NaviSite and Microsoft hosted an educational event for Web Design and Development professionals at the very cool Microsoft New England Research and Development Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts this past week. The event, organized by the Microsoft Communications Sector team in collaboration with NaviSite, was extremely well received as a full day of educational sessions and interactive discussions. The event left the audience with an excellent understanding of the power of the Microsoft Expression Suite and Windows as a Web platform. The majority of attendees were from small and medium sized companies whose business is built with Microsoft developer tools and Websites and Web applications hosted on servers running Windows Server 2008 and SQL 2008. Represented were Web designers for SMBs, application developers for regional retailers, system integrators, and Web 2.0 companies.
As a hosting provider, it’s always a wonderful thing to have the opportunity to connect with customers at a local level as invaluable insight is gleaned both during the scheduled sessions themselves as well as the informal breakouts that naturally occur during break and meal periods. Among other things, questions about running PHP on Windows, the MVC Framework on ASP.NET and Silverlight and BizSpark and WebsiteSpark Hosting surfaced and resulted in rich discussion and lots of excitement.
Sitting in the room, I could see the designers and developers light up at the thought of the next generation of Websites and Web Applications they will be free to create with these and future tools, not to mention the prospect of hosting them on servers at a hosting provider. It’s sessions like these that foster the ideas that dreams are made of and that find their way into technical specifications and roadmaps, where the real development begins.
Managed Web Hosting providers that connect with local businesses through sponsorship opportunities, social media engagement, or educational seminars truly benefit from the conversations exchanged throughout. The NaviSite team left the event inspired by the enthusiasm of the participants and the next generation of Web deployments to come.
About William Toll
William Toll, VP, Marketing at Yottaa, Inc., has held Marketing and Product Management positions in the Web hosting and Internet infrastructure industry since the late 1990s. Currently William is driving the marketing strategy and implementation for Yottaa, Inc. Yottaa, The Web Performance Company, provides innovative cloud services enabling its customers to assess, benchmark, monitor and optimize their websites and Web applications for a better user experience and improved ROI. Most recently William was at the leading managed hosting and cloud services provider, NaviSite. At NaviSite, William was responsible for developing and marketing the company's hosted product lines, including managed cloud services, managed hosting, managed business applications and shared and dedicated hosting for SMBs. In past positions at companies such as Affinity Internet, Inc., Intermedia.NET, and NTT/VERIO, William was the driving force in launching and enhancing successful SMB focused services including: Shared Hosting services, Microsoft Exchange and hosting add-on services like Online Marketing and Web Design. William received a BA in Marketing from New England College. William Toll can be found on Twitter: @utollwi
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