From the category archives:

Developing

BizSpark vs. Empower

November 8, 2008

(Note: if you just hate everything Microsoft, now’s a great time to skip this post. )
So what’s the difference between Microsoft Empower and Microsoft BizSpark (of which I’m now a Network Partner, meaning you can get in through me.)?
I think it depends on your circumstances. I was in Empower – and found it [...]

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Constraints are a good thing.

August 13, 2008

Something I’ve noticed working with a fair number of microISVs and startups: constraints are a good thing.
The digital entrepreneurs who’ve been successful and therefore have the luxury of time and money are the those less likely to get to the point of releasing a new product.
Another version of this is the developer who wants to [...]

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When the going gets tough, the tough get agile.

July 28, 2008

When F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “The rich are not like you and me,” he could have been just as easily referring to the gap between programmers swaddled in their nice little cubicles and those of us who for better or worse are out here in the cold and dark peddling our microISV wares and startup [...]

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Silverlight for MicroISVs

March 14, 2008

[Note: a little while back I started what was going to be a two part post on why Microsoft Silverlight 2 released at Mix08 is a technology worth your attention if you're a microISV. Here, in effect, is part 2. And if you are a microISV using Flash/Flex/AIR or evangelize the same - or some [...]

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The Top 6 MicroISV Design Mistakes

February 19, 2008

Jakob Nielsen is someone you need to track. Jacob for more years than I can count has been a leading authority on Useability – the arcane but important study of why some apps are easy to use, and some are not.
Today on his blog, Jakob lists his “Top 10 Application Design Mistakes” and if you [...]

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Deciding what goes into your microISV product

December 6, 2007

by Jan Goyvaerts
http://www.just-great-software.com
Last month I had the pleasure of meeting Bob Walsh at the European Software Conference. The evening after the conference, a bunch of us had dinner at a Mexican-Italian eatery near the Dom in Cologne.
During our conversation, Bob mentioned that EditPad Pro has been his favorite text editor for quite some time. [...]

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Process and the mISV

October 19, 2007

By Starr Horne
theStartupLowdown
Every so often someone in the Business of Software forum asks about process.
For most mISVs, formal methodologies like extreme programming are extreme overkill. But there are a few “processes” that I’ve found essential to my business productivity.
Keep in mind – process is fundamentally different for a one-person company than for a large corporation:

IT [...]

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The real costs of buying your software

August 29, 2007

Over at the Business of Software forum, there’s been a more than a little angst this summer over whether microISVs can compete with Free and Open Source (FOSS) software. After all, we have to charge for our software or go broke; there are a lot of really good FOSS apps out there; Microsoft is worried, [...]

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A good trade press summary of Microsoft Silverlight

August 10, 2007

Shawn Windermuth has done a very nice job summarizing the state of Microsoft Silverlight now: 10 Things You Should Know About Microsoft’s Silverlight.
Definitely worth a read.

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Weekly Site Review – VisualHint

August 3, 2007

This week’s microISV volunteer for the Weekly Site Review is Nicolas Cadilhac, who’s Canadian company VisualHint since it started in October 2006 has one product out and a second in public beta.
Overview:
VisualHint’s first product is Smart PropertyGrid.Net (pricing starts at $139 USD), a highly-customizable propertygrid for developers in the .NET world. His second product, Smart [...]

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Implementing a Partial Serial Number Verification System

July 26, 2007

by Brandon Staggs.
Editor’s Note: Brandon has written a really useful article for microISVs struggling to develop their own serial number schemes, and was kind enough to let me reprint it here at 47hats.com.
Most micro-ISVs use a serial number/registration code system to allow end users to unlock or activate their purchase. The problem most of [...]

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Google starts funding microISVs.

June 28, 2007

Yesterday, Google got into the microISV funding business when it announced Google Gadget Ventures Google Gadget Ventures will be funding microISVs in two ways:

“First, we’ll invite promising gadget developers (individuals or businesses) to apply for $5,000 grants to fund further development. These are not loans or equity investments; they’re simply grants for gadgets that already [...]

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A custom quality micro-ISV search of our own!

April 10, 2007

As I mentioned here, after listening last week to Dan Appleman talk on .NET Rocks! about the custom Google search he’s created for .NET programmers (the search is http://www.searchdotnet.com/; also see this post and this post), I’ve decided this is a tool worth putting some serious time into and making available here.
Spurred on by the [...]

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Microsoft Expression Blend going into MSDN Premium

April 4, 2007

The powers that be at Microsoft – “Soma” Somasegar, corporate vice-president of Microsoft’s Developer Division – have heard the word from developers and relented yesterday from their bone-headed position that Expression Blend is too cool a tool for codemonkeys:
“Following the announcement we received a lot of questions about why we did not include some of [...]

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Why can Logitech do what Apple can’t?

February 8, 2007

Specifically, for the past month I’ve had two programs with issues on Vista – the Logitech mouse driver and Apple iTunes. While Logitech had a Vista ready update to setpoint.exe up on its site January 29th, Apple is warning its Windows customers not to install Vista iTunes is not compatible with it.
In fact, Apple says none [...]

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