On 13th I will have the pleasure to present a workshop at the University of Bonn. This workshop will introduce Microsoft Phone to students. The focus will be on mobile development, web services, Silverlight and introductory design in Blend. The participants will acquire the basic knowledge of these technologies, allowing them to have a good chance to further pursue on Microsoft career path.

Subject: Silverlight and Microsoft Phone

Start: 9:00 with  1 hour lunch break around 12-12:30

End: approx. 15:00 – 16:00

Location: Windows-CIP-Pool N222

Language: The talk will be given in English.

We’ll have quite a few products presented in the first part, allowing anyone to get a familiar with:

Microsoft Phone is the newest type of phone on the market and it is driven by Windows 7. Unlike the iPhone, the specifications of Microsoft Phone are available for other phone producers, for example Asus, LG, HTC or Samsung, who have in development different versions of the device. Thus this is an open platform, ready to be accepted by the world.

Silverlight is now at the 4^th version, proving itself a reliable tool to create a wide range of applications starting from mobile applications to dynamic banners and up to database driven business applications. Silverlight is a real candidate to the Adobe Flash / Flex platform. It also worth mentioning the hardware acceleration and full HD playback features.

Expression Blend is the counterpart of Visual Studio for designers. It has deep integration with it and allows designers to easily create rich visual application. We’ll just scratch the surface of designing in Blend; hopefully you’ll get to love this smart tool.

In the second part of the workshop we will create a Twitter client on the Microsoft Phone simulator (the physical device is not available yet) using the knowledge accumulated prior.

Content:

1. Microsoft Phone general presentation
2. Guidelines for designing mobile application
3. Silverlight 4 – introduction to mobile development
4. Blend – basic design functionalities
5. Development of an Twitter client on Microsoft Phone

Target audience and prerequisites: The target audience of this workshop is young developers. Programming experience at Beginner level is required.

if you choose to bring your laptop, be sure to have installed the following:

• Windows Professional 7
• .NET Framework 4.0 RTM
• Expression Blend 4 RC
• Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP April Refresh (incl. VS2010 Express for Windows Phone und XNA Game Studio 4.0)
• Microsoft Expression Blend Add-in Preview 2 for Windows Phone
• Microsoft Expression Blend SDK Preview 2 for Windows Phone