Trevin Chow

Today we shut down Windows Marketplace as an ecommerce site and transitioned it to a referral site that provides access to the large ecosystem of Microsoft products and partner products that were available on Marketplace. 

In place of the familiar Windows Marketplace homepage is now a new landing page that points you to various places where you can find the best Microsoft partner products. 

For existing customers that previously purchased products on Windows Marketplace, your purchase history and downloads are still available in your digital locker.  I encourage you to visit the new landing page and read the information on how to transition away from digital locker.

Naturally, you can always go to Microsoft Store to find Microsoft products  

One big problem I have with the volume of my email at work is that I hit my storage quota on our exchange server far too often. I’m always looking for ways to save space in my mailbox without having to move a lot of mail to offline folders.

I stumbled upon bxAutoZip which is an add-on for Outlook that automatically ZIPs attachments in emails that you send when the size is above a configurable threshold. This is not only good for the recipients of my emails, but I also benefit from it since it keeps my “Sent items” folder in check.

I’ve been running it for the past few days and I’m loving it so far.

Whenever I browse our catalog on Windows Marketplace (referral), I’m always amazed at how at broad the applications are that exist for the Windows platform. For example, I tried doing a random search for the word “cow” and 22 results came back. Sure, that number in itself isn’t impressive, but when you look at the software in that result set I’m just amazed at the assortment of software that’s been written. Cow tetris anyone?

That’s not to say that every single piece of software ever written for Windows is superb, but that’s true about any OS that exists today. For Windows, you truly get the biggest selection of software titles giving the user real choices for software which also spurrs competition among ISVs to create software that is the best of the best.

This is also the perfect time to announce that we just released 11 new Microsoft titles on Windows Marketplace tonight! This follows on the heels of the Windows Vista upgrade and Office 2007 SKUs big splash at the end of January.

We just added:

1. Full versions of 32-bit and 64-bit Windows Vista Business, Home, Home Premium and Ultimate. (we previously only had upgrade SKUs)
2. Microsoft Math (yes, we apparantly make a Math program)
3. Visual Studio 2005, both full and upgrade SKUs

It’s exciting to see our team make more and more premium software titles available for purchase and download, and really showing off the Windows ecosystem that exists. Go get your copy of Microsoft Math today

Beta and release candidate versions of Windows Vista are set to expire on May 18th 31st, so it’s great to report that we just announced a great deal for all you beta testers out there.

If you’re a beta users of either the Vista beta or release candidates, you qualify for full versions of Vista at upgrade pricing.  For example, a full version of Vista Ultimate runs $399, whereas the upgrade version is $259. Nice deal!

It’s great that we’re able to offer this price break to some of our most loyal users that helped make Vista such a great product. 

The upgrade deal is only available through Windows Marketplace, so run and get your copy today!

Find out more information on the upgrade here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/preview.mspx

Get your discount pricing from Windows Marketplace by starting out here: http://www.windowsmarketplace.com/upgradenow

After slagging away countless months, weeks, days and hours, our team has finally shipped our latest, and definitely most important release to date. Woohoo!

Prior to joining Microsoft on the Windows Live ID team (known as .NET Passport back then), I was part of a startup and a few “side” projects. When I decided to ultimately move from Vancouver to Seattle and accept the Microsoft offer, a part of me was sad that I was leaving the “start up” environment behind me. There is something I find exciting about those moments right before you “hit the button” and your service hits the web for millions of people to see.

In Windows Live ID, I was the Lead PM on the team responsible for a whack of things including the login user experience and platform programmability. That team helped me learn what it meant be a great Program Manager and I was truly sad when I left for Windows Marketplace last November.

I’ve been on the Windows Marketplace team for a few months, and now that we’ve shipped, it’s like my professional life has come full circle. I’m back in a startup-like environment, working at a frenzied (but fun) pace, with people that I absolutely love to work with. I absolutely love coming to work each day and it’s days like today that make all those crazy long days worth it.

You can now buy and download Windows Vista and Office 2007 on WindowsMarketplace.com. Run, click, crawl, buy, drool and download your copy today.

The months leading up to tonight have been crazy, but nothin crazier than the last week, where our team:

1. Racked up a crazy amount of food bills for late night dinners, including weekends.
2. Have an ongoing set of jokes that you only laugh at when you spend 80+ weeks with the same people
3. Had A “sexy pants” contest, that was won by Derek who made cowboy chaps with iron-on 3M reflective tape.
4. Ate a hot dog and margarita dinner tonight — nothing but the best for us!

Update 2/7/2009: Windows Marketplace has been decommissioned.  Head on over to <a href=”http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=WlBDij5*UtU&offerid=168915.10000070&type=3&subid=0″Microsoft Store</a> to buy, download Microsoft Software and Hardware.