Microsoft awards AED 50,000 to Visual Studio .NET competition winners and announces the ISO certification of C# at the launch of Visual Studio .NET 2003.
Dubai, May 25th 2003: Microsoft held a Visual Studio .NET conference today in association with Dubai Internet City to announce the winners of the Visual Studio .NET Competition, celebrate the ISO certification of C#, and mark the regional launch of Visual Studio.NET 2003, Microsoft’s application development tool for developing .NET connected applications.
With the launch of Visual Studio .NET 2003 Microsoft has reiterated its commitment to the developer community by providing the tools to build and deploy next generation software applications and XML Web services. Microsoft’s .NET platform is a set of Microsoft software technologies that seamlessly connect information, people, systems and devices. It enables the creation and use of XML-based applications, processes, and Web sites as services that allow applications to communicate and share data over the Internet, regardless of operating system or programming language.
Winners of the Visual Studio.NET developer competition were also announced at the event. This competition required the participants to develop user friendly and effective programs with Visual Studio.NET. Dr Omar bin Sulaiman, CEO, Dubai Internet City, presented the prizes to the winners of the competition, commenting, “Microsoft has shown tremendous commitment to the development of the region’s IT industry. Its role in the development of the region's software development community has been particularly impressive. In the past two years Microsoft's support has helped a few local IT firms develop world-class applications. Dubai Internet City is keen to back Microsoft’s efforts to bolster software development in the region."
Mr. Abdullatif Almulla, General Manager, Microsoft South Gulf, said, “Visual Studio.NET 2003 is one of the most revolutionary products to be released by Microsoft and underlines the company’s evolution to the next generation of computing, with a key focus on the developer community. The launch of this path-breaking set of development tools forms the cornerstone of Microsoft’s .NET platform and represents a major milestone in bringing the company’s vision of XML Web services to reality.”
The event also served as a platform to announce the acceptance of C# (pronounced C-Sharp), an object oriented programming language by International Organisation for Standardisation and International Electrotechnical Committee (ISO/IEC). ISO and IEC have jointly published final international standards enabling the vendor-neutral programming of Web Services. This marks the creation of the first major new ISO programming language standard in recent memory. These publications were enabled by ECMA International, which secured industry support and tracked the specifications through the relevant ISO procedures. ECMA was the first organisation that first standardised C# and Common Language Infrastructure specifications. ISO’s ratification of the work of Microsoft, its partners, and other members of the ECMA technical committee is a confirmation of the company's commitment to making Web services easily accessible by anyone.
The conference highlighted all aspects of Visual Studio .NET 2003’s unique capabilities focussing on the significance of XML web services, Microsoft’s blue print for its .NET platform and demonstrations of applications built on the .NET platform.
“The Middle East is home to a vibrant and growing developer community and Microsoft is delivering the tools and technologies for these developers to build intelligent and futuristic applications that can be accessed from anytime, anyplace and from any device. As the first fully integrated development environment for building XML Web services and next-generation Internet applications, Visual Studio .NET 2003 and the .NET Framework will enable the next big wave of developer opportunity in the region,” added Mr. Almulla.
“Visual Studio .NET 2003 enables developers to rapidly build reusable business logic that can be seamlessly integrated within the organizational firewall and beyond, with suppliers, partners and consumers,” commented Ihab al Foudeh, Enterprise Technological Manager, Microsoft South Gulf. “It also arms software developers with powerful tools to rapidly design broad-reach Web applications for any device and any platform, as well as to build powerful Windows applications,” he added.
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About Microsoft Corporation
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software - any time, any place and on any device. Microsoft opened its Dubai-based Middle East office in 1991, headquartered at Dubai Internet City and is responsible for all aspects of the company’s business in the region, covering UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain Yemen, Lebanon, Jordan, Cyprus, Malta, Egypt and Pakistan. Microsoft Corporation's address on the World Wide Web is: www.microsoft.com Microsoft Middle East's Web site is: www.microsoft.com/middleeast. Microsoft, Internet Information Server (IIS), SQL Server, Windows 2000 and Exchange 2000 are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
Agency Contact:
Robin Duff/ Samer Constantini/ Prem Ramachandran
ASDA’A Public Relations
Dubai,
UAE
Tel: 00-9714-3344550
E-mail: info@asdaa.com
Microsoft Contact:
Aimee Peters
Microsoft Middle East
South Gulf
Dubai,
United Arab Emirates
Tel: 00-9714 – 3917246
E-mail: i-aimeep@microsoft.com
© Press Release 2003
