May 26, 2011 News Thursday: Visual Studio ALM Award Win, A Windows Azure World Record, and more Server and Tools News...

Microsoft Visual Studio ALM wins at Code Project 2011 Members Choice Awards

Code Project announced that Microsoft Visual Studio Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) won the Team Collaboration Software Award at the Code Project 2011 Members Choice Awards. With approximately 40 categories, these awards were voted on by members of the Code Project, who were asked to rate their favorite development products and tools from across the industry.

For more information please visit https://www.codeproject.com/PressReleases/3935/The-Code-Project-Announces-Third-Annual-Members-Ch.aspx.

Microsoft Releases Windows Azure Software Development Kit (SDK) for PHP v3

Today from the PHPTek2011 conference in Chicago, IL, Microsoft announced the availability of the Windows Azure SDK for PHP version 3.0, which includes new developer-focused features that make it easy to take advantage of the scalability of the Windows Azure platform. In addition, Microsoft released a case study on www.hotelpeeps.com, a Facebook application powered by PHP on Windows Azure. Along with the SDK, Microsoft also released a new PHP sample application called “Deal of the Day,” showing how PHP developers can build scalable applications on Windows Azure with the new features included in the SDK for PHP v3.

Developers can access the Deal of the Day sample application here: https://dealoftheday.cloudapp.net. To find out more about today’s announcements, visit the Interoperability@Microsoft blog.

Windows Azure Platform Powers World’s Largest Online Chat with Ortsbo.com and KISS

Last Friday, Ortsbo.com and celebrity spokesperson Gene Simmons presented KISS Live & Global, an online multi-language global chat event powered entirely by the Windows Azure platform. The event featured a live, interactive studio audience in Los Angeles and was broadcast around the world via live streaming to computers and mobile devices – showcasing the power of cloud computing.  Guinness Book of World Records was onsite as Ortsbo broke the standing world record for the most nationalities in a live streaming chat by having over 100 attendees from 91 nationalities, representing a total of 53 languages. The event displayed the power of the cloud and the ability of the Windows Azure Platform to connect people worldwide.

For more information, see the Windows Azure blog and Microsoft Los Angeles Blog.

Forecasting Sales In The Cloud

Joannes Vermorel, founder and CEO of Lokad, discusses how companies are using the cloud to turn hard data into sales forecasts that enable them to optimize inventory, staff and sales in a fast, reliable and secure manner.  Watch the latest BITV video to learn more about the scalability and elasticity of cloud computing for BI solutions. 

Predicting The Future: The Next Step In BI

Predictive analytics is the next step in BI: not only does it enable companies to be retrospective, but now it can distill new information to actually predict what will happen in the future. Jamie MacLennan, CTO of Predixion Software, explains the difference between business intelligence and predictive analytics and shares a program that Predixion has created in Excel to review the Practice Fusion data.

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