Management World 2010

Management World was another exciting event for us at Microsoft and we had a busy show. I’ll give you an overview here so you know what we got up to and then you can follow the links for more specific detail on each area.

Firstly, Convergys is adding some great momentum to the news of our partnership from Mobile World Congress. They’ve signed up some really strong SIs to the programme, Alcatel-Lucent and Tech Mahindra. HP has also been signed as the preferred hardware partner, which is fantastic news and we expect to have more for you soon.

I’ll be taking part in what promises to be an exciting panel debate with Telecom TV on Tuesday at 1.30pm in the Apollon auditorium where I’ll be discussing opportunities for operators in the cloud with France Telecom and BT. If you can’t make it to the hall, you can watch it here as it’s being broadcast live while we’re on. You’ll also be able to ask us questions and there will be live polls as the debate is going on.

We have some exciting partners and demos lined up on our stand (Hall 1, Stand 42), with:

· EMC Business Intelligence for Call Centers links sales, marketing, and call center operations data to measure and improve performance. The solution enables service providers to adjust call center operations proactively, track sales and marketing results, take advantage of trends, and seize opportunities to create new revenue streams.

· ConvergysSmart Communications Suite powered by Microsoft, will be the first pre-integrated and pre-configured billing and customer care platform designed to support the rapid deployment and launch of new services. We’ll also be previewing some other developments based on our partnership which are soon to be announced...

· SYZYGYhas been working with our multi-touch technology, Surface on some exciting possibilities for Point of Sale, allowing customers to have a better experience in store. They’ll show what they’ve been doing in a new O₂ flagship store in Cologne.

· Avanadewill be showing how Windows Touch Technologycan be employed by retailers to provide a rich and interactive experience to consumers in retail locations. If you’re not at the show, you can watch a demo here.

· IntuiLab’s IntuiFace Presentation Composer is an easy-to use Editor to create your Multitouch Presentations without writing code. There is also IntuiFace Maps which is a multi-user, multi-location, multi-touch interface for Geographic Information Systems.

· Windows Azure , ourcloud services platform, designed to host web services and applications in Microsoft owned, Internet-accessible data centers. Windows Azure provides four elemental services: compute services, storage services, a computing fabric and automated services management.

In Forumville, we’re show a solution we’re working on with Telcordia and Tribold to provide Widespread authenticated Access to Video, Entertainment, and Services (WAVES) from any convenient device, attached to any broadband fixed or wireless network, at any time. WAVES envisions a user-friendly single sign-on solution that enables CSPs, Content Providers, and Content Delivery Network Operators to federate identity in a loosely-coupled, distributed, platform-independent manner that provides maximum flexibility for all participants.

We’re also really proud to have been nominated for two of the TM Forum’s Excellence awards, both in the Business Innovation category, for Windows Azure and the Solution Excellence category for Microsoft Online Services Syndication. Fingers crossed for Tuesday morning!