Build 2012: Microsoft's developer event in the Windows 8 era

Between Tuesday and Friday of this week ending, Microsoft held its second annual developer fair at its Redmond campus: Build 2012The event could not come at a better time after the launch of Windows 8 last week and the final presentation of Windows Phone 8 this Monday. Before Microsoft had gotten great attention for the event, not in vain the tickets put on sale last August were sold out in just one hour. Here we will briefly review what these four days of conferences have brought us.

Windows Everywhere: The dawn of a new era

The person in charge of launching the first conference of the conference could not be other than Steve Ballmer The CEO of Microsoft took the opportunity to reveal some figure on how Windows 8 is doing when it comes out, with those four million updates sold in just three days, and to repeat the good reception that the company receives regarding its new operating system. What for Ballmer is one of the great milestones in the history of Microsoft, is also a great opportunity for developers thanks to the integration of their systems in all types of devices.

Here is Microsoft's 'leitmotiv' these days: the complete experience thanks to the Windows ecosystem. Ballmer has pointed out what we have already discussed before in these parts: smartphones with Windows Phone 8 are the mobile phones that you want to have if you have Windows 8.And for developers this is a golden opportunity to build applications that take advantage of this whole new ecosystem.

For much of the conference, Ballmer conducted a demo of Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 across a variety of hardware. All of them activated with your personal account to show the benefits of synchronization provided by the new Windows together with SkyDrive. This demo was followed by others carried out by Steve Guggenheimer, one of the company's vice presidents, to show various applications prepared for Windows 8. Among them were Skype, AutoCAD and the odd game that we can control by connecting an Xbox controller to Surface.

For those attending the event it was a good first day, since at that same conference they learned that Microsoft was going to give everyone a Surface RT with Touch Cover and 100 GB of SkyDrive storage totally free, in addition to the Lumia 920 that Nokia also decided to give them.

Developers' turn: Azure services

Build is an event for developers so the rest of the conferences were more technical and focused on the tools that Microsoft makes available to build applications. This year the focus is on the cloud and the possibilities it offers Windows Azure

The computer giant took the opportunity to present some of the new services and utilities that will be available on its platform from now on. These include the Windows Azure Store which, similar to the rest of the stores, collects applications from Microsoft and third-party developers specially designed for Windows Azure services.

In addition, in Redmond they took the opportunity to reveal some details of their program for startups focused on Windows AzureTen of them are already working at the company's headquarters side by side with Microsoft developers to present their products on Azure in January of next year. As the movement is demonstrated on the go, nothing better than showing the use that the company itself makes of Azure with a demonstration of how they use their services to test Halo 4 during its development.

As usual in this type of conference, Build 2012 also launched a 'hackathon' so that those teams that They wish to develop applications in the few days that the event lasts. Winners in each category took home $2,500 and the spotlight on their apps, including photo-sharing apps and socially-infused games.

A bit of everything: notifications, KinectFusion and big screens

This type of event is always a source of some interesting news, new product or functionality that should not be overlooked and Build 2012 was no exception.These days we learned that Microsoft was preparing a notification system for Windows Phone that was left out of version 8 due to lack of time.

In addition, the company's Xbox division took the opportunity to present some of the advances with Kinect that will soon be available to developers. One of the future features that the Kinect for Windows SDK will receive is KinectFusion This tool allows you to take photos of objects or even entire rooms and rebuild them as 3D models on our computers directly.

Another of the stars that was present at the first conference of the conference was the impressive 82-inch multi-touch screen displayed on These lines. It is the product of the purchase of the Perceptive Pixel company carried out by Microsoft last July.Of course, just as gigantic as its size is its price, which goes up to $30,000. Although Steve Ballmer expects this type of hardware to become more affordable in a few years, I would have settled for a Surface RT like the one the event attendees walked away with.

More information | Build 2012