Microsoft Hosts Over 6,500 Developers and IT Professionals at Tech•Ed Europe, Highlighting New Products,Partnerships and Opportunities

Microsoft's leading product announcements at the event include the following:

• The Microsoft® Express product line, a new set of lightweight software development tools for budding programmers and enthusiasts
• Visual Studio® 2005 beta 1, which is being released for testing and evaluation
• Microsoft MapPoint®, O2 and TeliaSonera AB deliver real-time location services for MapPoint Location Server

Additional news highlighted at the event includes the following:

• Strong momentum for the Windows Mobile (TM) 2003 software platform among device developers, mobile service providers and customers
• Microsoft Office System solution development, with selected solution partners demonstrating their applications
  Expanded OEM adoption of Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2004 for dedicated network security products
• The Codezone Network, community Web sites that aggregate local-language resources for software developers in an expanding list of countries
• The MSDN® Product Feedback Center, creating a better forum for developers to send and track feedback to Microsoft during product development
• The Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Center on MSDN, to provide guidance, reference models and resources for building connected systems and service oriented applications

"We continue to see an expanding community of software developers in Europe creating solutions on the Microsoft platform, and Microsoft is responding with additional tools to fuel innovation," said Jonathan Murray, chief technology officer of Microsoft Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). "This is the reason we host Tech•Ed -- to give developers and IT professionals an opportunity to extend their knowledge and engage with the broad software community."

Development Tools for Nonprofessionals and Newcomers

Today Microsoft announced the Visual Studio Express products, easy-to-use and easy-to-learn software development tools for hobbyists, enthusiasts and students, and Microsoft SQL Server (TM) Express Edition, a redistributable database engine that replaces the Microsoft SQL Server Desktop Engine (MSDE). The Microsoft Express product line provides easy, low-cost access to the Microsoft development platform for nonprofessional software developers who want to learn how to build Windows®-based and Web-based applications. E-commerce sites such as eBay Inc., PayPal and Amazon.com Inc. are enriching the tool set with starter kits for use with Visual Studio Express products. (Please see today's related news release from Microsoft.)

Beta 1 of Visual Studio 2005 Released Along With New Product Feedback Tools

For established developers, Microsoft announced it is releasing beta 1 of Visual Studio 2005 for testing and evaluation. Included in the beta version are features that help developers more quickly and easily build Web sites with advanced functionality. The beta also contains the Visual Studio Team Architect Edition, a component of the Visual Studio Team System, the expansion of the Visual Studio product line announced last month at Tech•Ed San Diego. The beta version will be sent to MSDN subscribers and available for online fulfillment soon at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005/.

Major Mobile Operators O2 and TeliaSonera to Deliver Real-Time Location Services With Microsoft MapPoint Location Server

Microsoft and European mobile operators O2 and TeliaSonera also announced plans to deliver real-time location services designed to enable businesses to significantly improve the way they locate, track and manage their mobile assets and mobile work force. The real-time location services are built around Microsoft's new MapPoint Location Server and enable developers, independent software vendors (ISVs) and systems integrators to easily build and deploy valuable real-time location solutions for their customers by combining real-time location data from the O2 and TeliaSonera networks with the rich mapping and location capabilities from the Microsoft MapPoint Web Service. Microsoft also continues to build a strong infrastructure of strategic development partners such as LogicaCMG plc and location aggregators such as Teydo, which connects to most European GSM operator networks and provides aggregated real-time location data to support customers implementing real-time location services built with MapPoint Location Server. (Please see today's related news releases.)

Continuing Gains for Mobile Device Development

Globally, more than 380,000 professional developers are working on the Windows Mobile software platform, and more than 12,000 applications are commercially available for Windows Mobile-based devices. Underscoring this momentum is news that Finland-based KONE Corp., a leading company in the global elevator and escalator business, is deploying Windows Mobile-based devices to more than 11,000 employees in 17 countries, representing one of the largest customer deployments of Windows Mobile-based devices to date. The solution will enable remote management of the KONE field force. (Please see today's related news releases.)

Microsoft's Mobile2Market program -- which helps commercial developers connect with multiple distribution channels -- also has continued its success. Forty distributors, including 22 mobile operators, have requested access to Microsoft's catalog of applications for Windows Mobile-based devices, and 700 applications have been added to the Mobile2Market catalog since the launch of the program.

Yesterday, Microsoft announced that Windows CE 5.0 will offer expanded source licensing, for the first time enabling all licensees to ship products commercially with derivatives of the Windows CE 5.0 shared source code. In addition, Windows CE 5.0 includes networking performance improvements that dramatically increase data processing speeds, more than 60 production-quality drivers, and Direct3D® Mobile to enable rich and graphically intensive applications. (Please see related news release.)

ISVs Capitalize on Solution Development for the Microsoft Office System

Microsoft also is showcasing the opportunities for developers provided by the Microsoft Office System, with numerous ISVs demonstrating solutions they have built on the platform. Among these, Sabratec Ltd. will demonstrate its enterprise collaboration solution -- created in part with the Microsoft Office Information Bridge Framework, announced last month -- which gives information workers seamless access to dispersed corporate data.

Fenestrae will demonstrate a solution that extends instant messaging (IM) to mobile workers. "The possibility of extending enterprise IM to any mobile device on any network dramatically improves productivity and responsiveness," said Nick Horslen, vice president of Strategic Alliances at Fenestrae. "Through our integration with Microsoft Office Live Communications Server, we offer a richer value proposition to a broad set of enterprise customers."

Less than one year since the launch of the Microsoft Office System, solution partners in the EMEA region have developed 600 unique software applications available to customers now. This represents 41 percent of Microsoft Office System solutions developed worldwide.

OEMs Adopting ISA Server 2004 for Security Appliances

Microsoft's ISA Server 2004 continues to draw broad interest from partners. European hardware manufacturers Pyramid Computer GmbH, RimApp Technologies Ltd. and Wortmann AG are the latest companies to announce plans to develop hardware solutions extending the advanced protection, ease of use, and fast, secure access benefits of ISA Server 2004. ISA Server 2004, part of Windows Server System (TM) , is the advanced application layer firewall, virtual private networking (VPN) and Web cache software solution that enables customers to easily maximize existing IT investments by improving network security and performance.

Recognizing the Broad Community of Software Developers

Furthering its mission to support the development community in Europe, Microsoft today announced the formation of the Codezone Network, a series of Web sites that aggregate technical knowledge from developer communities and user groups in specific countries, enabling visitors to find existing code and technical resources in their local language. So far, Codezone sites are established in Austria, Switzerland, Germany and the United Kingdom, with sites for other European countries planned for launch this year.

As a part of the community efforts, Microsoft introduced the MSDN Product Feedback Center, a public suggestion and bug database for the Visual Studio 2005 beta, where developers can track suggestions and product issues online, get e-mail notification of fixes, and interact with Microsoft product teams during product development. Leveraging the developer community, the site helps developers stay productive by avoiding known problems, sharing workarounds and voting on existing feedback, in addition to filing new reports. The MSDN Product Feedback Center (http://msdn.microsoft.com/feedback/) is also integrated with the new customizable Visual Studio 2005 Developer Center portal, which can be found at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005/.

Also unveiled as a part of MSDN, Microsoft's Service Oriented Architecture Center aims to better equip customers with the tools, technology and information they need to design and build connected systems using SOA, an infrastructure and approach for IT that uses Web services as the foundation to enable distributed computing environments. As a part of the SOA Center Microsoft introduced Metropolis, a reference model for conceptualizing service-oriented architecture (http://msdn.microsoft.com/architecture/soa/).

Flavors of Tech•Ed Include Shareware and Security

In recognition of the ingenuity embedded in shareware applications, this year Tech•Ed features a Shareware Pavilion that highlights the contributions of small software companies and individual programmers. The pavilion demonstrates the variety of applications available as shareware. In the shareware model, authors distribute trial versions of their software, which can be used and shared until the user chooses to pay for a license for a fully featured version. Products on show include tools for file monitoring and protection, image-based database creation, digital rights management, information organization, and software development. A DVD of shareware that has been developed on Microsoft .NET will be distributed to conference delegates after the event.

And generating a spirited rivalry among application developers, the Microsoft Security Competition will culminate at Tech•Ed, with the Microsoft Security Champion's belt and a $10,000 purse at stake. The competition began with three online rounds, where entrants were tested on their knowledge of secure coding practices as outlined by Microsoft in security events throughout EMEA. The best eight developers from the online stages of the competition will compete in a live, head-to-head final.

"The competition is all about getting developers excited about security," said Roger Schäffeler, developer community manager at Microsoft EMEA, who is organizing the Security Competition. "Our goal is to educate as many developers as we can reach in the practice of writing more secure code."

About Microsoft Tech•Ed Europe

In its 11th year in Europe, Tech•Ed is Microsoft's definitive European conference for building, deploying, securing and managing connected solutions. With a strong mix of developer, infrastructure and messaging content, Microsoft Tech•Ed Europe is the premier technical training conference for a wide range of technology professionals.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Microsoft, Visual Studio, MapPoint, Windows Mobile, MSDN, Windows, Direct3D and Windows Server System are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.

The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.