Editor's Note
The returns are in.MSDN Magazine—or, we should say, the award-winning MSDN Magazine—has added a couple of trophies to the shelf. And in the spirit of sharing, we are also officially the award-giving MSDN Magazine. It may not be as fancy as winning the Campbell's Chunky Academic Achievement Award or being named to the 2003 Scrapbook Hall of Fame, but we've had the opportunity to recognize some of the brightest and most innovative new projects that put to full use the technologies we discuss in our magazine each month.
In conjunction with the big launch event last November, MSDN Magazine co-sponsored the Connected Systems Developer competition. The rules were simple: show us your most creative programming efforts using SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005, and BizTalk 2004 or 2006. We were expecting a handful of interesting entries, maybe 50 or so. But entries started to flood in at an amazing rate. Hundreds and hundreds of people took the opportunity to submit incredible, innovative work. It was really a Herculean challenge to properly judge each entry.
Each of the entries was top-notch, but the grand prize (in the form of an oversized novelty check) went to John Arnold of Datalan. His tool focused on executive performance management, integrating the SQL Server business intelligence stack, OLAP, a Key Performance Indicators (KPI) framework, and a SharePoint front end.
Although John won the highest honor, there were more truly outstanding winners and runners-up as well. Here is the list:
John Arnold of Datalan won the big check for "Best tool to provide additional functionality to SQL Server 2005."
Stephen Abdo of TREKg won "Best extension of a SQL Server 2005 database using the SQLCLR."
Marc-Donald Gagne of Intranet System for Business Web Log Management took "Best application using the Business Intelligence features of SQL Server 2005."
Wolfgang Portugaller created Persistor.NET, the "Best Visual Studio 2005 PowerToy utilizing SQL Server Express."
Shaun Tonstad created the Suva3D MDX Game Engine and Block Realm MMORPG, which placed as the "Best use of Managed DirectX, Visual Studio 2005, and SQL Server Express."
Michael Voigt was behind the Event Management for Hotel Guests [EMHG] project, which won in the category "Best integrated/SOA application utilizing SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005, and BizTalk."
Jesus Rodriguez created some SQL Server Service Broker enhancements, which turned out to be the "Best BizTalk adapter not already supplied by Microsoft or other adapter vendors."
Rod da Silva , mastermind of the Transacted Parallel Splitter BizTalk Pattern, took "Best implementation of a generic pattern on the BizTalk Server platform."
Stephen Thomas , an MCP from Dallas, demonstrated key functionality that was not included in the BizTalk Server SDK with his Untyped Messages and Dynamic Maps BizTalk sample.
As we mentioned, however, we don't just give awards—we get them, too. MSDN Magazine recently took home two awards from the Society for Technical Communication, and our sister publication TechNet Magazine also snared some recognition. MSDN Magazine was presented with a Merit award for technical publications. In addition, we were presented with an Excellence award for a recent article by Vance Morrison, "Concurrency: What Every Dev Must Know About Multithreaded Apps." TechNet Magazine also received a Merit award for a highly popular article in our premiere issue, "Anatomy of a Hack: How a Criminal Might Infiltrate Your Network" by Jesper Johansson.
These accomplishments are great, but now we feel the pressure. This year, we have to outdo our coverage in 2005. We've got a lot of exciting topics in store, and we're confident that we've got a shot at that Chunky Achievement Award this time around.
Thanks to the following Microsoft technical experts for their help with this issue: Nathan Anderson, Fiona Fung, Mark Fussell, Jonathan Keljo, Ronald Laeremans, Serge Lidin, Vance Morrison, Stefan Schackow, Dharma Shukla, Ryan Waite, and Ming Xu.
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