The highlights from #TechEdZA 2013 Part 2 and an Infographic

This is the second part of our article on the Microsoft Conference TechEdZA 2013 held recently
in Durban at the ICC.



One of the nice things to see was how they had quite a bit of social media activity
for this event including this Twitter Wall where you could see the latest Tweets
about the conference.



I sat in on two sessions all about building apps and selling them.

The panelists shared these tips with the delegates:

• There are many ways to sell your app
• Pay per download
• In app advertising
• In app purchasing
• Freemium apps
• Trial purchase apps
• They encouraged developers to keep their apps alive
• Keep building new versions or upgrades
• You have to make that app addictive
• We heard of one company that makes $1 million dollars a day through in app adverts
• Your aim is to get new users for your app
• Send this site info on your app - http://www.wpcentral.com/ 
• Try and use social chat within your app
• Ask yourself  'what is this app going to do?' 
• Keep it simple.
• If you have a bug in your app fix it
• Make that app look sexy

At another session we heard about the latest windows products and devices:

• Microsoft will end support for Windows XP on 8 April 2014.  
• The latest devices can now boot up to usable desktop in under 8 seconds.

Below is a handy infographic of some of the interesting stats from #TechEdZA 2013

All in all it was a wonderful conference and much was learned.



At the closing keynote we saw just how quickly idea's can turn into reality.
At the beginning of the conference idea's were asked for, for apps and at
the end of the conference these idea's were ready in the form of apps.

A great example of the talent we have in South Africa and Africa.

Article and Pictures by Fred Felton (@fredfelton)


Related articles

• The Highlights from #TechEdZA 2013 Part 1

The Highlights from #TechEdZA 2013 Part 1

Last week I was invited to TechEdZA the Microsoft Conference held in Durban at the ICC.

Covering all things tech from laptops to mobile phones to dev to apps and all things in between.



With over 2000 people reported to be in attendance this was indeed a massive conference.

I started off attending the session with @SimonStewart  and what an interesting session it was.
He gave us some wonderful tips:

• He encouraged people at the conference to meet other people.  
• Get out there and introduce yourself and chat to others.
• He encouraged companies to have in-house suggestion systems.
• How much time in a day can you spend on being productive?  
• He recommended you send weekly progress emails to clients.
• By the way he also gave away lots of swag including Planning Poker Cards.

Next we heard from Gary Hope and Laura Kotlinksi about Data Warehouses.

These were the highlights:

• Business is moving online
• Social Media is teaching people to collaborate and learn online
• Look out for Zettabytes.  Already the NSA is reportedly getting a data warehouse that will accommodate 4 Zettabytes of Data.  By the way, that's a lot of data
• 1 Zettabyte = 1000 Petabytes
• 1 Petabyte = 1000 Terabytes

Next up we heard from Rudi Grobler all about Apps.  These were his tips:

• Use programs like Bug Sense and Little Watson to debug your apps
• Test your apps with real world data and monitor your heavy objects
• A useful twitter account to follow is @msdevsa 

On the next day we heard about Social Collaboration from @GarthLuke



His highlights included:

• Find people with common interests
• Social Media allows your company to learn faster than others
• Remember in this day and age everyone has their own device now
• Location does not matter, you can work anywhere.

In the Consumerisation of IT session we heard the following:

• Microsoft manages over 290 000 devices in SA
• Interesting point - Microsoft does not stop its workers from using social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.  They believe it is good for business. It has huge business value for them.

You can find more highlights here: 

https://storify.com/fredfelton/a-week-in-the-life-of-techedza

Finally for those of you that attended this conference you will recognize this.
The ICC is big and it is a long walk from one side to the other.
Sometimes you just had to sit on the floor and chill:



Look out for Part 2 of this article later in the week.

Article and Images by Fred Felton (@fredfelton)

Fred Felton was a guest of Microsoft South Africa.

TechEd 2013 has just kicked off in Durban at the ICC

Azure takes centre stage as TechEd kicks off

 Durban – April 17, 2013 – Microsoft has kicked off its TechEd 2013 conference with a strong statement of intent in the cloud computing space, including the announcement of the general availability of Windows Azure Infrastructure Services (IaaS), which allows users to move existing apps to the cloud to save time and money.

With this announcement, Microsoft is now the only cloud provider offering customers a fully supported, comprehensive hybrid cloud solution with platform and infrastructure services, said Microsoft South Africa’s developer platform head, Clifford de Wit.

“This is a significant step in our cloud computing strategy, which has been influenced directly by our discussions with customers and partners around the world,” said De Wit. “Customers don’t want to rip and replace their current infrastructure to benefit from the cloud; they want the strengths of their on-premises investments and the flexibility of the cloud.

“It’s not only about Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) or Platform as a Service (PaaS), it’s about Infrastructure Services and Platform Services and hybrid scenarios.  The cloud should be an enabler for innovation, and an extension of your organisation’s IT fabric, not just a fancier way to describe cheap infrastructure and application hosting.”

Delivering the keynote address at TechEd 2013, which runs until Friday at Durban’s ICC, De Wit said Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform was gaining momentum in the marketplace, with nearly 1000 customers signing up for Azure daily. More than 200 000 customers are using the Windows Azure platform to date, with “strong growth” in the South African marketplace as customers started seeing the benefits of the platform.

Not surprisingly, a major area of focus at this year’s event is expected to be Microsoft’s Server solutions, which are driving the modern enterprise’s drive towards cloud computing. Other areas which will enjoy a good deal of attention are the company’s Office 365 offering, and its Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 platforms within the enterprise.

However, this year is also expected to see a surprising amount of attention being paid to apps, with a specific track around apps and developing apps on all of the company’s platforms.

“Since the last TechEd event 18 months ago, we’ve seen new versions of practically every product and service in our portfolio,” De Wit told the 2500 delegates. “The drive behind this massive wave of innovation is a focus on cloud-enablement, which we see as a key area of focus for all businesses.”

(Source - Microsoft)

For more details on the conference visit their website - http://www.teched.co.za/

If you are going to the conference tweet your input using the hashtag #techedza 

You can see some of the tweets on this hashtag here -  #techedza

Useful Twitter Accounts to follow.  These Tweeps are at the conference. 

@MicrosoftSA

@MarcForrest

@SamanthaPerry

@AMG133