Colossal news from the Connect(); event.

13 November 2014 // View as Webpage // Update Profile Earlier this morning Microsoft started the Connect(); event, focused on current and future technologies for developers. You can watch it all from start on Channel 9. There’s quite a few news so buckle up and read on! .NET Going Open Source and Cross-Platform: The next release of the .NET core server runtime and libraries will be developed as open source, and implemented and supported by Microsoft in close collaboration with the Mono project. This will provide support for not only Windows, but Linux and Mac for running .NET. Participate in these projects on the .NET Foundation website and on the related GitHub repositories. Visual Studio Community 2013 edition: Visual Studio Community 2013 is a new free, full-featured development environment available to students, open source contributors, small companies, startups and individual developers. Visual Studio 2015 Preview and .NET 2015 Preview:Visual Studio 2015 and .NET 2015 bring new capabilities for developers build applications across multiple platforms – from Windows to Linux to iOS and Android. This will include: Creating ASP.NET 5 websites that can run on multiple platforms Support for tools like Apache Cordova and new C++ tools for cross platform library development Easier integration into services like Azure, Office 365 and Salesforce Smart Unit Testing (formerly PEX) developed by Microsoft Research New coding productivity capabilities enabled by the new .NET compiler platform, Roslyn Azure SDK 2.5 and Azure Resource Manager Tools: Various improvements for cloud diagnostics and remote debugging for Azure VM and Cloud Services, and new Azure HDInsight tooling are also now available. Cloud Deployment Projects in Visual Studio help organizations embrace infrastructure and configuration by modelling cloud resources as code. Pre-created templates will help teams get started. Release Management as a Service and Build System vNext: Customers using Visual Studio Online can now utilize Release Management for Visual Studio. This provides a hosted service (in Preview) so customers don’t need to maintain any server infrastructure. Brian Harry also gave a sneak peek at the next version of Visual Studio Online/Team Foundation Server Build service keynote. The next generation build system for Visual Studio Online will allow teams to easily create custom workflows and also build code from external sources. A new cross-platform build agent will allow non-Windows machines to accept build jobs. This makes it possible for the first time to build for iOS / OSX by running builds on Macs. Visual Studio 2013 Update 4: This update includes a new GPU Usage tool, improvements to JSON and HTML editors, an enhanced tool for Azure WebJobs, support for SQL Server 2014 and various enhancements and new features for Team Foundation Server. Finally, there’s some great news also if you are an MSDN subscriber (retail and volume licensing): you now have access to up to 30 selected courses for 12 months from top-of-the-line training platform Pluralsight, and several new MSDN offers. Phew! Didn't I warn you that there was a lot of news! Now back to developing. Thiago Almeida Technical Evangelist Microsoft New Zealand Microsoft Azure Certifications Now Available Microsoft Learning is proud to announce the availability of two new Microsoft Azure exams. Exam 532: Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions and Exam 533: Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions. Each of these exams award individuals with a Microsoft Specialist Certification, validating knowledge and skills in a specialized area of technology. 15% off all MCP exams So you want to be an MCP, huh? Well, let’s start your journey with an exam. No matter what technology you specialize in, we have an exam discount we think you’ll enjoy. Check them out! Microsoft BizSpark Winner A huge congrats to Mytchel Hammond who was at Startup Weekend Tauranga last weekend and took home a brand new Nokia Lumia 625 courtesy of the NZ BizSpark team. Mytchel is a Year 13 student at Mount Maunganui College with a bright future who attended the 52 hour event to get some hands on learning. Nice one, Mytchel. We're sure this won't be the last time we hear from you! Microsoft Sway Preview! Sway for iPhone is now available in NZ Only! Download the newest edition to the Office family and get instant access to Sway Preview. There's just one day left before the competition closes! Upgrade an app from Windows or Windows Phone 8.0 to 8.1 or publish a new Windows or Windows Phone 8.1 app, then either email us the store link, or share the link in the Kiwi Windows Apps Facebook group. Let us know your name and that your masterpiece is now live in the store before the 14th of November and that's it! You're in the draw to win a Nokia Lumia 1520, a Dell Venue8 Pro tablet or one of 50 BOOMPODS foldable headphones. Too easy. If you're one of those people who like reading competition T's & C's you can see them here. Startup Weekend Auckland 14-16th November 2014 (AKL) Startup Weekend will be back in Auckland from the 14th-16th November! Earlybird tickets have sold out, but regular priced tickets are still available. Technical Evangelist Thiago Almeida will be making an appearance, so be sure to get your tickets now! ecentre Cloud Series: Increase performance- Getting the most out of the cloud 19th November 2014 (AKL) An interactive panel will discuss how you can use metrics and marketing to increase the performance of your cloud based business. DevMob Conference 22nd-23rd November 2014 (WLG) Microsoft NZ is sponsoring the DevMob Conference in Wellington. Whether you are building or designing mobile apps, DevMob is the conference for those who are pushing the limits of mobile platforms. Microsoft Cloud Camp - The power of the Cloud: enhancing your game experience with Azure 2nd December 2014 (WLG) & 4th December 2014 (AKL) Have you been dreaming of building your own game that reaches players on a global scale? Do you want to make the next big thing in gaming and learn how to leverage the capabilities of Microsoft Azure to help you reach your audience? Register for Wellington or the Auckland occurrence of this interactive, one day event. Successful developers are always upgrading thier skills. Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA) offers online Microsoft training delivered by experts. Watch videos, download PowerPoint slides and test yourself as you learn at absolutely no cost. If you want to learn something different, head over to MVA here! Here are the three courses your Microsoft Technical Evangelists recommend this week: Assessing and Improving Your DevOps Capabilities Why DevOps, why now, and how can it help you? Build your resume and confidence by knowing how to answer these questions, which tools to use, and how to resource your projects with the slides and videos in this course. Dev/Test Scenarios in the DevOps World Devs, want a deep dive into the dev/test portion of DevOps and application lifecycle management (ALM)? Explore modern tools for unit testing, functional UI testing, load testing, see helpful demos on debugging Azure workloads using Visual Studio, and more with the slides and videos in this course. Building Apps with Node.js Jump Start Developers, have you ever wanted to play with Node.js? Are you curious about how to incorporate two-way communication into applications? Watch these videos and check out the slides in this well reviewed course from MVA. © 2014 Microsoft Corporation Terms of Use :: Trademarks Microsoft respects your privacy. To learn more, please read our online Privacy Statement. If you would prefer not to receive this newsletter any longer, click here to unsubscribe. To set your contact preferences for other Microsoft communications click here. The Privacy Officer // Microsoft New Zealand Ltd, PO Box 8070 Symonds St, Auckland 1150, New Zealand