Jonathan Wong

With Microsoft Office 2010 officially launching this week, everyone here at Microsoft HQ in Singapore has reason to be excited. According to Forrester Research, 81% of surveyed enterprises are running Office 2007 today with at least a third of the respondents already planning to upgrade to Office 2010 within the next 12 months. The enthusiasm from customers is understandable, since Office 2010 is more than just an evolutionary update, but includes revolutionary new features such as Office Web Apps and the new Outlook Social Connector. At the Microsoft Innovation Centre, we are particularly excited about the Outlook Social Connector feature, because not only has it been useful to us by bringing social networking functionality (from services like LinkedIn) into Outlook 2010, but it also offers an opportunity for our partners to extend the functionality of Outlook 2010 to other online services as well. And one of our Singapore-based BizSpark startups has done just that. Socialwok describes itself as a service which “was created to allow organizations to harness the ease and power of rich media and feeds to improve collaboration and communication.” Winners of the TechCrunch 2009 Demopit Award, Socialwok provides a Facebook-like collaboration and sharing service for both enterprises and SMBs. And with Socialwok’s new (beta) Outlook Social Connector that they released today, Office customers can also now tap into the Socialwok service right from within Outlook 2010 (it works in Outlook 2003 and 2007 as well). Interestingly, Socialwok started out its life as a service specifically designed with Google Apps integration in mind, and even today, it’s running on Google App Engine. However, the Socialwok service today doesn’t require you to be using Google Apps or have a Google ID in order to use their service. Ming Yong, Socialwok CEO describes his commitment to the Microsoft platform: ...

Oh no! What’s happening to our site? UPDATE: Thankfully, we were able to restore our site from a recent backup. However we were able to get a screen capture of the site before it was compromised. Phew! Glad everything is finally back to normal. UPDATE 2: It seems that the Internet Archive was also able to get a snapshot of our site before we restored it. Check it out at the link below: http://web.archive.org/web/20100428113644/https://www.weshipcode.com/ Security is no joke, people. I’m going to make sure that I install the free Microsoft Security Essentials on all of my PCs from now on… :) UPDATE 3: For those who haven’t figured it out yet - no, we have not been hacked. Don’t worry, the Windows Server 2008 box that is hosting this blog is safe and sound. :) Anyway, I hope hackers today have better taste than to deface websites with Geocities-like colors and buttons. To get your own defaced website, try out the Geocities-izer, created by WONDER-TONIC.

[gallery link=“file” orderby=“rand”] (Check out more photos of the event here.) Last night, we hosted the Singapore PHP User Group (or the Philosophy in Programming Society, as they like to be called) at our office for their monthly meet-up. There were two presentations during the event. I presented on using the Windows Azure Platform with PHP, and Chin Yong presented on APC (Alternative PHP Cache – no, not Armored Personnel Carrier) Here are our presentation slides: [slideshare id=3869311&doc=phpugwindowsazurephpjonathanwong-100427054032-phpapp01] [slideshare id=3879226&doc=phpmeetupaprilapc-100427223208-phpapp02] You can also download my barebones Azure PHP code template here, if you are interested in trying to run your own PHP application on Windows Azure. Don’t forget that the one-stop location for everything you need to learn about and get started on Windows Azure is at this simple URL: www.windowsazure.com. Quote of the night comes from Chin Yong’s last slide: ...

Last week, we successfully held our Microsoft Cloud Week series of events at our offices at One Marina Boulevard. Over 400 people in total came to our events last week to learn more about Microsoft’s cloud computing strategy and vision, as well as to gain a deeper understanding of what our Windows Azure Platform offers our customers and partners. Thanks to everyone who dropped by our offices and made our event a resounding success! The highlight of the week, of course, is the MSDN Presents: Windows Azure Platform event on Tues – headlined by David Chappell and Chris Auld who both presented wonderful sessions for us on Windows Azure. We have received a significant number of requests for their presentation slides, so here are their presentations, as well as all of the other presentation slides presented on that day: [slideshare id=3766900&doc=cloudweek-johnfernandesopening-100418112217-phpapp01] [slideshare id=3767378&doc=thewindowsazureplatform-aperspective-chappell-100418121731-phpapp02] [slideshare id=3767490&doc=singaporeazureweek-100418123116-phpapp01] [slideshare id=3767374&doc=visualstudio2010-aperspective-chappell-100418121644-phpapp01] [slideshare id=3766931&doc=practicalcloud-mar-2010v5-100418112833-phpapp02] [slideshare id=3766551&doc=azurencslupyuenv0-1-100418104050-phpapp02] [slideshare id=3766608&doc=cloudplatformstoday-chappell-100418104934-phpapp01] (This slide deck was presented by David Chappell to a group of CXOs in an invitation-only roundtable discussion after the event, but we think it’s useful to share this as well). We also have presentation slides that were presented during the SCS event the previous night. Again, thanks for coming, and hope to see you guys at future Microsoft events! [gallery link=“file” orderby=“rand”]

Earlier this week, we hosted the Singapore Computer Society (SCS) Cloud Computing and Virtualization Special Interest Group (SIG) at our Microsoft offices for a talk on Microsoft’s cloud computing strategy. This event was the first of their “Cloud Computing Learning Journey into Major Cloud Providers” series of talks which they are organizing for their members. This was also one of the events which kicked-off our Microsoft Cloud Week this week. The turnout was fabulous (100+ attendees), and we all had a lot of fun sharing with the SCS folks what Microsoft is doing with the cloud. [gallery link=“file” orderby=“rand”] Here are the presentation slides from that night: [slideshare id=3743394&doc=scsopeningjohnfernandes-100416021239-phpapp01] [slideshare id=3743390&doc=scsmicrosoftcloudserviceswalterbenjamin-100416021208-phpapp02] [slideshare id=3743398&doc=scsprojectnimbusnenggiinyap-100416021239-phpapp02] [slideshare id=3743401&doc=scswindowsazureplatformjonathanwong-100416021257-phpapp02] [slideshare id=3743387&doc=scsddcdarrylchantry-100416021137-phpapp01]