At the same time, it is also a showcase for technological innovation, created in cooperation with the smart building development team at Microsoft in Redmond and with the local partners Trivadis and Setza.

You can watch our showcase video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZISL3jJGIKw

As a Microsoft partner, customer or related start-up you can benefit from this great offering for free. To get started, download the mobile app for Windows, Android, iOS and sign up for an account: http://aka.ms/coworkapp

Sign up for our co-working space, select available time slots to make reservations, check in at the front desk using face detection technology based on Microsoft Cognitive Services Face API and choose if you want to publicly share your interests and profile, while you are on site with other co-workers.

Upon signing up, you can select from a list of sponsors to vet you as having a relation to Microsoft. If you don’t know any of the sponsors, you may select the Microsoft reception as a sponsor. After being vetted, you will receive an initial number of Tokens which you can use to make reservations for co-working.

Smart Building is a pilot project created in collaboration with the Microsoft Smart Building team in Redmond.

It uses internet-connected sensors and devices to provide real-time information and interaction with the building. The project is based on our IoT Technology. It allows Microsoft employees to instantly book an unoccupied meeting room that has no active meeting reservation. Make sure to get a personal demo of the solution while co-working in our offices.

Roomz Smart panels by Setza, which are also connected to Microsoft Office 365 provide up-to-date information on availability at select rooms on the first floor in Wallisellen.

]]> https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/microsoft_developer_switzerland_news/join-the-free-intel-microsoft-iot-hands-on-lab-on-september-19 Fri, 18 Aug 2017 08:59:34 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/microsoft_developer_switzerland_news/?p=1145 We are teaming up with Intel to deliver an end-to-end, free-to-attend Internet of Things (IoT) hands-on lab on September 19. Topics covered in this full day workshop will range from learning Intel’s IoT integrated ecosystem to working with IoT gateways, coding scripts and connecting data collected from sensors up to the Microsoft Azure cloud. In this hands-on-lab, you will develop client-side logic with Node-Red and configure the Azure IoT platform to create an end-to-end IoT solution. Sign up to participate or share with your colleagues! The event is free and will be held in English. Event Date: Tuesday, September 19, 2017 Time: 9am to 5pm Registration Deadline: Tuesday, September 12, 2017 Workshop Location: Citizen Space CH, Bahnhofstrasse 3, Zurich, Switzerland Link to Registration and detailed Agenda What to Bring: The Commercial IoT Developer kit will be provided. All you need is your personal laptop with at least 2 USB ports. You will also need to register for a Microsoft Azure account at least 2 days prior to the event. Technical Skills required: Knowledge of code editors, debuggers, IDEs, open source alternatives and working knowledge of scripting programming languages.]]> https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/microsoft_developer_switzerland_news/azure-serverless-building-apps-in-the-cloud-even-faster Fri, 04 Aug 2017 09:12:31 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/microsoft_developer_switzerland_news/?p=1126 The Microsoft Azure Serverless offerings allow developers to build and deploy elastic-scale applications faster than ever by completely abstracting the infrastructure and making just the app code and business logic central.

The Azure Serverless platform provides a series of fully managed services ranging from compute, storage, database, orchestration, monitoring, analytics, intelligence, and others to help construct serverless applications for any kind of scenario. The two pieces central to Serverless application development are Azure Functions and Azure Logic Apps.

Azure Functions provide Functions-as-a-Service, where you simply provide your code (whether C#, JavaScript, Python, or many other supported languages) which is executed on demand. Azure Functions can be authored and debugged locally on a developer’s machine and can stream data in and out of other services like Azure Storage, Event Hubs, etc. through bindings. Azure Functions scale to meet the application needs automatically, so a Function that runs successfully locally will automatically scale up to potentially process billions of events in the cloud.

Azure Logic Apps provide Serverless workflows in the cloud. Logic Apps allows to orchestrate data and processing to bring isolated steps that can be implemented as Azure Functions into a coherent workflow. Logic Apps comes with over 150 connectors to services like Visual Studio Team Services, Salesforce, SAP, PowerBI and many others. This allows developers to easily integrate data in and out of their Serverless solutions instead of writing complex code to manuallz integrate disparate systems. Logic Apps also allow you to orchestrate and connect the Functions and APIs of your application together.

Check out this video for a demo of Azure Serverless in action.

To build your own, first Serverless app try out some of our Serverless quickstarts.]]> https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/microsoft_developer_switzerland_news/the-microsoft-most-valuable-professionals-mvp-program Wed, 05 Jul 2017 09:07:59 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/microsoft_developer_switzerland_news/?p=1115 Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals are passionate technology experts who share their knowledge with the community.

They are always on the "bleeding edge" and have an unstoppable urge to get their hands on new, exciting technologies. They have very deep knowledge of Microsoft products and services, while also being able to bring together diverse platforms, products and solutions, to solve real world problems. MVPs make up a global community of over 4,000 technical experts and community leaders across 90 countries and are driven by their passion, community spirit, and quest for knowledge. In Switzerland, we are proud to have 33 MVPs currently.

Above all and in addition to their amazing technical abilities, MVPs are always willing to help others. That's what sets them apart.

For more than two decades, the Microsoft MVP Award is our way of saying "Thanks!" to outstanding community leaders. The contributions MVPs make to the community, ranging from speaking engagements, to social media posts, to writing books, to helping others in online communities, have an incredible impact. Key benefits to MVPs include early access to Microsoft products, direct communication channels with our product teams and an invitation to the Global MVP Summit, an exclusive annual event hosted in our global HQ in Redmond. They also have a very close relationship with the local Microsoft teams in their area, who are there to support and empower MVPs to address needs and opportunities in the local ecosystem. Other benefits include an executive recognition letter, an MSDN technical subscription, and an Office 365 subscription.

We also plan a local, technical event for MVPs in Switzerland and have held regular get-togethers in the past.

We have just recently announced the new AI MVP Award Category and are still looking for an AI MVP in Switzerland! AI MVPs work to create intelligent apps and bots, develop natural interfaces, create AI algorithms, train data sets, are experts in Cognitive Service APIs and share their work and knowledge with the community.

We accept nominations every day and review new nominations in near real time. We recognize new MVPs on the first of every month. If you have any questions, please contact the MVP global support channel. If you know of someone who you believe has what it takes to become an MVP (including yourself, of course), go ahead and nominate them right now!]]> https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/microsoft_developer_switzerland_news/case-study-bringing-dr-tax-for-windows-to-the-microsoft-store-using-the-desktop-app-converter Fri, 23 Jun 2017 07:14:49 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/microsoft_developer_switzerland_news/?p=1106 Each Swiss citizen must submit a tax declaration once per year. Today most people rely on software to produce their completed taxation forms.

Ringler Informatik AG is the leading provider of such software, thus making Dr.Tax one of the most deployed PC desktop applications in Switzerland.

Dr.Tax is available as a standard installer on the official product website. A typical win application is not the best experience for Windows 10 users, but of course Ringler Informatik didn’t want to rewrite all the code to create a new Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app and to leverage Windows Store capabilities.

With the support of the Microsoft AppConsult team and Microsoft DX Switzerland, Ringler Informatik was able to bring the Java based Dr.Tax application to the Windows Store by using the Desktop App Converter tool.

Thus, by having Dr.Tax published to a trusted Store like the Windows 10 Store, a better installation and purchase experience is available to Windows 10 users.

Last but not least, although Dr.Tax is already very well known, the store publication provides even more visibility.

In Mr. Ringler’s own words:

"The Desktop Bridge set of technologies enabled us to migrate our popular Java based app to the Windows Store. Distributing our app through this channel clearly enhanced our users’ installation and updating experience. Moreover, in the future, as soon as a paid version of the app will be available, we may leverage the out of the box billing system provided by store, providing our customers with an even better experience."

For more technical details on how the solution was implemented, read the full article.]]> https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/microsoft_developer_switzerland_news/bringing-the-dr-tax-for-windows-application-to-the-microsoft-store-using-the-desktop-app-converter Mon, 19 Jun 2017 08:51:30 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/microsoft_developer_switzerland_news/?p=1035

Each Swiss citizen must provide a tax declaration once per year. Today most people rely on software to produce their taxation form. Ringler Informatik AG is the leading provider of such a software, thus making Dr.Tax one of the most deployed desktop applications on PCs in Switzerland.

Thanks to the Microsoft Switzerland DX Team, with the support of the Microsoft AppConsult team, Ringler Informatik was able to bring the Dr.Tax Java based application to the Windows Store by using the Desktop App Converter tool.

The core team included:

• Marcel K.Ringler, Managing Director, Ringler Informatik AG
• Yuri Nadestin, Software Architect, Ringler Informatik AG
• Ken Casada, Technical Evangelist, Microsoft
• Matteo Pagani, Windows AppConsult Engineer, Microsoft

Customer Profile

Ringler Informatik develops standard software and customized solutions for electronic forms and form-based business processes. The company, which was founded in 1976, combines business expertise with long standing competence in application development for practice-oriented and user-friendly products and solutions. Ringler provides Dr.Tax, the leading Swiss taxation software solution for private users, public authorities and SME as well as multi-national groups both foreign and domestic.

Problem Statement

Dr.Tax is available as a standard installer on the official product website. A typical win application is not the best experience for Windows 10 users, but of course Ringler Informatik didn’t want to rewrite all the code in order to create a new Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app to leverage Windows Store capabilities. That’s the reason why Ringler Informatik decided to work with the Microsoft Switzerland DX Team in order to accelerate the conversion process. From the customer perspective, Desktop App Converter was the best choice in terms of the effort-to-outcome ratio.

By having Dr.Tax published to a trusted Store like the Windows 10 Store, a better installation and purchase experience to Windows 10 users is being offered.

Last but not least, although Dr.Tax is very well known, the store publication could also provide even more visibility.

Solution, Steps, and Delivery

Dr.Tax is a typical Java based application. In order to convert it to a Windows Store app we used the Desktop App Converter tool. In order to use the tool we had to setup the developer machine by following the instructions highlighted in the following blog post. Once the developer machine was ready and up to date with at least the Windows 10 Anniversary update, we started the Desktop App Converter tool with administrative rights and we run the following commands (note that the Desktop App Converter tool it's a simply PowerShell command prompt, since it's the technology that empowers the Desktop App Converter):

a) Set-ExecutionPolicy bypass

b) DesktopAppConverter.exe -Setup -BaseImage "C:\BaseImage\BaseImage-15063.wim"

c) DesktopAppConverter.exe -Installer "C:\ConvertedApps\DrTax\2016_16_3_WindowsStore_de.exe" -Destination "C:\ConvertedApps\output" -PackageName "DrTax2016" -Publisher "CN=Ringler Informatik AG" -Version 1.0.0.0 -MakeAppx -Verbose -Sign -InstallerArguments "-q" –Verify

Note: our goal was to convert the installer (.exe) into an AppX package. In order to do that, the installer has to support a silent installation mode, without user interaction; that's the reason why we explicitly added the "-q" parameter to the third command: to trigger a silent installation.

After the first installation attempts of the converted app (through the newly generated AppX package), we find out the following:

• the content of an AppX package is uncompressed and installed into the "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps" folder, which, by default, is hidden and it's not accessible by any user.
• data can only be written into the User folder "C:\Users<username>" , which is different for each user and it's stored in the same folder where native UWP applications handle the local storage.

All this was clearly a problem for us. In fact the original installer was creating a database as part of the installation process and since everything that gets packaged in an AppX file is automatically installed inside the "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps" folder, there is no way to specify that some files (in our case the database) should be deployed in the local storage of the app (usually "C:\Users<username>\AppData"), so that the user can have immediately read and write access to it.

The workaround we implemented was clearly highlighted in the following blog post, but unfortunately it required Ringler Informatik to do some code changes to their original app:

1. Include the database we want the user to be able to modify inside the package
2. At the first launch of the application, copy it to the "C:\Users<username>" folder. Initially we wanted to store it inside the "C:\Users<username>\AppData" folder, but then we realized that in our case was better to store it within the "C:\Users<username>\Documents" folder. Why? Because when the user uninstalls the app, all the content inside the AppData folder will also disappear, and for our specific scenario we didn't want this to happen.
3. Perform any operation against the copy of the file in the Documents folder.

Here below an image of the converted app highlighting the data storage folder used by the app:

Conclusion

Thanks to the Desktop App Converter, Ringler Informatik achieved two main goals:

• Drive Windows 10 users to the Windows Store in order to offer them the best available installation and purchase experience.
• Gaining more visibility by offering Dr.Tax through a new distribution channel and leveraging Windows Store capabilities.

In Mr. Ringler’s own words:

"The Desktop Bridge set of technologies enabled us to migrate our popular Java based app to the Windows Store. Distributing our app through this channel clearly enhanced our users’ installation and updating experience. Moreover, in the future, as soon as a paid version of the app will be available, we may leverage the out of the box billing system provided by store, providing our customers even a better experience."

Additional Resources

• Desktop Bridge: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/bridges/desktop
• AppConsult blog post series on Desktop Bridge technologies https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/appconsult/
• Windows Store converted app: https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9p71qdl10ht2
• Product web page: http://www.drtax.ch

The Surface Studio and Surface Dial can now be pre-ordered in Switzerland and will start shipping on June 15. Surface Studio is an entirely new device designed for creativity. Its adjustable 28-inch PixelSense Display provides a huge canvas for all kinds of work. Position it upright to sketch, paint, edit photos, or lay it flat to draw on it.

Surface Dial is a completely new way to interact with technology. Store, customize, access, navigate, and reimagine physical tools in the digital world. With Surface Dial in one hand and Surface Pen in the other, you can unlock your creativity with easy access to shortcuts, controls, drawing tools, and more. Surface Dial works with all Bluetooth-enabled PCs and is recognized when placed on the Surface Studio screen for optical feedback.

The Surface Book with Performance Base adds more rendering power, faster framerates and additional battery life of up to 16 hours. We overhauled the thermal system to optimize for the 6th Generation Intel Core i7 processors and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M 2GB GPU. It is now available to order in Switzerland.

The New Surface Pro, available in Switzerland on June 15, continues the iconic look and feel of previous Surface Pros, but has been completely redesigned from the inside out. It features up to 13.5 hours of battery life and with its powerful 7th generation Intel Core processor has 2.5 times more computing performance than the Surface Pro 3. The improved Surface Pro hinge has a full 165° range of motion, letting you immerse yourself in “Studio Mode”, an angle inspired by the Surface Studio, perfect for writing, sketching, and drawing on the go. More information can be found here.

Finally, the Surface Laptop powered by Windows 10 S will also arrive in Switzerland on June 15. The Surface Laptop features many of the advantages of the Surface Pro, Surface Book and Surface Studio in a very versatile Laptop that has the potential to become a design icon. Its technical features are outlined here.

All the new inking-capabilities and the Surface Dial are open for developers to add support to their applications! This article outlines the Inking Updates in Windows 10 Ceator’s Update, including the new, AI powered Smart Ink, the improved Ink Toolbar and the Surface Dial and Radial Controller that will help light up your Windows Apps!]]> https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/microsoft_developer_switzerland_news/event-series-innovate-yourself-azure-talks Mon, 22 May 2017 11:35:43 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/microsoft_developer_switzerland_news/?p=995   Important: Events have been postponed Microsoft’s event series “Innovate Yourself – Azure Talks” will be held in the coming weeks. We warmly invite you to visit the four different events, which have a common focus on application-based examples involving the Microsoft Cloud. There you can learn how the electric car manufacturer Tesla uses Microsoft Azure in its vehicles, how you can include Azure in open-source solutions, how Microsoft Azure processes large amounts of data in a short amount of time at major sporting events and much more. Additionally, the Swiss start-up Netbreez, which Microsoft has now purchased, will show how it worked with Microsoft Cloud technology from an early stage. Today, its solution is part of Microsoft’s Social Engagement service. The events are being held with various partners in the Museum of Digital Art (MuDA) in Zurich and are free of charge. ]]> https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/microsoft_developer_switzerland_news/complete-overview-of-the-topics-at-build-2017 Mon, 22 May 2017 11:33:45 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/microsoft_developer_switzerland_news/?p=985 In the middle of the month, Microsoft once again presented a number of exciting innovations relating to the products, technologies and services of the Microsoft platform at the annual Build developer conference in Seattle. In the last newsletter, Sascha Corti (Technical Evangelist at Microsoft Switzerland) reported live from the keynote speech on day one. We have now put together all announcements from all three days in a thematic overview so you don’t miss a thing.
Topic overview .pdf]]>