VSX (Visual Studio Extensibility) 2010 news follow below. The WPF-empowered extensibility is inspiring…

Are you building new tools to simplify your life or change the way people work?  Check out the opportunities to create innovative extensions for Visual Studio 2010.

Examples of cool things you can do:

· Overlay rich metadata on top of the editor to bring new information to your fingertips

· Develop new project templates to accelerate your work (examples: New Project Dialog)

· Create innovative user interface elements using the WPF Shell

· Upload your extension to the Visual Studio Gallery (http://visualstudiogallery.com) to find it in the Extension Manager

            Other things you should know:

· With v2 of the Visual Studio Gallery that went live on 5/14, you can use the Extension Manager to find products from the ecosystem from within Visual Studio

                *(with Beta1, the Extension Manager will only surface extensions posted to the Gallery in the VSIX file format; Beta2 will include the MSI format)

· We just released the new SDK along with the new Shell redistributables, look for them at the dev center: http://msdn.com/vsx

· If you’re developing extensions for VS 2010, you’ll want to stay tuned to the dev center for more information

Fun things to help you get started – these can be found in the Extension Manager (Tools>Extension Manager): search for Editor Extensions

FAQ:

                What is the Extension Manager and how do I find it?

The Extension Manager in Visual Studio enables developers to discover Visual Studio Extensions from within the product itself. It consumes data directly from the Visual Studio Gallery, giving developers direct access to partner and community products that extend and enhance Visual Studio.  If you have a free or free trial version of your product hosted on the Visual Studio Gallery, a developer will be able to download and install that product directly from within the IDE.  (In Beta1, the in-product experience will show only extensions uploaded as a VSIX.  In Beta 2 we will expand the in-product experience to also include extensions uploaded as MSI and reference links to other download sites.)

The Extension Manager enables a developer to install, upgrade, uninstall, enable, and disable extensions, making it easier to manage a portfolio of extensions. 

To find the Extension Manager:  Tools>Extension Manager.

                So this means the Visual Studio Gallery can now host downloads?

Yes, we’re excited to announce that the Visual Studio Gallery can now host your downloads.  Keep in mind that at this time the gallery does not include a commerce framework so we recommend creating a free or free trial version of your product that can be hosted on the Visual Studio Gallery.  Of course we still support reference links for users who prefer to host their own downloads.

                What else is new @ the Visual Studio Gallery?

Thanks to some great work by the MSDN team we’ve moved the Visual Studio Gallery to be part of MSDN.  Some of the benefits:

· The new navigation model supports all types of Visual Studio Extensions and has sections for Tools, Controls, and Templates

· The integration with MSDN now gives users a chance to take advantage of a shared profile across all MSDN properties.  Contributing to the gallery can enhance your MSDN reputation giving high quality contributors the recognition they deserve.

· Visual Studio Gallery contributions offer an optional discussion board to separate your reviews and give contributors an opportunity to post updates, respond to feedback, & discuss bugs.

· All entries include a usage chart to give contributors a sense of which of their products are getting the most traffic on the Visual Studio Gallery.

                What’s the deal with the VSIX file format I’ve heard about?

Both the new Visual Studio Gallery and the Extension Manager work with .VSIX files, which is a new deployment model for extensions, similar to a renamed .ZIP file.  This transition provides Visual Studio users a new low-overhead, reliable way to deploy Visual Studio Extensions. There’s tooling available to help you with this, and you can find instructions and other helpful tips at the Visual Studio Extensibility Dev Center:  http://msdn.com/vsx.

                Questions?

                Email catherine.crim@microsoft.com

BR,
-- AFurtado

Last Friday I had the opportunity to present at the Microsoft Imagine Cup Innovation Accelerator Workshop, in Mountain View, CA. The presentation was related to insights and experiences, as a former Imagine Cup competitor and short-experienced entrepreneur, on what make profitable business and innovative people. The audience was the Imagine Cup 2008 winning teams, who are now changing their focus from the prototypes created during the competition to the establishment of real business aimed at the market.

The best moment of the day was at the final presentations the teams did to a board of real angel investors and venture capitalists. I was able to learn a lot from the investors and VCs, in the context of startups looking for capital to start their business. The major takeaways were:

• There are no reasons to hide your ideas from others. What you need the most when creating a startup is feedback. A win-win situation is much more likely to happen when two business are openly discussed. Don’t be afraid of people stealing your idea. Even if another team (or startup) understands your idea, you are still the only one owning the specifics on how to operationalize it, having many more insights and details that the other team doesn’t have. Finally, the final product and idea will change so much before released, that it makes no sense to hide something that is very likely to be out of date. Get the feedback instead. Join the Silicon Valley spirit, where people are open and eager to feedback!
• When presenting your idea to investors, ensure you show a case study that illustrates it. Get down to the specifics of who will use your product/service, and how. Ensure the target audience of your product/service is made clear.
• Investors are interested in knowing how THEY will make money, not how you will make money (although both things are connected). Ensure you properly tell them your approach and, most important, your numbers: how much do you need? What will be your return on investment?
• In business pitches and short-time presentations (e.g., 10 minutes), time management is crucial, but hard to achieve. The solution for that? Rehearsal!
• Get inspired by the "Steve Jobs" presentation style: almost no text, lots of graphics and a story to tell.
• Make a database of questions investors may ask you, and ensure you have answers for all of them.
• Tell your story and your passion. This will help the investor to understand the connection you have with the solution and problem you are trying to solve. For example, the team who created v-eye (vibrating wristbands for visually-impaired people) for Imagine Cup 2006 always started their presentations by telling that the grandfather of a team member, who was loosing his vision, inspired the whole thing.
• Show unity, how you are proposing the idea as a team. Investors are interested in understanding how strong the team is, whether there’s a balance and the team will be able to commit itself and stay together as it faces challenges. Sometimes introducing the team in the beginning might be a good thing to get empathy from the audience.
• Depending on your audience (e.g., American investors), it’s important to show passion and emotion during a presentation, in order to avoid a robotic delivery of the content. This may something hard for technical people. Other cultures (e.g., from Asia), on the other hand, do not valorize passion/emotion that much in business pitch presentations, being more focused on the technical and operational details. Summing up: know your audience!
• Finally, have a pile of business cards, ready to be exchanged. I wish technology made this simpler… what about shaking hands and, by means of a smart personal device such as a ring, the information is already exchanged?

BR,
-- AFurtado

The statements or testimonies I offer in this post represent my own personal views.
I am speaking for myself and not on behalf of my employer, Microsoft Corporation