Whether you are a seasoned code warrior, or just starting on your first app, there has truly never been a better time to be a developer, and the opportunity has never been bigger than it is today on Windows. So seize the opportunity using these resources

• Download the new Windows Phone 8 SDK, and to use Windows Azure to power Windows 8 apps.
• Get familiar with the developer center and latest Windows 8 content at https://dev.windows.com
• Check out https://generationapp.com/ for offers, 1:1 consultations, partner frameworks, and guidance for building Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 applications
• Have your Developers tune into //build/ keynotes and sessions now all available on demand.
• Sign up for the Windows Developer Camps and Windows Store App Labs. Through these events developers will learn how to build beautiful apps and how to sell them in the store.

Have fun

Terry Clancy

Developer Audience Marketing Manager

Steve Ballmer on day one of //build/:

Team Foundation Service is a new way for teams who care about rapid software delivery to plan and manage projects. And for teams up to 5 developers, it's free.
Writing code is fun, but managing development can be complicated. Do you keep your code under version control? Where do you keep track of bugs and new features? How do you keep your team on the same page? Now you can utilize Team Foundation Service to do all these things today, with zero additional infrastructure.
Stop standing up servers. Stop installing and configuring multiple pieces of software to support your development process. With Team Foundation Service, you get an easy-to-use and easy-to-administer cloud-based solution that handles the critical elements of application lifecycle management, such as version control, agile planning and automated builds. Now available for development teams worldwide, Team Foundation Service benefits include:

Accessible from anywhere, using existing and familiar tools.

Plan projects, collaborate with your team, and manage your code online from anywhere using any modern web browser. Works with all editions of Visual Studio 2012 (even Express!), as well as Eclipse and other tools (by using our command line client).

Get started quickly, with no infrastructure to manage.

Go from "sign up" to your first project in minutes, and set up a Continuous Integration (CI) build in a few easy steps. Your source code and work items are stored in the cloud, making server configuration a thing of the past.

All languages and platforms welcome.

From C# to Python, from Windows to Android, you can use a variety of languages and target a variety of platforms. Our services are designed to help you focus on what you do best—building great apps.

Get started today by signing up for your free account!
Team Foundation Service is being made available to teams of up to five developers for FREE. Sign up today, invite up to four team members and start collaborating for no cost. To get started, visit: https://tfs.visualstudio.com.

Join us Thursday, October 18 at 4pm PST for a special webcast, presented by Kevin Ashley that will answer your questions about how to get your app or game into the Windows Store. Our Windows 8 Technical Evangelist team will be live, online to answer your questions and available for 1:1 conversations after the webcast. Don’t miss this opportunity, register today.

//build/ is running October 30 - November 2, 2012

There will be a live steam. Tune in at  https://buildwindows.com – it will begin October 30 at 9:00 am PST.

We will be updating the BuildWindows.com site soon with agenda information.

Terry Clancy

Developer Audience Marketing Manager

The Office engineering team signed off on the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) build. The new release spans the full family of Office applications, servers and cloud services. The new Office has a fresh, touch friendly design that works beautifully on Windows 8 and unlocks modern scenarios in social, reading, note-taking, meetings and communications.  See HERE for more info.

New Developer Experience in Office

The new Office features a new and enhanced developer experience for Office and SharePoint.  In making the enhancements the team were committed to making our platform more open and flexible. With the new cloud app model, we have embraced web standards and technologies to transition our platform to the cloud, and become more connected and accessible:

• Services & APIs – A key goal around all apps is that they run across multiple platforms and devices, which is why we're focused completely on standard web technologies like JavaScript, HTML, CSS, REST, OAuth, and OData. Long term, our goal is that apps surface on all of your devices, and are backed by the rich set of Office 365 services.
• Distribution & Lifecycle – We made a huge investment in making it as easy as possible to deploy and manage apps. There are no heavy installation steps required, and your apps will roam with you. We'll also handle the transactions for app purchases, so as a developer, it's very easy to build and publish an app to our store and immediately start getting paid as customers acquire your app.
• Tools & Learning – The application model is built around the cloud and web technologies, so of course we wanted to make sure the tooling experience was the same. Thanks to the investments the Visual Studio team has made in the "Napa" app, you can start building apps today directly from your web browser, and never need to install any client bits if you don't want to. Access has also been re-invented, so that it's now the easiest way for a non-developer to build and publish a cloud based app for SharePoint. We've invested in dev.office.com to get people started building quickly, prioritizing code snippets and examples over deep reference documentation

To learn more go HERE.  

Also see Anatomy of apps for Office,  Building apps for SharePoint and Office 365, Introducing “NAPA” Office 365 Development Tools and Office Development with Visual Studio 2012 and "Napa",

And most importantly …………  https://dev.office.com

Terry Clancy

Developer Audience Marketing Manager

Check out the recently released content for Developers and IT Pros:

Terry Clancy

Developer Audience Marketing Manager

What do Elon Musk, Leap Motion, Microsoft Surface and Windows 8, Autodesk 123D, and Dow Solar's PowerHouse Solar Shingles have in common?

They are all among the winners of Popular Mechanics magazine's eighth Breakthrough Awards. Awarded each year by a panel of the magazine's editors, the honors go to people and products that are seen to be leading the world of science and commerce forward.

This year's product winners are: The North Face Powder Guide ABS Vest and Backpack; the Lytro camera; Autodesk 123D; Microsoft Surface and Windows 8; Ford's 1-liter EcoBoost engine; Dow PowerHouse Solar Shingles; Cubify's Cube 3d printer; Lehr's propane-powered outboard engine; Leap Motion's Leap motion control system; and General Motor's crash avoidance system.

Check it out  https://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57523183-76/popular-mechanics-honors-breakthrough-innovations/ 

Terry Clancy

Developer Audience Marketing Manager

This week Soma announced the introduction of a new programming language that solves a very specific problem – getting JavaScript development to scale. That language is TypeScript. You can learn more about the TypeScript project, download an early preview, read and discuss the language specification, explore the online playground, and peruse the source of the compiler (on the TypeScript project site on CodePlex, with git).

TypeScript adds classes, modules, and optional static typing to the ECMAScript Standard. Type annotation is the foundation for strong tooling experiences we can provide in Visual Studio. Because TypeScript compiles down to JavaScript, it requires no new runtime support and is therefore cross-browser.

The announcement has been received well and is certainly something to watch over the next few months.

Terry Clancy

Developer Audience Marketing Manager

With their official press release, Microsoft announced the inclusion of a light version of PreEmptive Analytics inside Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server 2012. While PreEmptive’s code protection product, Dotfuscator, has been inside Visual Studio since 2003, the addition of analytics represents a material expansion to the value proposition.  Because of this, the Visual Studio 2012 version has been renamed PreEmptive Analytics and Dotfuscator Community Edition™. You can find “PreEmptive Dotfuscator and Analytics CE” on the tools menu of Visual Studio 2012 in all versions except Express.

For more info see HERE

Terry Clancy

Developer Audience Marketing Manager