards. We believe that this commitment can help to create opportunities for software developers and competitors, including members of the open source communities, to innovate and deliver new value for customers.”

Microsoft recognises that customers care most about real-world interoperability in the marketplace, so the company is committed to continuing to engage the IT community to achieve that goal when it comes to document format standards. It will work with the Interoperability Executive Customer Council and other customers to identify the areas where document format interoperability matters most, and then collaborate with other vendors to achieve interoperability between their implementations of the formats that customers are using today. This work will continue to be carried out in the Interop Vendor Alliance (http://www.interopvendoralliance.org), the Document Interoperability Initiative (http://www.microsoft.com/interop), and a range of other interoperability labs and collaborative venues.

"Microsoft's support for ODF in Office is a great step that enables customers to work with the document format that best meets their needs, even as it facilitates interoperability in the marketplace," said Roger Levy, senior vice president and general manager of Open Platform Solutions for Novell. "Novell is proud to be an industry leader in cross-platform document interoperability through our work in the Document Interoperability Initiative, the Interop Vendor Alliance and with our direct collaboration with Microsoft in our Interoperability Lab. We look forward to continuing this work for the benefit of customers across the IT spectrum."

This work on document formats is only one aspect of how Microsoft is delivering choice, interoperability and innovative solutions to the marketplace. Microsoft will continue to work with its customers and partners and the rest of the industry to continue advancing in the area. See http://www.microsoft.com/interop for more information.

A service free of charge from Microsoft lets students and lifelong learners tour the night sky using high-resolution images from the world’s best land- and space-based telescopes.

REDMOND, Washington: May 12th, 2008 — The final frontier got a bit closer today as Microsoft officially launched the public beta of its WorldWide Telescope, which is now available at http://www.worldwidetelescope.org. WorldWide Telescope is a rich Web application that brings together imagery from the best ground- and space-based observatories across the world to allow people to easily explore the night sky through their computers. WorldWide Telescope has been eagerly anticipated by the astronomical and educational communities as a compelling astronomical resource for students and lifelong learners, and as a way to make science fun for children.

“The WorldWide Telescope is a powerful tool for science and education that makes it possible for everyone to explore the universe,” said Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft. “By combining terabytes of incredible imagery and data with easy-to-use software for viewing and moving through all that information, the WorldWide Telescope opens the door to new ways to see and experience the wonders of space. Our hope is that it will inspire young people to explore astronomy and science, and help researchers in their quest to better understand the universe.”

The application itself is a blend of software and Web 2.0 services created with the Microsoft high-performance Visual Experience Engine, which allows seamless panning and zooming around the heavens with rich image environments. WorldWide Telescope stitches together terabytes of high-resolution images of celestial bodies and displays them in a way that relates to their actual position in the sky. People can freely browse through the solar system, galaxy and beyond, or take advantage of a growing number of guided tours of the sky hosted by astronomers and educators at major universities and planetariums.

“WorldWide Telescope brings to life a dream that many of us in Microsoft Research have pursued for years, and we are proud to release this as a free service to anyone who wants to explore the universe,” said Curtis Wong, manager of Microsoft’s Next Media Research Group. “Where is Saturn in the sky, in relation to the moon? Does the Milky Way really have a supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy? With the universe at your fingertips, you can discover the answers for yourself.”

The service goes well beyond the simple browsing of images. Users can choose which telescope they want to look through, including the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center, the Spitzer Space Telescope or others. They can view the locations of planets in the night sky — in the past, present or future. They can view the universe through different wavelengths of light to reveal hidden structures in other parts of the galaxy. Taken as a whole, the application provides a top-to-bottom view of the science of astronomy.

“Users can see the X-ray view of the sky, zoom into bright radiation clouds, and then cross-fade into the visible light view and discover the cloud remnants of a supernova explosion from a thousand years ago,” said Roy Gould, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “I believe this new creation from Microsoft will have a profound impact on the way we view the universe.”

Microsoft Research has formed close ties with members of the academic, education and scientific communities to make WorldWide Telescope a reality. NASA along with other organizations coordinated with Microsoft Research to provide the imagery, provide feedback on the application from a scientific point of view, and help turn WorldWide Telescope into a rich learning application.

Microsoft’s mission to make the universe accessible to everyone was begun years ago by renowned Microsoft Senior Researcher Jim Gray. WorldWide Telescope is built on top of Gray’s pioneering development of large-scale, high-performance online databases including SkyServer and his contributions to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a project to map a large part of the Northern sky outside of the galaxy. Microsoft Research is releasing WorldWide Telescope as a service free of charge to the astronomy and education communities as a tribute to Gray with the hope that it will inspire and empower kids of all ages to explore and understand the universe in an unprecedented way.

About Microsoft Research

Founded in 1991, Microsoft Research is dedicated to conducting both basic and applied research in computer science and software engineering. Its goals are to enhance the user experience on computing devices, reduce the cost of writing and maintaining software, and invent novel computing technologies. Researchers focus on more than 55 areas of computing and collaborate with leading academic, government and industry researchers to advance the state of the art in such areas as graphics, speech recognition, user-interface research, natural language processing, programming tools and methodologies, operating systems and networking, and the mathematical sciences. Microsoft Research currently employs more than 800 people in six labs located in Redmond, Wash.; Cambridge, Mass.; Silicon Valley, Calif.; Cambridge, England; Beijing, China; and Bangalore, India. Microsoft Research collaborates openly with colleges and universities worldwide to enhance the teaching and learning experience, inspire technological innovation, and broadly advance the field of computer science. More information can be found at http://www.research.microsoft.com.

Dublin: May 8th 2008 – Microsoft today announced that the online service, Windows Live Maps (http://maps.live.com) now includes “Bird’s Eye” views of a number of Irish towns and cities.  The Bird’s Eye view consists of full aerial photography (at a 45 degree angle) of a location, making it easy to identify and explore.  The new feature also enables Bird’s Eye views from four directions and is available along with traditional road map views and satellite views of Ireland. Windows Live Maps also lets you get directions, plan journeys, print maps, and save collections of different locations you have chosen.

Windows Live Maps bird’s eye views are now online for the following Irish towns and cities:

• Carlow
• Cork
• Dublin
• Galway
• Limerick
• Navan
• Wexford

Other locations will be added over time.

Picture: Microsoft Ireland's Atrium Building on Windows Live Maps

Windows Live Maps Features

Bird’s-eye imagery. In addition to standard aerial and satellite imagery, Live Search Maps allows users to change to a bird’s-eye (45-degree) view of the area, giving unique views of real-world locations and providing real insight into what it’s like there.

Standard Mapping. Windows Live Maps also provides standard roads maps of Ireland which you can easily use to find locations and find more details on driving directions.

Aerial imagery.  In addition to Bird’s eye view and standard maps, Windows Live Maps provides satellite imagery of the entire island.

Driving directions. You can use Windows Live Maps to find the best driving directions for your trip.  You can choose directions using criteria such as the shortest trip or the fastest estimate trip.

Custom Collections. You can also save locations and directions in Live Maps and create custom maps and lists of places for yourself or to share with others. Collections are sets of custom pushpins on the map that are ideal for everything from planning vacation stops on a drive down the coast to sharing a list of favourite pubs in Galway. With the new drawing features, they can now add colorful lines and drawings in a variety of colors, shapes and styles to personalize their Collection. In addition, users can easily determine the area of a shape drawn on the map in square feet, acres, square kilometers, and other measurements. Creators of a Collection control its visibility to others on the Internet. They can choose to keep a Collection private, such as their itinerary for an upcoming business trip, or mark it public and share it with others at http://collections.live.com.

Printing. Users can now print maps without printing driving directions as well. Further improvements in printing functionality include pushpins, routes and search results made visible on the printed map.

Availability

Live Search Maps is available at http://maps.live.com.

Microsoft Ireland has won the 2008 ICT Excellence award for Corporate Social Responsibility.

The award recognizes how the technology sector has shown leadership in the area of CSR.

The judges called out the work Microsoft Ireland is doing in delivering the benefits of technology to every charity in Ireland through a range of programmes such as:

• The Technology Donations Programme
• The Community MAR Programme
• Digital Literacy Curriculum

UPC and Dell were shortlisted for the CSR award.

You can read more on the award winners on the ICT Excellence Awards site and from Electric News.

Pictured: Paul Rellis, managing director at Microsoft Ireland collecting the 2008 CSR award.

The newest release of the suite of tools includes revolutionary capabilities for creative professionals including Silverlight functionality, PHP support and Adobe Photoshop import capabilities.

Dublin: May 2nd, 2008 - Microsoft today delivered on its commitment to rapid innovation for the newest Microsoft platforms and latest Web technologies by announcing the release of Expression Studio 2.

The suite of professional design tools includes Expression Web 2, Expression Blend 2, Expression Design 2, Expression Media 2 and Expression Encoder 2 and works seamlessly with Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008, solving the age-old designer and developer workflow challenge. The innovations in Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML), used by both Expression Studio and Visual Studio, allow for unprecedented designer-developer collaboration for the creation of both standards-based and Microsoft Silverlight-enhanced Web experiences as well as Windows Vista and .NET Framework 3.5 client applications.

In line with the team’s commitment to short release cycles, Expression Studio 2 is coming to market one year after the last release with major updates to each product. The products together contain more than 100 new features and introduce new Microsoft Silverlight functionality for creating stunning cross-browser, cross-platform Web experiences. Key features include the following:

• Expression Web 2 adds support for PHP and Adobe Photoshop import based on customer feedback.
• Expression Blend 2, in addition to Silverlight support, adds vertex animation and an improved user interface with a new split design/XAML view.
• Expression Design 2 adds improved export