Up & Coming & in the Cloud: NZ Biz.

11th December 2014 // View as Webpage // Is this email a forward? Join us! Subscribe here. Silicon Valley has cemented its reputation over the last few years as the hot bed for tech innovation. Go there, start-up and get rich!* (*may not actually happen). In the spirit of tech start-ups, though, things can change and a new generation of tech cradles are popping up in places like Tel Aviv and Seattle. As for New Zealand? We’ve always taken pride in our Kiwi ingenuity. Stir in some hard yakka and Kiwi-land starts to resemble a tech hot bed of its own recipe! For more than five years now the NZ BizSpark team have helped over 700 NZ start-ups get on their feet. Some recent success stories of NZ start-ups are in the recently updated case study booklet. The booklet features examples of enterprise sized NZ businesses who’re using Azure too – something for the little guys to aspire to! In this NZ Microsoft Azure Application Showcase each business has its own story. Some Azure features are more popular than others – depending on your business. There’s a lot of support available through BizSpark, including: discounts on virtual machines and other services, and up to 900+ Microsoft software products. The biggest benefits all companies enjoy? $190 worth of Azure per team member for free, every month, for three years and the opportunity to get $60k worth of free Azure once they’ve grown their usage. Know a Technology Start-Up? They can sign up today! Share these stories with them and check out \@bizspark or the NZ BizSpark site. Already on BizSpark? You can make the most of the program by activating your MSDN subscription and instantly take advantage of USD $150 per month worth of Microsoft Azure. Add up to five team members and they can also benefit from free Microsoft Azure over the entire three years of the program. Keep up the hard work and get in contact with me on Twitter! Stay tuned for the final flash of 2014 in a couple of weeks. Cheers, Thiago & the NZ MSDN team. Thiago Almeida Technical Evangelist Microsoft New Zealand Connect(); Recap Connect(); was a cloud-first, mobile-first and developer-first themed live, virtual event held on November 12th and 13th in New York City. In case you missed or particularly enjoyed anything from Connect(); there are video highlights and speakers from the event here. Introducing... Microsoft Imagine! As a new cornerstone of Microsoft's Youthspark Initiative, Microsoft Imagine is designed to empower students of all ages in creating, coding, and developing. There is a variety of free software, tools and tutorials for app and game development, from exploring technologists to collegiate level developers. Microsoft New Zealand Partner Awards 2015 We are excited to announce the 8th annual Microst New Zealand Partner Awards. Submissions for all Partner Awards categories are open until Februrary 4th, 2015. The 2015 awards will culminate in a black tie banquet held on March 19th at the Pullman hotel, Auckland. Tickets will be available in early January. Enter here: https://www.microsoft.com/nz/partnerawards/categories.aspx. Level Up! Level Up is a new show dedicated to game development, recapping current news and events in gaming, as well as providing tips and resources in game construction. Check out Episode 1, and if there's something you'd like to see on the show or share your own experiences, write to Level Up. Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online from Australian Datacentres By offering these services to New Zealand from Australian datacentres, NZ businesses will become smarter, more connected and competitive through faster performance and the benefits of cloud computing. Have a Windows app project on the side? Show it off! Share it with the rest of the community in the Kiwi Windows Apps Facebook group or send us an email to nzdev\@outlook.com. ‘Learning the hard parts of agile software development’ Webinar with Equinox IT 11th December (AKL) Equinox IT invites you to a free webinar ‘Learning the hard parts of agile software development’ at 12pm on Thursday 11 December. This will be a facilitated discussion with Equinox IT software development team members, exploring how they have learned the hard parts of making agile work in practice. Equinox IT is a Microsoft gold partner for the application lifecycle management competency. Auckland Azure Lunchtime Meetup 15th December (AKL) The final Auckland Azure Lunchtime Meetup in 2014 will be a special one as Ryan CrawCour from the engineering team in Seattle that created DocumentDB will be in Auckland to present all the awesome features that DocumentDB has to offer. As usual, we will be at the Microsoft Offices in Auckland starting at 11.30am! See you there. Microsoft Camp Events: Christmas Convene 18th December (AKL) To say thanks for joining us this year at Microsoft Camp events, we'd like to invite you along for a Christmas convene: a drink, a chance to network and some festive nibbles. Let us know if you'll be there by registering here now. Stay tuned for more IT Camps to come from February onwards next year! Successful developers are always upgrading their 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 is the course your Microsoft Technical Evangelists recommend this week: Developing in HTML5 with Javascript and CSS3 Jump Start Over 270,000 developers have enrolled in this course worldwide, making this the top course taken at Microsoft Virtual Academy for developers. At an intermediate to advanced level, it provides an accelerated introduction to HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript, and helps students learn basic programming skills. No experience in HTML5 coding? Students with knowledge in HTML4 should still be able to complete the course. © 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