I noticed in several posts I have made I make reference to these centers, but didn’t have anything on the blog, so here goes so now I will have my back link in the future. One of my long time interests has been in the Windows Mobile area. 
Being I live in a big metropolitan area, I have the luxury of being able to attend 2 User groups, one in Irvine and one in Los Angeles. The one in Los Angeles is the longest standing User group, where we all began over 10 years ago.
Among the Los Angeles group are folks like Chris De Herrera who has a website called TabletPCTalk, and gee hard to believe I have known some of the folks in the group for over 10 years now and Kurt Shintaku from Microsoft, who has single handedly donated his time to keep the entire organization going. In Irvine, California, a number of years ago, the Orange County group was an offshoot from the Los Angeles users and monthly meetings are held at the Irvine Tech Center Offices of Microsoft in Irvine, California, ran by Chris Johnson from Microsoft.
Every month we meet after work to discuss and compare notes and efforts on the Windows Mobile platform, and we are a pretty varied group. One member, Dinh has a great Windows Mobile blog site worth checking out as well, SolSie.com. The Tech Center area is also used for various meetings, such as Tech Net and MSDN Events, which are always educational for me, being I don’t actively write code anymore, but attend to keep up to date, and it gives me a chance to watch Woody Pewitt a Microsoft Evangelist, salivate over my Tablet PC, and when Evangelist Lynn Langet is speaking or present I know for a fact that there will be 2 women in the meeting instead of one (grin). We need more women in technology.
Ok now back to more about the Microsoft Tech Centers. These are the basic steps listed below.
“Microsoft Technology Centers (MTCs) provide everything you need — technology experts, industry leaders, and an 
outstanding environment — to envision, architect, and demonstrate a secure, customized solution, based on Microsoft and partner technologies.”
Strategy Briefing
This one-day briefing starts by examining your current IT environment and business objectives and then moves into the Envisioning Center, where you will see Microsoft solutions in action, through powerful demos and scenarios customized to meet your needs. The day includes mutual discovery, tailored product and technology drill-downs, and expert presentations, and it culminates with the delivery of a clear and actionable picture of how Microsoft .NET connection software can help you reach your business goals.
Architecture Design Session
This custom session drills into your business objectives and aligns them with specific applications of .NET technology to help you not only meet your goals, but also capitalize on them. We will provide architectural guidance, preferred practices input, architecture, and risk analysis to chief technology officers, architects, and senior members of your development team.
Proof-of-Concept Workshop
In this multiweek, in-depth workshop, our architects work closely with key members of your technical staff to transfer knowledge and develop proofs for custom solutions. This workshop may also include detailed demos and training sessions. Your development team will have a private, secure, and fully loaded development suite that is preconfigured prior to their arrival.”
In other words they work with you to develop your dot net applications that will maximize results and you have a workshop 
at the center to work with, as well ad training sessions to complete the project and run it completely on a full server network with your specifications to mirror your application here before going live, get the bugs out first. I don’t know of anyone in the software business that doesn’t want to do all of that ahead of time!
Below lists what you have access to while working at the center, so if you are developing a mobile application for example, the wireless network is provided for working with handheld units. There are a number of computers available as well configured with Vista, XP, etc. to stage user interfaces as an example, so again, all tried and tested before going live or offering a solution to perhaps anther end user if you sell software or are an integrator.
One other nice item at the Irvine office is the a full working “Surface” technology unit, the table with touch, so there’s pretty much everything you might need as far as hardware and the servers are designed to pretty much withstand most of anything that is designed. Of course, Microsoft software is available while working at the center and when completed with the project, it is your option, but having both hardware and software available without having to disrupt an existing network while building is huge. 
I have seen companies actively working on their solutions when there to include a couple healthcare organizations.
Using the services and center will also have the real capabilities of cutting down the development time, and the architectures are there to work as a team.
The site has plenty of case studies and you can watch additional videos. There are a few different work areas with privacy 
frosted doors, so if 2 business competitors happened to be present, they can both work privately and independently of each other.
For Electronic Medical Records, perhaps a time to give some thought to looking at the Common User Interface that is now offered via the Microsoft Open Source Software site, Code Plex and perhaps that could be defined here as well with help at the tech center.
This is definitely an area made for biotech and Pharma research and design as those 2 fields require some of the most sophisticated and Code Centric software out there today. BD
I am a Microsoft Alum and have driven several customer and partner engagements at several MTC locations.
ReplyDeleteMTC's are a great facilities and the strategy briefings, POC's and architectural designs have tremendous value but it is very difficult to get on the schedule. If you are a small company it is almost impossible to get in.
If you would like more info you can contact me at frank_ille@yahoo.com
Frank Ille