Microsoft PlugFest and Windows Server TechFest Taipei 2015 Now Open

TAIPEI, March 27, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Microsoft launched its 2015 Event in Taipei today, the biggest of its kind in Asia. The event will last for three days and has attracted nearly 200 software & hardware developers from various industries, including telecommunication, hardware devices, peripheral equipment, IC manufacturing, finance & securities and system integration. Sin Lew, Partner Director of Engineering, Enterprise Cloud Group, started the series of keynote speeches by stating that: "Microsoft's commitment to openness and collaboration is ingrained in our day-to-day approach to doing business alongside industry partners around the world, including work on open protocols." To help customers and partners adapt to a mixed IT environments and maximize return on existing IT investments, Microsoft has promised to implement openness through the principles of "mutual prosperity and compatibility with other systems," "transparency" and "open cloud."

Sharing of latest technology in cross-platform interoperability and creating more business opportunities in collaboration with our partners

PlugFest Taipei is celebrating its 5th year as one of the two major annual technology events organized by Microsoft Taiwan. It is also the biggest annual event on open technologies in Asia, with previous PlugFest events having attracted well over a thousand participants as well as a hundred companies and organizations from the software, hardware & device, communication, standards, and education & research sectors. This year, 23 technical experts from Microsoft HQ and Product R&D Departments will give more than 30 presentations focusing on topics related to the latest technologies on cross-platform and open source interoperability such as Windows 10, Windows Server and System Center, Office 365, Cloud OS, and Open Data. It is hoped that by these exchanges on cross-platform technologies, issues encountered during development and application and by helping companies solve problems related to applications, Taiwan's software developers and hardware manufacturers will be able to keep up with the latest in cross-platform interoperability so that greater business opportunities can be created. Roan Kang, Marketing and Operations Lead at Microsoft Taiwan, said: "The 5th edition of PlugFest Taipei symbolizes the fruition of Microsoft's continued efforts under its thinking of openness. For this year's event, we have invited 23 experts from around the world who specialize in cross-platform applications, cloud infrastructure & storage and open technologies. They will be in Taipei to demonstrate new technologies and respond to questions, which I am certain will benefit our partners from various industries here."

Technologies related to cross-device compatibility are currently the key to success on the market. Whether it's the Internet of Things (IOT), smart devices, application development, big data, cloud service and server management, what they need is interoperability and integration. "The Event represents Microsoft's commitment to helping its industry partners in Taiwan obtain the latest interoperability technology with Microsoft systems. It is also an indication of the company's commitment to the promotion of cross-platform interoperability, open specification and openness plan," says Roan Kang. "Microsoft will be highlighting Windows, Office, and data-related themes, which include Windows Server Technical Preview, establishing and verifying Cloud Ready Platform, Bring-Your-Own-Device to work, and applications of Exchange & SharePoint. It is our hope that we can, together with our software and hardware partners in Taiwan, get hold of the latest in front-end mobile devices and back-end interoperability technologies and create business opportunities in collaboration."

Microsoft is committed to openness, work with open source communities and standards bodies worldwide

Microsoft has a long history of supporting the standards our customers need and is a member of many standards organizations globally, actively participating in working groups today. These collaborative efforts enable interoperability across different platforms and systems. In addition, Microsoft also seeks to work with open source communities in order to offer customers more flexible and diverse development platforms and ecosystems.  

"Microsoft has worked with open source communities for a long time now. We enable open source on our platforms, as well as contribute to the communities we participate in. In fact, more than 20% of VMs running in Azure are Linux or packages of Linux and there are more than 1,000 Linux virtual machines to choose from. As a company that provides cloud services, Microsoft has also invested to set up data centers as the groundwork for cloud services and provided more than 200 services all year round," says Sin Lew, Partner Director of Engineering, Enterprise Cloud Group.

Cloud OS provides complete cloud solutions and helps customers realize four major IT values

"Microsoft provides a consistent Cloud OS platform, giving customers the choice of, based on their operational needs, running a system in a locally built data center, or through a service provider or the Azure public cloud," says Chris Phillips, General Manager for Partner and Customer Ecosystems and Experiences for the Enterprise Cloud Group at Microsoft Corporation. 

Cloud OS Solutions allows customers to realize four major IT values:

1. Datacenter transformation: customers are able to better manage not only servers but also massive amount of computing resources, and shared resources for enterprise network and storage.
2. Data analysis: Cloud OS integrates and analyzes structured data in companies and non-structured data on the Internet. Companies are also able to complete BI analysis with ease by using Excel and SharePoint.
3. Enterprise mobility enhancement.
4. Realization of innovative application: by using the Microsoft .NET framework, customers can have the benefit of having their products operate on all devices after one development effort. Further, Microsoft's modern technologies enable customers to develop apps efficiently in a mixed IT environment and in cloud service, and introduce the concepts of BI and social network into the apps they developed.

In response to Enterprise transformation in the cloud generation, Microsoft Azure is regarded as the gold standard for software-defined infrastructure and favored by companies due to the following five characteristics:

1. Unrivaled productivity: through firsthand observation and operational experience, Azure offers customers enterprise-grade Service Level Agreement (SLA).
2. The most scalable platform: Azure allows for customers to operate 1,000+ different applications, or enables them to develop a needed app in a matter of minutes.
3. The platform with ultimate efficiency: Azure accommodates thousands of customers at low cost, and 57% of Fortune 500 companies use Azure as their cloud platform.
4. Enterprise-grade reliability: Azure can be found in 19 regions around the world. SLA provides compensation for the time in which services are unavailable, and ensures the safety of enterprise data.
5. Advanced data-protection measures: Azure provides customers tailor-made SLA as well as data-protection standards, which ensures valuable data will never be lost.      

Software-defined storage allows customers to enjoy Azure's advantages with private clouds

Software-defined storage refers to cloud-scale storage services achieved by using considerable amount of standard and economical hardware. From Windows Server in 2012, Microsoft has adopted software-defined storage technology, and the four major industry trends -- industry design, data explosion, virtualization and reduced complexity in cloud deployment -- have accelerated customer demand for software-defined storage.

As Dr. Thomas Pfenning, Partner Director for Software Engineering Foundations in Microsoft's Enterprise Cloud Division points out: "Customers hope that high efficiency, low cost, flexibility, automation and integration solution offered by Microsoft Azure can be channeled to their own private clouds. Based on the experience of running public clouds such as Azure, Bing and XBOX One on Windows Server, Microsoft realized that as long as software-defined compute, software-defined networking, and software-defined storage can be widely applied to hardware design, a new generation of private clouds can be built at low cost."

Windows Server 2012 R2 enhances private clouds set up by companies as well as cloud service structure established by service providers so that they function like Azure the public cloud. It allows companies to have more flexibility with data storage, and the data can reside in private cloud, public cloud or hybrid cloud.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) is the world leader in technology industry, providing solutions in software, devices and information services, and helping people and businesses achieve full potential. Since 1989, Microsoft has continued to deepen our presence in Taiwan. As the most trustworthy partner for governments, schools and corporations, we are committed to enhance Taiwan's ability to innovate and compete, and to help the economy continue to prosper in the years to come!        

Press Contacts

Connie Lin PR Manager at Microsoft Taiwan 
Tel: +886-2-23725-3500
Mobile: +886-971-014-936 
email: [email protected]

Peter Teng Account Director at Veda International Corp.
Tel: +886-2-2704-3024 #168 
Mobile: +886-936-115-461 
email: [email protected]

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150327/194903

SOURCE Microsoft