• Quickflix, the Netflix of Australia, launched their Windows 8 Store app today.
• Application looks good, generic Metro styling, nothing to write home about.
• Special offer for Windows 8 users to sign up with a one-month free trial without the normal $13 joining fee.
• Access to small catalogue of classic movies and HBO TV shows, not very extensive (no Game of Thrones :()
• More interesting blockbuster movie releases available separately as Pay Per Play, or with the DVD-by-Post plan option. Also available for streaming on XBOX 360 and other devices.

Disclaimer: I traveled to and attended the V8 Supercars event as a guest of Microsoft Australia.

Down in the island-state of Tasmania today, Microsoft Australia announced that the V8 Supercars company has officially adopted Office 365 for its organisation of around 70 full-time staff and 1,600 contractors/volunteers who manage, coordinate the 15 race weekends attended by 1.9 million people across Australia.

The coincide with the announcement, Microsoft also sponsored the naming rights of today’s race from the Tasmania 360 to the Tasmania Microsoft Office 365. (An extra 5 KM was not added to the course, the discrepancy is forgiven)

Microsoft Australia’s Office 365 product manager Isabel Boniface said that Office 365 adoption in small businesses has increased by 150% year over year as companies like the V8 Supercars migrate from the traditional software box and on-premise server to downloadable software and cloud-hosted services.

The V8 Supercars company actually decided on the Office 365 solution last year, independent of Microsoft’s sponsorship.

Even though there was no direct cost savings from moving to the Office 365 per-user subscription model, the company has saved time and resources no longer running “a broken system” with out-of-date hardware, servers and software that posed a “significant risk” to an organisation whose deadlines involve them flying two 747’s full of cars and equipment just days between events.

In contrast to the F1 Grand Prix, the V8 Supercars is much smaller event but inherits many of the same logistical challenges. The core mobile staff of 70 depend on email, document collaboration and communication to get their job done, wherever they might be around Australia, New Zealand or even the US later this year.

For example the company now uses SharePoint to manage its repository of documents, securely shared with external and temporary contractors, as well as collaborative editing of Excel documents for its race planning and trackside race car auditing of fuel consumption. Lync video conferencing and instant messaging is also on the cards.

At the end of the day, this is a win-win partnership. The event organisers are a lot more productive with Office 365 and Microsoft got its brand infront of an adrenaline-pumping motorsport event seen by millions of people, even if two of the Office 365 race track billboards were unfortunately shredded by a car that skid off the bitumen.

• Microsoft today released the RTM version of the Visual Studio 2012 Update 2.
• A considerable update that adds a handful of new development features and bug fixes including a new retro-“Blue” color scheme inspired by Visual Studio 2010.
• This is the second notable “quarterly” update in the six months since VS2012 was released.
• In contrast, it took a year for Visual Studio 2010 to release its first Service Pack.
• The rapid and smaller update cycle (vs. Service Packs) delivers much more tangible value sooner in bite-sized pieces.
• Microsoft’s Somasegar delivering on promise to “continuous value delivery and our new approach for providing updates to Visual Studio on a regular cadence of shorter intervals”
• Seeing a similar trend with Windows 8 Updates, where significant performance and reliability fixes are delivered in regular monthly updates vs. behemoth Service Packs. However, no new features/functionality in Windows updates.
• I hope more Microsoft products/services can adopt this quarterly update cycle vs. semi-annual or annual update cycles.

• Microsoft China today launched a special SKU of the Surface device: literally translated as Surface Chinese edition
• It’s a variant of the Surface Pro with no hardware differences, only software
• Software differences include Windows 8 for China (vs. Windows 8 Pro with VHD boot, HyperV, domain-join, etc.), full Office 2013 Home and Student (vs. 1 month trial)
• One big restriction of Windows 8 for China is that the only language pack is Simplified Chinese UI which affects the user interface text. No other languages packs can be added.
• The price factor is interesting as the 128GB Surface Chinese is the same price as 128GB Surface Pro (7388 CHY), but Office 2013 H&S is valued at 700 CHY (1200 USD).
• I think this unnecessarily creates an extra purchasing dilemma at the retail channels, making what is already a pretty confusing choice between RT and Pro even more of a balancing act with a third choice that literally sits between the two.
• Just when I thought Microsoft finally gave up its aggressive region-restrictions, they dug themselves deeper. Competing products are not only region-free, but also have much more aggressive internationalization features (every language pack comes pre-installed on OSX and iOS).

• Microsoft BUILD 2013 went on sale a few hours ago
• Initially the registration for BUILD 2013 sold out too in a few hours, but as of now it is no longer sold out.
• My guess is that there were two plans (medium vs. large event) depending on how many registered. It would appear they allocated additional tickets after the first batch sold out. It can’t be any smaller/messier than the Redmond one.
• This year is being held at Moscone Center in San Francisco, home to many Apple events and formerly Microsoft Professional Developer Conferences in 1992 and 1996.
• Apple has held up to 5,000 attendees at its WWDC events in the same venue.
• Last year’s BUILD 2012 at the company’s Redmond campus sold out in less than an hour, one of the most hyped Microsoft events. Estimated 2,000 attendees.
• Lots of anticipations for goodies after last year’s Surface+Lumia giveaway. Microsoft’s Raymond Chen gives some behind-the-scenes insight into the chaos of the BUILD 2011 giveaway.
• Windows 8.1, Windows Phone “Blue” and something next-XBOX related (rumoured E3 debut is two weeks earlier) anticipated to be the highlight of the event.

tl;dr is a new series of shorter dot-point posts since I now have less time to write while working on my new startup. Let me know what you think of them.

• Launched today, available publically now from getmailbird.com
• Great execution on user experience, more or less like Sparrow on Mac which is arguably the best standalone email client. Quite responsive, elegant and practical. Great if you use Gmail a lot.
• Great use of native Windows desktop UI conventions and styles, ex. the search and compose buttons are elegantly integrated into the window chrome.
• Can only access Gmail right now, probably due to open/simple IMAP implementation vs. Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync for Outlook (my startup is currently facing this issue too).
• Surprisingly not a .NET WPF app (clarification from Mailbird CEO). The Windows desktop is not dead.
• Built-in plugin/web apps support which extend some functionality, not critically useful yet.
• Noteworthy development team of 9 spanning 7 countries. Took over 16 months. Quite an achievement to pull it off for such an early project.
• Interesting business model, especially for an email app, annual subscription of ~$10/year.
• Update: IMAP (besides Gmail) and multi-account support coming once app is out of beta.

tl;dr is a new series of shorter dot-point posts since I now have less time to write while working on my new startup. Let me know what you think of them.