Students Invited to Showcase Their IT Skills

Tertiary Students Invited to Showcase Their IT Skills as Part of Global Microsoft Software Development Competition

AUCKLAND, New Zealand - Wednesday, October 8, 2003 - Microsoft New Zealand is inviting tertiary IT students from around the country to test their programming skills as part of a global software development competition, the Microsoft Imagine Cup.

First launched in New Zealand late last year, the 2004 competition challenges students to develop an innovative mobile application that uses XML Web services built with the Microsoft .NET development platform. The New Zealand winner will be flown to Bangalore, India to compete against tertiary students from 13 other countries, including Hong Kong, China, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and Korea, in the Asia Pacific regional final held early next year. If the New Zealand team proves successful, they will go on to represent APAC in the global competition, held in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil in June 2004, and stand to win up to $25,000 in prize money.

The winner of this year's global 2003 Imagine Cup developed a multi-language, wireless Point of Sale application. It allowed waiters to use a hand-held mobile device to take orders in one language, and then automatically translated the information into the chef's native language. The winner of the first New Zealand competition, Jason White from the University of Auckland, developed a multiplayer, online game that utilised a XML Web service to allow direct communication and registration between players.

"The competition provided me with the chance to actually use the Microsoft .NET tools and gain practical experience in building XML Web Services before I even graduated. I found Web Services extremely easy and fast to develop using Visual Studio .NET"

Doug Pratt, Microsoft New Zealand Group Manager, Developer and Platform Strategy, says the competition is just one of Microsoft's initiatives aimed at bringing Microsoft .NET directly to students.

"XML Web services hold tremendous opportunity for the IT industry, particularly within the area of mobile applications, and we hope the competition will encourage student developers to take early advantage of this next generation Internet platform," says Pratt.

"It's an excellent way for students to extend their IT skills and build practical applications relevant to today's business problems even before they enter the workforce."

How to Enter

Students can enter the competition individually or in a group of up to four and need to register online first at http://www.microsoft.com/nz/imaginecup/registration by November 20, 2003. Submissions close on February 9, 2004, and will be judged by a panel including representatives from Microsoft New Zealand and several other leading technology companies. The winning entries will be formally announced on February 13, 2004, with the second prize entries receiving an Xbox Console containing three new release titles and third prize entries a PC Games bundle*. * Students that have entered as part of a group will each receive an Xbox Console or PC Games bundle.

Entry Requirements

* Students must create a mobile application that uses at least one Web service and one wireless device, either a Pocket PC or Smart Phone, which is built for running on the .NET framework. Applications must be developed using Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and use a smart agent that learns and becomes more accurate (or somehow improves) over time. For example, a mobile application that learns (improves at) finding dates for a person in an online database. * Students who study out of a department in one of eight tertiary institutions across New Zealand belonging to the Microsoft Developer Networks (MSDN) Academic Alliance Programme can get free access to Visual Studio .NET and other leading Microsoft developer tools. For students not involved in Microsoft Developer Networks (MSDN) Academic Alliance Program, the ASP.NET Web Matrix can be downloaded for free from the Microsoft website at http://www.asp.net/webmatrix/default.aspx For more information about the Imagine Cup and for further resources on XML Web Services development, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/nz/imaginecup .

About Microsoft Visual Studio .NET

Microsoft Visual Studio .NET is the rapid application development (RAD) tool for building next-generation Web applications and XML Web services. Visual Studio .NET empowers developers to design broad-reach Web applications for any device and any platform. In addition, Visual Studio .NET is fully integrated with the .NET Framework, which provides support for multiple programming languages and automatically handles many common programming tasks, freeing developers to rapidly create Web applications using their language of choice. Visual Studio .NET includes a single integrated development environment (IDE) with RAD features for building Web applications and middle-tier business logic, and RAD XML designers for working with data. More information about Visual Studio .NET can be found at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/nextgen/default.asp

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