I’m not going anywhere - My new role

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In a very recent blog post from Frédéric Harper, the new guy in DPE Canada, he mentioned the following : “I’ll replace Christian Beauclair, who accepted new challenges in another department.”

Christian 2

Well, before my fan base panic Smile, I am not leaving DPE or the audience team led by master Oxley. What is true, is that Frédéric will indeed be replacing me as I have accepted a new role within John’s team, which is to take responsibility of the Canadian ISV’s (Independent Software Vendor) ecosystem, from the startup to the fairly large ones ( there is another team that looks after the large ones ).

Some of you might have known my predecessor in this role, David Crow. David took ownership of this segment over 3 years ago and left me with a solid foundation and a great set of relationship which will allow me to be effective right away. You should read David’s departure post on his blog.

David Crow

David had a very particular style which is different than mine, but we do share one passion. The desire to see the Canadian local software economy be the best one in the world.

Canadian Flag

To achieve this, it is critical for a company like Microsoft to be present and help smooth the way for startups and highlight the great stories from the small to the big solution. I have lots of respect for people who dream something and go out and create it so I want to help you.

If you are planning to start your company to make software application to sell (utilities, productivity, business, games, etc.) or you are already engaged in that process, you need to contact me. My details are the bottom of this post.

One of the ways I can help you is with programs that already exists which I am responsible for. Let me tell you about two of them.

BizSpark_Tile

The first one deals with startups. Take a second to respond to these four questions.

  • Are you or will you be developing software has the main stream of revenue for your company?
  • Are you privately held?
  • Have you been in business less than 3 years or just staring up?
  • Do you have annual revenue of less than $1 Million US?

If you answered yes to all of them you qualify for BizSpark. You can send me an email or head over to the web site to fill in your application. This will give you access to:

  • MSDN Ultimate for your developers
  • Access to the MSDN Azure offer
  • Production and Hosting Servers including Windows Server and SQL Server
  • 2 support incident for technical support
  • Visibility through BizSpark Connect

The only commitment is to renew every year and does not cost you any money. Even at the end of the program.

Microsoft Platform Ready: Your chance to shine

The second program is Microsoft Platform Ready. This program is to speed up your time to market. Whether you're building simple add-ins, rich client applications, complex client and server solutions or planning your future with cloud services, you can access training, support, testing and marketing resources to help you take your solution to market faster. All you have to do is sign up here and profile your application. Then download a test suite that you run against your app and upload the results. We will also provide you with training resources to make your life easier. Check Joey’s blog post for more details and contact me if you have questions.

Like the expression says “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink”. I want to help you but you have to take the action. Please contact me using the following means and I will do my very best to support your organization.

Email : christian.beauclair@microsoft.com
LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianbeauclair
Twitter : https://twitter.com/cbeauclair