InnerWorkings announced a major addition to its Learning Platform today with the release of self-paced SharePoint 2010 training for professional developers and software teams.

Working in partnership with the USPJ Academy, InnerWorkings is offering world class SharePoint learning solutions to its customers. USPJA boasts a team of industry renowned SharePoint experts whose approach emphasizes the real-world aspects of learning SharePoint — a perfect fit with the InnerWorkings methodology.

InnerWorkings confirmed the immediate release of three SharePoint courses to its Learning Platform, covering the following topics:

• Beginning SharePoint Development
• SharePoint Data View Web Part Basics
• SharePoint Designer 2010 Workflow

Additional SharePoint courses are in development and will be released on a quarterly basis. All of the SharePoint courses include video-based instruction from USPJA experts, hand-picked e-books, and a virtual lab environment to practice important configuration tasks. In addition, a Live Guide feature connects developers and in-house SharePoint experts to facilitate ongoing support and grading of assignments.

“With over 100M users and $1B in revenue for Microsoft, SharePoint is the understated giant of Microsoft’s enterprise collaboration strategy”, said Francis McKeagney, InnerWorkings CEO. “As a server-based technology, SharePoint presents significant challenges to organizations wishing to provide deep, hands-on training to their software teams. We are really excited that our new offering addresses this issue in a rigorous and compelling way. The virtual lab capability, in particular, allows for deep learning in both generic and customizable setups. We are delighted to partner with USPJA to deliver such a comprehensive enterprise learning solution for SharePoint development teams. USPJA’s knowledge and expertise has made this offering possible.”

“The market for SharePoint developers has never been hotter”, said Bjørn Furuknap, USPJA CEO. “We’ve always been extremely confident in the depth and quality of our SharePoint learning solutions, but this partnership with InnerWorkings brings tremendous scale and reach to our efforts. Coupling the technical strength of our training with the online learning expertise and global audience of InnerWorkings is a winning combination. We are delighted to partner with InnerWorkings to offer our combined SharePoint learning services to a huge audience of SharePoint developers and teams hungry to succeed in their chosen area of domain expertise.”

About InnerWorkings
At InnerWorkings, our mission is to help our customers build great software organizations. We believe that it is possible to create a successful, efficient, and cost-effective software organization and sustain it over multiple projects. How do we do this? By providing software executives with an integrated platform to improve learning, collaboration, and software processes across your development teams. The company’s R&D facility is based in Dublin, Ireland and InnerWorkings maintains its corporate headquarters in San Francisco, California. For more information about InnerWorkings and its services, visit www.innerworkings.com.

We’ll explore the challenge of migrating pieces of your core software systems — essential to your company’s business — to the .NET Framework. Imagine overcoming this challenge when your software development organization is distributed across 8 global centers and supports more than 70 core systems.

How can you make it work? Find out how a major global healthcare company, Cerner Corporation, managed this tricky process. The company leveraged the new capabilities offered by the .NET Framework using an incremental rollout, and used several key migration strategies including:

• Center of Excellence for developer learning needs
• Open Forum to foster software team collaboration
• “Like for Like” development strategy

Come to this one-hour webcast to dig deep into this migration process, including results, productivity gains, reduced learning curve, and best practices for future migration projects.

The webcast is free, but seats are limited. Sign up today!

You’ve probably heard all the talk this week about Silverlight’s future as a cross platform runtime.

Bob Muglia’s comments in a PDC10 article by Mary-Jo Foley titled Microsoft: Our strategy with Silverlight has shifted kicked off quite a firestorm of reactions from the developer community.

Earnest responses to Muglia’s announcement have veered from blithe indifference (move along, nothing to see here), to apoplectic anger (never trust Microsoft), to resigned acceptance (I told you this would happen).

Responding to the unexpected controversy, Muglia posted a detailed blog yesterday clarifying his thinking titled PDC and Silverlight. This post strikes an unusual tone between defending his original thesis  that HTML 5 is increasingly important to Microsoft while going to some lengths to assure people that Silverlight is still a core technology.

As the dust settles, I’m beginning to see the following themes emerge from this debate (my opinion only, of course):

• Microsoft is endorsing HTML 5 as the primary, most widely accepted web standard.
• This move has been brewing since HTML 5 support in IE9 was announced.
• HTML 5 has incredible reach but limited tooling (when compared to Silverlight).
• Silverlight has rich tooling but limited reach (when compared to HTML).
• Silverlight has a fine niche in enterprise line-of-business applications.
• Microsoft no longer sees Silverlight as the best runtime on all devices.
• Microsoft will release Silverlight 5; don’t know where, don’t know when…
• Reports of Silverlight’s death have been greatly exaggerated.
  

So much for my opinion. Why not get an expert’s perspective on Silverlight in the enterprise by listening to Mick Slattery, EVP of Avanade’s Global Delivery Network? You’re invited to join us for a live webcast covering Silverlight adoption at Avanade on Wednesday, November 3rd at 2 PM ET/11 AM PT.

Our speakers will discuss how Avanade drove widespread Silverlight adoption across their distributed software teams:

• Fran McKeagney - CEO, InnerWorkings
• Mick Slattery - EVP, Global Delivery Network, Avanade

You’ll hear about the wide array of ‘line of business’ and web facing applications Avanade has completed for its customers using Silverlight. We fully expect to receive audience questions on Silverlight’s future as a cross platform runtime, and where it stands as an enterprise development tool. Don’t miss your chance to participate in this lively debate — register now!

I’m pleased to announce that InnerWorkings is continuing our thought leadership webcast series on Managing Application Development Teams and Software Projects.

Next in the series is a highly anticipated discussion on the Risks & Rewards of .NET Adoption in the Enterprise with one of our key customers, GE Healthcare — it’s scheduled for Tuesday, October 19th at 11 AM Pacific / 2 PM Eastern.

Ever wondered how a large, distributed software organization makes decisions about which development framework to adopt? GE Healthcare will be sharing their experiences of managing over 9 global development locations, and supporting a vibrant mix of programming technologies.

We’ll be discussing how to create an n-tiered, component based software architecture that supports their business vision. We will also explore the issue of preparing developers for .NET adoption in terms of licensing, the software roadmap, and key ramp up mechanisms.

In addition, we’ll be analyzing the risks and benefits of adopting .NET at GE Healthcare — what aspects exceeded expectations and what setbacks were encountered along the way. Lastly, the session will explore the road ahead in planning future .NET projects and taking advantage of the many new features available in C# and .NET 4.0.

It promises to be a fascinating session, so don’t miss out — join the live event on Tuesday, October 19th at 11 AM Pacific / 2 PM Eastern. If that time doesn’t work for you, just register now and you’ll be provided with a link to the on-demand version of the event once it has been archived.

Many thanks to the team at GE Healthcare for participating and we hope you enjoy the webcast.

It’s fair to say that initial feedback on the changes in the Visual Studio IDE and enhancements to the underlying .NET Framework were broadly positive.

However, it really takes a few months for adoption to ramp up and the real story to emerge from developers in the trenches, so to speak.

In today’s blog, I’m going to focus on our latest .NET training release titled New Features in C# 4.0. While InnerWorkings is a longtime Microsoft partner and we support adoption of the .NET Framework in many ways, we try to keep our heads about new releases.

Our community expects us to focus on the key features that professional developers need to master. So consider us “fair and balanced” but not in the Fox News kind of way…

So what’s important for developers in the latest release of C# and why should you care about it anyway? Let me list the core areas of C# 4.0 that we think developers should focus on:

• using the dynamic keyword as a data type that supports runtime lookup
• using optional parameters for constructors and methods
• explicitly naming an argument being passing to a method
• working with the enhanced COM Interop features in C# 4.0
• dynamically importing COM APIs and deploying without Primary Interop Assemblies
• skipping the passing of optional parameters when making calls to COM objects
• omitting the ref keyword when calling a method on a COM object
• using the built-in .NET interfaces that have been made variant in .NET 4.0
• making generic interfaces and delegates covariant

And that’s really all there is! Our latest Drill on New Features in C# 4.0 is available to all InnerWorkings enterprise customers from today — contact us if you’d like to learn more about our subscription options for developers and software teams. We’ll be adding more .NET 4.0 training (think ASP.NET MVC 2) to the bundle before making it available from our web catalog, so watch this space.

In the meantime, you should check out this Channel 9 video titled Inside C# 4.0 for a behind-the-scenes look at how C# 4.0 evolved at Microsoft. Enjoy!

InnerWorkings has teamed up with our .NET training partner Pluralsight to offer developers access to a very powerful combined learning solution.

TechEd attendees will get the best of Pluralsight’s acclaimed on-demand training videos from industry experts alongside InnerWorkings’ award-winning learning tool embedded in Visual Studio.

Both our training solutions are available for the price of a single annual subscription — a great deal for folks at the show.

So if you’re at TechEd, please visit the InnerWorkings booth (#2632) or the Pluralsight booth (#2544) and we’ll provide more information about this amazing deal. Inquiries can also be sent to sales@innerworkings.com or pssales@pluralsight.com.

Laissez les bon temps rouler!

How many developers conquered the Entity Framework after a long struggle, only to turn the next corner and bump into LINQ? Perhaps you spent months learning WPF and Silverlight 3, just to discover that .NET 4.0 and Silverlight 4 will RTM very soon. It never ends. You just adapt to the shock of the new, learn the necessary skills to thrive, and move on.

So we hope that today’s news is a big win for .NET developers and teams everywhere. 

I’m delighted to announce that InnerWorkings is adding Pluralsight to our list of trusted partners.

I’m sure many of you know Pluralsight well — we have always been most impressed by their combination of top tier instructors, premium video content, and active participation in the .NET community.

Empty announcements are just annoying, so I’ve got something else to add today….

I’m really pleased to announce that Pluralsight is kindly offering InnerWorkings users and affiliates 1 week of access to the Pluralsight On-Demand! .NET training library. And I should add that this exclusive offer is entirely free, gratis, libero, frei.

So don’t look a gift horse in the mouth — get on over to the InnerWorkings offer page on the Pluralsight website and sign up for your free .NET training today. Simply use the activation code 27-1-YHRA-KDST to unlock your access to the Pluralsight library and start learning new programming skills today. Enjoy!

InnerWorkings CodeBox Provides Alternative to Google Code Search, Krugle, and Koders

San Francisco, CA – August 19, 2009 – InnerWorkings, a provider of practice-based solutions to optimize developer skills and processes across software organizations, today announced the availability a new .NET code search engine solution called InnerWorkings CodeBox™.

InnerWorkings CodeBox is a trusted reference point for .NET code samples and snippets.  It enables developers to search InnerWorkings’ extensive library of sample code, which contains over 1,000 rigorously tested solutions on a wide variety of .NET topics and techniques.  CodeBox always delivers clean and relevant source code, making it a much more reliable source for usable .NET code than search engines such as Google Code Search, Krugle, and Koders.

“Most sample code available on the Internet today is of low quality and questionable value,” said Francis McKeagney, CEO of InnerWorkings.  “You don’t know who has written the code, if it has been reviewed, or if it will even compile.  With InnerWorkings CodeBox you know you’re getting clean code that has been thoroughly tested, released to customers, and that works first-time. Developers can find top quality code in a reliable, efficient way and software organizations will benefit from reduced developer research time and significantly less risk to their code base.”

You can learn more by viewing the InnerWorkings CodeBox datasheet, or by contacting us at sales@innerworkings.com.

“We are extremely confident about our solution and acknowledge that every company has its own unique standards of performance and productivity for its developers,” said Francis McKeagney, CEO of InnerWorkings. “If a customer finds that our solution does not positively impact its own standard levels of developer performance within 90 days, then they are guaranteed a full refund of the licensing agreement. Our objective is to make a company’s software developers more productive and more efficient through practice-based training. If we are not providing that benefit then our program is not doing its job.”

InnerWorkings has written this customer warranty into its standard licensing agreement based on the firm knowledge that its practice-based learning solutions can measurably impact developer performance. Each company defines their own set of standards for success, so InnerWorkings has decided to present this blanket warranty to emphasize a true commitment to building great software organizations. If a customer is not meeting their own standards of developer performance, they must send a formal claim to InnerWorkings within 90 days of the contract signing to get their license fee fully refunded.

About InnerWorkings

InnerWorkings helps software organizations to gain clear insight into development team capabilities and to optimize skills and processes. The company’s goal is to help customers improve developer utilization and reduce the risks of in-house development, outsourcing, off shoring, and recruiting. InnerWorkings has been a Gold-Certified Microsoft Partner and Visual Studio Integration Partner since 2003. InnerWorkings customers include a number of Fortune 1000 companies. For more information visit http://www.innerworkings.com.

In a world where “astroturfing” or fake product reviews are more common that most web users realize — check out the latest scandal where Belkin’s CEO issues an apology for the shady work of an overzealous employee — it’s nice to get a genuine award that recognizes our hard work in bringing InnerWorkings Developer to market.

Of course, we’ve been saying the product is highly innovative for years (!) but it’s always fun to see some external validation of our unique approach to helping developers learn by doing. Most people remark on our rules-based code judging engine as the most innovative element, but we’ve also pushed the boat out in terms of our SaaS deployment, executive learning dashboards, and web-mediated customer support.

Nor does it stop there — we’re constantly looking at new ways to add value to the software organization and support professional developers who make the wheels go around. With your help and feedback, I’m hoping we’ll be back next year to win another learning award for an innovation yet to be hatched.