, November 11, 1998 — Following on the heels of its recent Silicon Valley campus announcement in August, Microsoft this week announced the opening of its new Silicon Valley Developer Center. The
“DevCenter,”
located in Palo Alto, Calif., will offer local developers hands-on assistance and development support from Microsoft technical personnel.
DevCenter visitors will receive the latest information on new Microsoft tools and emerging platform technologies. They will also have the opportunity to attend special events, special interest group meetings, training programs and other activities designed to help them understand and take advantage of key Microsoft technologies and business directions.
“The new Developer Center is an exciting expansion of the work Microsoft has been doing to support developers in Silicon Valley and throughout the world for more than 20 years,”
said Tod Nielsen, general manager of the developer relations group at Microsoft.
“The opening of the Silicon Valley Developer Center reflects Microsoft’s long-standing commitment to the developer community and provides a great complement to our existing developer support programs.”
The Developer Center is a major component of Microsoft’s upcoming Silicon Valley campus, announced in August. The 32-acre campus will also include five buildings that will house Microsoft business groups currently dispersed among nine locations in northern California. The Developer Center will move to the Silicon Valley campus in Mountain View, Calif. when the campus opens next summer.
The Developer Center is designed to meet developers’ growing need for Microsoft resources in Silicon Valley. Currently there are more than 1,200 Windows Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) in the Valley, and more than 43 percent of all Silicon Valley-based ISVs, systems integrators, training companies and Web-based companies generate revenue based on the Windows platform. Additionally, more than one quarter of all start-up companies that work with Microsoft through its Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) Startups Program are located in Silicon Valley. The MSDN Startups Program is a free program designed to help support the efforts of emerging software companies.
Dynasty Technologies Inc. is among the thousands of companies in the Valley that will benefit from the opening of the Microsoft Silicon Valley Developer Center. The new Developer Center will enable the Redwood Shores-based company to more fully incorporate Microsoft technologies into its enterprise software solutions, and deliver these solutions more rapidly to its customers.
In the past, a handful of employees at Dynasty would travel to Microsoft’s Redmond campus for technical briefing sessions on Microsoft development technologies, and then train the company’s other employees upon their return. But with the arrival of the new Silicon Valley Developer Center, Dynasty’s developers will be able to use the local facility for assistance when they need it, saving time and reducing travel costs.
This means Dynasty will be able to deliver robust software solutions more quickly to its customers, said Todd Yancey, Dynasty’s vice president of sales and marketing.
“We’re very excited about the opening,”
Yancey said.
”
I think it will foster more innovation, and will certainly provide us all with greater access to the significant resources Microsoft has for developers.
As part of the Developer Center’s grand opening, Microsoft also announced the formation of a new advisory board. The Developer Center Advisory Board will include representatives from Silicon Valley start-up companies, venture capital firms and industry organizations, and will provide feedback to Microsoft on the direction of Developer Center programs and its work with local companies in Silicon Valley.
The Developer Center, which will be led by Larry Cohen and a team of technical experts, will host more than 500 companies a year in its technical labs and offer additional business opportunities, special programs and events for ISVs, startups, venture capitalists and other Valley high-tech personnel. Cohen previously worked at Claris Corp. and Collabra, both Silicon Valley companies. Most recently, he served as group product manager for the MSN HomeAdvisor online real estate service at Microsoft’s Redmond headquarters.
“I am incredibly excited about the opportunity to return to Silicon Valley to work with developers and other members of the Valley’s technology community,”
Cohen said.
