BizSpark Event Results

Following the BizSpark event, I needed to recall the results and more the criteria for the event.

One of them was number of Windows Azure investments used. This was perhaps one of the major ones, there were perhaps 3 of the top major criteria.

Our solution was 100% hosted and built for Windows Azure, it used:

Web Roles x 4, (Two Fully working Websites)
Web Service(s) x 2, including hosting of Windows Workflow in the cloud. A https wcf endpoint for doing credit checks.

We used and had working by the end of the 2 days:

Azure Blob storage
Azure Table Storage
Azure Queue Storage

We even had a windows phone 7 application that worked with our application.

Our solution worked end to end, had quite a complex architecture and did what we said it would do.

So we were on the ball with using the technology required, and it worked.

I'm not being bias here, but from the look at the other presentations our solution used the most Azure features, was actually built in the two days and was actually running on Windows Azure.

The winning entries had all been developed prior, one of which was not even running on windows Azure. It did look nice, was much more complete than any of the other solutions, and had several months of development from two people who formally worked for Microsoft developing the platform of which the application lived on.

Given several of the judges were from Microsoft this did not sit well.

Don't get me wrong, I liked the two entries that came first and second, their solutions and concepts were great.

I think for future competitions it needs to be fair, given the majority of people had not developed a windows azure application before and their presentations were not fully working, as expected, they should be judged on this factor alone. If you want to bring along something you have spent several months developing and put it forward then you should sit in a different category.

Fair is Fair, this event was not fair and those people who worked on the solutions may not have such a great first experience with Windows Azure.