Microsoft BUILD Recap

This time last week the expo hall had recently opened and the remaining attendees were heading to the session, "Developing for Windows 10." This is the third BUILD event I've been to and while most everyone was bummed they didn't get a free HoloLens, the sessions didn't disappoint at all. The first day keynote which you can watch here drew such a crowd that even the overflow rooms were packed. Microsoft's CEO talked about more personal computing experiences and dressed in his classic red shirt, Scott Guthrie discussed Azure and the endless solution opportunities it offers. A big announcement that was received with rapid applause was the announcement of Visual Studio Code. Visual Studio Code is a free debugging tool for use on Linux, Mac, OSX, and Windows. The website went live just last week and it is now available for download. Microsoft announced the name of its new browser and successor to Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge and they coined it "The brand new browser for doing." If you are interested in learning more about Windows 10 with Microsoft Edge, there is a short video posted on the Windows website. If you thought you knew the entire list of acronyms used in our industry, make sure this one is on your list UWP or Universal Windows Platform. Positioned to open up a myriad of opportunities, UWP will allow you to develop apps that target a wide range of devices including mobile, desktop, HoloLens, SurfaceHub, and Xbox. To get started, you will need to grasp the new way of thinking when building Windows apps, have an understanding of how to select targets from a device family, and how to control the API. After soaking in all of the information and meeting with new faces and current clients, the GrapeCity team we had onsite was pretty drained. However, that didn't stop us from attending the Xamarin party, the VSIP party, and the Women in Technology evening event. The social interaction at BUILD is an important element of the event. Where else do that many developers meet up to talk shop and share their perspectives and knowledge? While BUILD sells out in a few hours, I strongly encourage you to consider attending next year. With repeated refreshes, we finally got in and the little bit of anxiety experienced was worth it in the end. If you visited our booth during BUILD, thank you! Thank you for sharing with us your technology and migration plans and for your feedback on existing products. Those of you who had an opportunity to see the FlexGrid benchmark and were amazed at the performance, stay tuned hoping to have more of those benchmarks available for you. Last but not least, the winner of our raffle at the event was Scottt R. from NJ. Congrats!!!!