Microsoft tools and services enable developers to maximize reach, create innovations that drive the country’s digital economic progress and transform lives
Bangkok, 25 May 2016 – Microsoft remains committed to supporting and empowering the developer community in Thailand, CEO Satya Nadella said today at the Thailand Developer Day event attended by more than 1,000 developers and live streamed to thousands more.
At the Developer Day, an event that is part of Nadella’s first official visit to the Kingdom since becoming CEO, attendees saw how cloud and integrated technologies can help businesses evolve and grow for the future.
Nadella reinforced that given today’s increasingly mobile-first, cloud-first world, developers will play a key role in enabling organizations to embrace digital transformation.
During his time in Bangkok, Nadella also had the opportunity to engage with a number of top startups in Thailand and share with them his vision for the future of technology and its role in driving social and economic progress.
“At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. “If we’re going to achieve this mission, we must empower every developer in Thailand with the technology and platforms to express their creativity and change the world.”
Orapong Thien-Ngern, General Manager for Microsoft (Thailand) Limited, added that the company is proud to be working closely with the developer community in Thailand through Microsoft’s various platforms and initiatives, empowering them to innovate to help themselves and others achieve more. “Thailand has great talent, as seen by the three young Thai teams that have won the global Imagine Cup competition, and we are proud to support them to achieve their full potential.”
Through the longstanding BizSpark program, fledgling startups can gain access to Microsoft’s powerful cloud platform and development tools at no cost, to bring their vision to life. So far, more than 400 qualified startups in Thailand have taken advantage of the program to kick-start business innovations with access to as much as $120,000 (4 million Thai baht) in Azure cloud capacity, development tools and technical support.
In its current fiscal year starting July 2015, Microsoft Thailand has awarded 12 BizSpark Plus grants worth $1.44 million (49 million Thai baht) in total to some of the brightest stars in the Thai startup landscape – including WashBox24, Skootar, Priceza, Dreamio, and Peng Brothers.
“Success stories like Buzzebees, a customer relationship management platform with more than 16 million users; BentoWeb by Semantic Touch, an e-commerce solution tailored to meet consumer needs in the era of social and mobility advancements; and Ookbee, a digital publication platform, demonstrate how cloud can help businesses in Thailand go to market faster and scale up their operations with virtually no limits,” added Thien-Ngern.
This developer event builds on the momentum from Build 2016 held in San Francisco in March, where Microsoft outlined new developments that would open up even more opportunities for developers.
The Universal Windows Platform allows developers to target more than 300 million Windows 10 devices across multiple form factors with apps that provide one familiar experience across the board. Furthermore, Microsoft’s industry-leading development platform, Visual Studio, now comes integrated with Xamarin at no additional cost, which enables mobile developers to deliver fully native app experiences on any platform using a common code base.
With 30 data center regions around the globe, the Microsoft Azure cloud platform provides the best environment for developers to build intelligent applications that work anywhere on any device. The Azure IoT Suite opens up even more possibilities for developers to create intelligent solutions that connect, manage and analyze data generated from objects all around us.
Microsoft’s newfound focus on “conversation as a platform” has also inspired advances in natural language processing and artificial intelligence, turning speech into a powerful tool that allows technology to augment human abilities.
As part of Microsoft’s mission to empower every person and every organization to achieve more, it is helping developers to build relevant, effective, or even transformative apps for today and tomorrow. Microsoft is the only cloud provider to support every organization and developer at every level and on every platform. Microsoft – more than anyone else – is putting this power of choice in the hands of developers everywhere.