Broad availability of the Surface SDK WE and Touch First contest winner
Microsoft Surface has really experienced positive momentum in the past year. At last year’s PDC we had 60 Microsoft Surface partners and in just one year that number has grown to more than 250 active partners. Our customer roster has expanded since PDC 2008 to include brands such as Hard Rock International, Barclays Bank and Vodafone, who have deployed units around the world. We also have a strong presence in the Microsoft retails stores which opened this fall.
Today at PDC 2009, we have a couple of exciting announcements.
Microsoft Surface SDK Workstation Edition
We are announcing the broad availability of the Microsoft Surface SDK Workstation Edition. Now anyone interested in developing collaborative, engaging massive multi-touch, multi-user experiences for Surface can easily access the software at no cost through Surface.com. The Surface hardware is needed to deploy an application, and many use the Surface Developer units to create and test their applications directly on the device. The SDK Workstation Edition lets you use a PC to develop and a PC based simulator to test applications using multiple mice and tag simulation tools. We launched resources for developers, designers and IT Professionals.
Touch First Contest winner
We are also pleased to announce the winner of the Touch First developer contest, with the grand prize being a Microsoft Surface Developer unit. We received nearly 40 contest entries from around the world and the judges had no easy task given all of the amazing applications submitted. Congratulations to the winner, User Interface Design GmbH in Ludwigsberg, Germany! You can see their winning application, UID Porfolio, below.
But wait, there’s more!
Remember, our session at PDC is tomorrow at 11:30am in Petree Hall C. You’ll want to attend this session to see what our mystery demo is all about. More to come. :)