Black Marble News RSS Feed

7th Successful DDD North

Sat, 14 Oct 2017 22:24:33 GMT

Saturday 14th October saw the return of DDD North to Bradford. This time hosted at the main University of Bradford campus on Richmond Road, in the city centre. Once again, we were overwhelmed by the interest and support in this event.

DDD North is a free one day technical event for developers. This is the seventh Developer! Developer! Developer! Community Event, and the tickets once again sold out in a really short space of time.

As a regular sponsor, and founder, our MVPs and staff regularly give up their time to support and contribute to these events, and 5 of our MVPs attended this event, to support and present. The feedback received on Twitter has been overwhelmingly positive.

Black Marble showcases HoloLens at leading innovation event

Fri, 15 Sep 2017 22:17:24 GMT

Black Marble was delighted to be invited by The Pure Technology Group to showcase Microsoft HoloLens at their leading innovation event, PT17. A hugely popular day, full of hands-on experiences with cutting-edge technology, Black Marble had a great day engaging with enthusiastic and interested delegates.

Andy Dawson at SharePoint Saturday

Sat, 09 Sep 2017 21:56:15 GMT

Black Marble's Office Servers and Services Microsoft MVP Andy Dawson presented at SharePoint Saturday, a regular and popular community event focusing on the SharePoint arena.

Andy had a great time at the event, and met some great people! He would recommend it for next year.

Celebrating 10 years of Service at the Black Marble Home Day

Mon, 14 Aug 2017 16:05:47 GMT

Every year, we hold a major day in the office for the whole team - our Home Day, where we make company-wide announcements, outline where we are now, and discuss the roadmap for the future for Black Marble.

As well as great conversations and announcements, we also put on great food!

This year, we took the opportunity to celebrate the members of staff who have been with us for 10 years or more! It's great that they have chosen to stay the course with us, and created some marvellous William Hannah custom notebooks!

Thanks Andy, James, Mike and Lauren!

Great new Consultant joins the Black Marble team!

Mon, 14 Aug 2017 16:02:04 GMT

After many years working together in a range of projects, Andy Lewis has formalised his involvement with Black Marble by joining the team as a consultant. An established figure in IT consultancy, with a focus around ALM and DevOps, it is great to welcome Andy to the team.

We are hiring!

Mon, 07 Aug 2017 12:22:35 GMT

We are still recruiting! We have grown the team over the summer, but still need more! More software Engineers! From graduate level through to more experienced developers, you will be implementing bespoke web and software applications, covering a wide set of Microsoft Technologies.

Starting salary for graduates from £25,000, increasing depending on skills and experience, up to £40,000.

Send your CV/Covering letter to hr@blackmarble.com. Go on, do it now!

Women in Technology at Inspire

Wed, 12 Jul 2017 15:52:07 GMT

Whilst attending Inspire, it was great to participate in some of the marvellous Women in Technology activities throughout the week, as well as catching up with great Microsoft technology ladies like Anitah Cantele on the Cosmos DB team. Plus IAMCP put on a great Women in Technology Luncheon!

Black Marble has a great time at Inspire!

Mon, 10 Jul 2017 15:37:03 GMT

The Black Marble Business Development team headed out to Washington DC for the inaugural Inspire Conference (formally Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC)) for the annual Microsoft extravaganza! Plus, we were a headline sponsor for the UK Partner Team lounge, which was great!

The Black Marble Team Continues to Grow

Thu, 06 Jul 2017 15:25:27 GMT

We are delighted to announce the Black Marble development and testing teams have expanded with the recruitment of Caitlin Hogg, William Pitt and Darius Santaras - all graduates from the University of Hull Computer Science department.

In August, Adam Ansell joined the test team, and in September, James Stoker, a former year-in-industry student, returned following his graduation to join the team on a permanent basis.

Congratulations to the Black Marble MVPs!

Sat, 01 Jul 2017 15:08:11 GMT

We are delighted to confirm that Robert Hogg, James Croft, James Mann and Richard Fennell have been renewed once again as Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs), joining Rik Hepworth and Andy Dawson.

We are so proud of the team, and it's great that their community contributions continue to be recognised by Microsoft.

Update - James Mann's MVP category was updated was 1st September to AI!

Global DevOps Bootcamp

Sat, 17 Jun 2017 14:35:47 GMT

Black Marble hosted the Yorkshire edition of the Global DevOps Bootcamp. It was a great interactive day, with a keynote from Donovan Brown, and an enthusiastic team on the ground in Rik Hepworth and Riccardo Viglianisi.

The attendees spanned the Dev and IT backgrounds, and all loved the camaraderie as well as the great swag!

"That was such an EPIC day at #BlackMarble . Learned a lot and would love to continue learning more #gdbc"

Black Marble and DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper Day 12

Sat, 03 Jun 2017 14:27:09 GMT

Black Marble once again supported Developer!Developer!Developer! day, back for its 12th iteration at Microsoft UK Headquarters in Reading. A great day was had, with much positive feedback from attendees, speakers and sponsors. Thanks to all the Black Marble team who supported.

Plus, a welcome addition was a series of TechDays Online videos put together by Black Marble MVPs Rik Hepworth and Robert Hogg, with the assistance of the Microsoft MVP Lead, Claire Smyth. You can catch them all on line the Channel 9 website.

It will return in June 2018, but also check out DDD North in October 2017, at the University of Bradford.

Black Marble Finalist in Two Worldwide Partner Awards!

Thu, 01 Jun 2017 12:00:00 GMT

Black Marble are once again featured in the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Awards!

Microsoft Corp. on Thursday announced the winners and finalists of the Microsoft 2017 Partner of the Year Awards. The annual awards recognize top Microsoft partners demonstrating excellence in innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft technology.

Black Marble is delighted to announce that we are Finalists in two categories:

Application Development
Public Safety and National Security

Award winners and finalists from around the world will be recognized at Microsoft Inspire taking place July 9–13, 2017, in Washington, D.C.

This year, Microsoft acknowledged partners in 34 categories celebrating each of the core partner competencies, including cloud technology, public sector, Microsoft philanthropies and many more. The award finalists and winners were selected from more than 2,800 nominations collected from 115 different countries worldwide based on their commitment to customers, their solution’s impact on the market and exemplary use of Microsoft technologies.

“The 2017 Partner of the Year Award winners and finalists represent the most valued and innovative solutions within our partner community,” said Ron Huddleston corporate vice president, One Commercial Partner, Microsoft Corp. “It’s an honor to recognize our top partners providing their expertise and solutions to solve complex business challenges. Congratulations to each winner and finalist on this tremendous achievement.”

Black Marble at London TechWeek - Path to Mixed Reality

Tue, 30 May 2017 23:32:24 GMT

We are taking part in London Tech Week with Leila Martine of Microsoft and Superintendent Nick Lyall on the Path to Mixed Reality: HoloLens Examples in Policing. Hope to see you there!

Mixed Reality (MR) creates a brand new holographic category and endless possibilities for how we can improve how people communicate, create, and explore by mixing the physical world and the virtual world together. MR redefines personal computing through holographic experiences by delivering new insight for creating, collaborating and bringing products and information to life in 3D. During this session, we will share inspiring examples of how organizations are already using Microsoft HoloLens to transform their businesses.

Black Marble support Grey Matter on the Red Shirt Tour

Fri, 26 May 2017 12:56:03 GMT

Black Marble Partner Grey Matter were supporting Scott Guthrie's Red Shirt tour in Dublin, at Microsoft Ireland. Black Marble BDM for DevOps attended to support them!

It was a great event, well attended.

Black Marble at Techorama

Tue, 23 May 2017 12:36:34 GMT

Always a great conference, the Black Marble team headed out to Belgium to Techorama. Great sessions, and really well managed, Techorama has grown in reputation over the years to a must-attend event.

Plus, our Azure Microsoft MVP, Rik Hepworth, was presenting on Azure Stack (A Unified Microsoft Story).

Black Marble awarded place on G-Cloud 9

Mon, 22 May 2017 10:44:34 GMT

We are delighted to confirm that Black Marble has been awarded a place on the Government's Digital Marketplace for G-Cloud 9.

G-Cloud 9 is part of the Government’s Digital Marketplace initiative, which enables British public sector organisations to buy Cloud Services form a pre-approved group of suppliers under a common contractual framework. This significantly reduces the complexity of buying in these resources.

Managed by the Crown Commercial Service (CCS), G-Cloud suppliers are carefully evaluated during the tender process. Pre-agreed terms and conditions offer customers solid contractual safeguards.

The following is available from Black Marble:

Cloud Software

tuServ, our mobile policing application.

Cloud Support

Services relating to tuServ, our mobile policing application.

DevOps in the Cloud - how tooling and process changes around the Azure Dev/Test model could deliver benefits to you.

Did you know... tuServ is coming to Android!

Mon, 15 May 2017 12:31:51 GMT

Black Marble are delighted to announce that tuServ is coming to Android!

Opening tuServ up to other platforms will aid adoption, increase uptake and improve the potential for collaborative working between individual officers and across forces!

It is our aim is to help the police deliver the best and most efficient service they can, and by bringing all the great tuServ features over from the Windows platform to Android, forces can mix and match devices to meet their operational needs.

tuServ is widely available on desktop, tablet and phone for Windows 10. Plus as standard you also get our most recent innovations, Command and Control for the Surface Hub and Scene of Crime for the mixed reality world of HoloLens.

If you would like to arrange a demonstration, have any questions about tuServ or our exciting leap onto the Android platform, please do not hesitate to ask!

What did UWP ever do for us?

Fri, 12 May 2017 12:24:52 GMT

Robert Hogg and James Croft presented What did UWP ever do for us? at Microsoft //build/ this year...

Black Marble at build 2017

Fri, 12 May 2017 12:10:09 GMT

Once again, we sent the Black Marble team to Microsoft Build, to get all the up to date announcements from Microsoft. After a few years in San Francisco, it was back in Seattle - a little less sunny, but still a great event.

Announcements include Fluent, MVP category of AI and of course, Black Marble's HoloLens Crime Scene application featured in the Keynote!

20th Anniversary Milestone for Black Marble

Fri, 28 Apr 2017 11:02:01 GMT

In 1997 Robert Hogg, Richard Fennell and Andrew Haynes set up Black Marble to provide software development services to a standard, both professionally and ethically, that they all aspired to. The company has grown in leaps and bounds in the past 20 years, to the multi-award-winning, highly-respected organisation we have all come to know and love today.

From Azure to UWP, Christmas to Halloween, via cutting-edge technology, we are all proud to be part of Black Marble, and what it is has achieved.

This week, we took the opportunity to celebrate our birthday with the team, and you can see some of the pictures from the day over on Facebook.

Black Marble represented by 6 MVPs at the UK MVP Summit

Thu, 27 Apr 2017 20:40:37 GMT

Every year, the UK contingent of Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals get together to share thoughts and ideas about the technology world they live, and what else they can do to support their community.

Ably organised by UK and Ireland MVP lead Claire Smyth, it took place this year at the RAF Museum at Hendon - with a meal under the wings of a Lancaster Bomber!

We were delighted this year that all six of our MVPs were able to attend, and even managed to capture the moment!

The theme of the Summit was around Community Connect, and encouraged all the MVPs to share their experiences and ways they could support one another. With the global MVP Summit pushed back from the Autumn to Spring 2018, this will be the only opportunity for the group to meet in 2017.

Living the Dream - Real World DevOps from Richard Fennell and Rik Hepworth

Thu, 27 Apr 2017 20:20:56 GMT

Join Black Marble Microsoft MVPs Rik Hepworth and Richard Fennel, as they take you through ‘Living the Dream – Real world DevOps with VSTS and ARM'.

A regular presentation at developer community events over the past few months, you can know view it on Black Marble's new YouTube channel. Look out for more videos being added to our playlists.

Join us as we demonstrate how to Make it easy to migrate your ALM process to the Cloud

Mon, 24 Apr 2017 19:59:20 GMT

Do you find your TFS server gets forgotten? It is not owned by the IT department and the Development team don’t have the time to support it fully, it never gets patched or upgrades?

Or maybe you are adopting a cloud first strategy for all you systems? Well maybe it is time to consider moving on an on-premises TFS instance to VSTS.

In this session we will look at Microsoft new high fidelity VSTS database import tools that can be used to move a TFS instance to VSTS. We will also consider the procs and cons of the other options available to you, making this a useful session if you are considering VSTS whether from TFS or any other source control ALM solution.

Speakers include Richard Fennell (Black Marble) and Giles Davies (Microsoft).

The venue is the Crown Plaza hotel in Leeds, so please register to join us!

Black Marble hosting Leeds Venue for Global DevOps Bootcamp

Mon, 20 Mar 2017 10:58:34 GMT

Black Marble is hosting the Yorkshire venue for the upcoming Global DevOps Bootcamp. It is a global event that will be held on Saturday June 17th and is all about DevOps on the Microsoft Stack. Centrally organised by Xpirit and Solidfy and offered to you by Black Marble.

Goals:

DevOps in general
Insights into where we are heading when it comes to DevOps and new technologies
Get people's hands dirty and let them play with all the good Microsoft DevOps stuff

We will kick off with an introduction of no one less than Donovan Brown, followed by a Black Marble keynote about where we are heading with DevOps.

Black Marble announced as HoloLens Readiness Partner

Mon, 13 Mar 2017 10:20:37 GMT

Microsoft has today announced Black Marble has been awarded official HoloLens Agency Readiness Partner status - one of the few delivery partners based in the UK, and the only multi-Gold Competency-holding partner to be recognised. Update: the programme was renamed the Mixed Reality Partner Programme in July 2017.

As an Agency partner, we are recognised for our HoloLens development expertise and growing dedicated teams that can take on holographic application development for clients. We are drawing on our years of experience developing for the Microsoft platform, with 5 Microsoft Gold Competencies and 6 Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals.

Black Marble focuses on cloud-connected, next-generation user experiences, from wearables to Holograms, and has worked with police forces to produce holographic, virtual, mobile command and control centres in order to improve and enhance incident command, and to capture crime scenes to increase the integrity of evidence and allow future visits by other members of the justice system using HoloLens.

Black Marble has been extending our award-winning policing application for use via HoloLens, and Superintendent Nick Lyall of Bedfordshire Police said:

“As a public order and firearms commander I can say that without doubt the use of HoloLens, through tuServ will revolutionize policing for years to come. As a detective I can also say that its ability to scan crime scenes and create a mapped 3d version will allow for a reduction in cross contamination issues and allow for investigators to visualise in real time the scenes of major crime.

The vision and innovation of BM is ground-breaking and I look forward to taking this forward of behalf of UK policing and policing worldwide.”

Black Marble's James Mann on Channel 9

Mon, 27 Feb 2017 13:26:56 GMT

Black Marble's Data Platform MVP James Mann presented at UK TechDays Online, on the following topics:

Conversational UI using the Microsoft Bot Framework

The way in which we interact with companies and services is changing. In this session we're going to look at this shift, how it affects you and how Microsoft can get you creating real chat-bots TODAY using the Bot Framework. We'll cover what you need to know, what tools you can use and where to go in order to get started. It's not as hard as you think so tune in and become a Bot Builder for your organisation today!

Microsoft Bot Framework and Cognitive Services: Make your bot smarter!

The way in which we interact with companies and services is changing. In this session we'll cover common bot scenarios such as location and building forms - including common requirements like validation. Then we'll see how we can use Microsoft Cognitive Services to sprinkle AI magic on your bots and turn them from simple command-line pretenders to super-useful tools that customers will love. It's not as hard as you think so tune in and become a Bot Builder for your organisation today!

Presenting at Techorama 2017

Mon, 13 Feb 2017 00:33:28 GMT

Our Azure MVP Rik Hepworth is back at Techorama this year, presenting on "Azure Stack: A consistent Microsoft Cloud Story".

Now in its third year, Techorama is an international developer conference, created by 3 community-driven techies, that takes place in Belgium.

Release your inner dev child with DevOps

Mon, 06 Feb 2017 23:41:47 GMT

In the second of a series of podcasts by Paul Stringfellow, Technical Director of Gardner Systems, looking at emerging technology trends, he interviews our Engineering Director and Developer Tools MVP, Richard Fennell around DevOps.

Richard gives a great introduction for those looking to develop an initial understanding of DevOps and also some great practical steps you can take to get started.

James Mann Awarded Microsoft MVP for Data Platform

Wed, 01 Feb 2017 22:43:39 GMT

We are thrilled to announce that James Mann, one of our Senior Consultants, has been awarded Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for Data Platform.

Awarded in February, following the introduction of the new process for MVPs, James' award takes our MVP tally to 6, marking a real milestone for our team.

Making the announcement on Twitter, James said "Proud to be able to announce that as of today I am joining some amazing people in being an MVP!"

Black Marble back at UK TechDays Online

Tue, 31 Jan 2017 22:51:18 GMT

With our Azure MVP, and IT Director, Rik Hepworth once again hosting UK TechDays online, it returns on February 20-22 2017. Why not tune in?

Our newest MVP, James Mann, is presenting on "Conversational UI using the Microsoft Bot Framework" on Monday, with Rik joining Microsoft's Andrew Fryer to discuss "Server-less" in the afternoon.

Dare you enter... Server Room 13?

Thu, 01 Dec 2016 23:18:27 GMT

The Black Marble Christmas Story returns in 2016, with a spooky theme! Something is lurking in Server Room 13, is it friend, foe or founder?

We hope you enjoy this year's Christmas tale, inspired by many Christmas Ghost stories of the past.

Announcing Public Preview of TFS to VSTS Migrator

Wed, 16 Nov 2016 15:44:00 GMT

On Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2016, Microsoft demonstrated its vision of enabling the future of development with solutions that serve any developer, any application and any platform.

If you ever wondered, ‘how can I move my TFS installation to VSTS?’ without losing fidelity i.e. that the history of past changes do not get altered.

For many companies the implication of such moves meant they stayed on premises, with the neeed for regular updates and patching, and all that entails. These issue are often a particular problem for TFS which can strangely sit between Dev and IT where nobody seems to own the patching and maintenance.

This had all changed with the announcement of the public preview of the TFS to VSTS Migrator from Microsoft at Connect(). In essence this allows a TFS Team Project Collection to be imported to VSTS as new VSTS instance. This makes it sound simple, but this can be a complex process depending upon the levels of customisation that have been made to your on premise's TFS instance, and its current version. Hence, the process is Microsoft ALM/DevOps partner led, and I am pleased to say that Black Marble is one of those partners!

So if you have an on premise TFS and ...

your company strategy is cloud first and you want to migrate, with full history,
or you don’t want to patch your TFS server any more (or you stopped doing it some time ago)
or you just want to move to VSTS because it where all the cool new stuff is!

Black Marble is the Worldwide Partner of the Year 2016 for Developer Platform, and thus ideally placed to deliver this for you!

So please get in touch with Black Marble if you want to explore your options, and how our team of consultants can help.

Black Marble at Future Decoded 2016

Wed, 02 Nov 2016 12:08:09 GMT

The Black Marble attended Microsoft Future Decoded in London on the 1st and 2nd November 2016.

Robert Hogg, presented on 'Transforming Policing', and Richard Fennell & Rik Hepworth, presented on 'Living the Dream: Real World DevOps with VSTS and Azure'.

Check out our album of pictures, covering the highlights!

Architecture Forum 2016 - Agenda

Tue, 25 Oct 2016 10:25:53 GMT

Currently finalising the Agenda for our 9th Architecture Forum, and will update the content here as it is confirmed. Actual running order may vary.

Build your intelligent apps using Microsoft Cognitive Services with Galiya Warrier (@galiyawarrier)

In future applications would be able to see and talk to their users, understand what they're feeling, and may even be able to use foreign languages to communicate. Hold on, that's not the future, it is already here today. Add some lines of code and see how artificial intelligence can be used to make your apps smarter, more interesting and fun.

Galiya Warrier is a Cloud Solution Architect for Microsoft.

Could Your Next Employee be a Bot? with Gary Short (@garyshort)

Bots are fast becoming the acceptable face of Artificial Intelligence. As such, it is very likely that by the end of the decade your enterprise will be deploying bots in a range of roles. In this session I’ll demonstrate the use of a bot in an HR scenario and then we’ll explore the architecture that made this magic happen.

Gary Short is a Data Solution Architect for Microsoft. He specialises in machine learning and “big data” on the Azure Platform, but has an interest in data science, in all forms, especially computational linguistics and social network analysis.

Go Jump in a Lake with Andrew Fryer (@deepfat)

Azure Data Lake is Microsoft approach to big data analytics at petabyte scale. Data Lake has been in use for some time inside Microsoft as the engine behind Bing and MSN, but has only recently been put into preview for public use. The best way to understand what it does is to see how it works in action and so that is what we’ll do rather than use too many slides. So if you’re interested in doing big data rather than spending time spinning up clusters, and managing them you might find this interesting.

Andrew Fryer works in the Developer Experience and Evangelism Group in Microsoft UK as a technical specialist focusing on data management, manageability and security.

Managing Innovation in Communications – Lessons from the Industrial Revolution, with Martin Woodward (@martinwoodward)

A VC funded start-up are set about to revolutionise communication between the financial centres of the world, but at the same time they have to pioneer new science, broker peace between two nations recently engaged in a bitter war, harness the power of the largest machine ever built. And do all this in a lean, agile way. Oh yeah – and this happened 150 years ago. Find out what lessons we can learn today from the beginning of the first communications revolution of the industrial age.

Martin Woodward (@martinwoodward) is the Executive Director of the .NET Foundation and a Principal Program Manager on the .NET team. Before that Martin looked after the Linux and Mac tooling for Visual Studio Team Services and helped introduce Git into Microsoft.

Reimagining code quality with Visual Studio with Giles Davies (@VisualStudioUK)

The Visual Studio IDE has introduced or updated several capabilities to help you improve the quality of your code. This session will introduce Visual Studio 2017 and look at a mixture of existing and new features including:

Generating unit tests with IntelliTest
Live unit test
Live code analysis
Improved architectural validation

Giles Davies (@VisualStudioUK) works in the Developer Experience and Evangelism Group in Microsoft UK. His key interest is in the full Application Lifecycle Management and DevOps tooling using Visual Studio Team Services and Team Foundation Server. Giles started his development career with Microsoft technologies in the days of client/server applications before becoming an early adopter for Java, working with CORBA and subsequently J2EE. Having worked in the Java space for a number of organisations Giles joined Microsoft in 2008. Giles has had various roles including that of developer, technical lead, software architect, consultant and project manager. He has used a range of development processes including formal methods, Rational Unified Process and Scrum and is a regular speaker at both Microsoft and independent events.

Don't forget we have changed the venue - now at the Crowne Plaza in Leeds!

The HoloLens is now available in the UK!

Wed, 12 Oct 2016 10:00:00 GMT

Overwhelming developer and commercial demand for pioneering mixed reality experiences brings HoloLens to six new markets including France, Germany, Ireland and the United Kingdom.

"Since the launch of HoloLens we have seen really passionate developers and world-class companies develop ground breaking computing experiences, experiences only possible on HoloLens” said Alex Kipman, Technical Fellow, Microsoft Windows and Devices Group. “When we set out to pioneer the mixed reality category we knew that many of the best innovations would be discovered when others got their hands on the technology. It has been quite inspiring to see what our partners have built and what individual developers have created. Together, we have only scratched the surface for what mixed reality can do. I can’t wait to see what happens next as we welcome these new countries to our holographic landscape.”

Black Marble is fortunate to already have HoloLens devices, and is currently developing solutions for the platform. If you have a project in mind that you would like to discuss with us, please contact Hannah Ackroyd or call on +44 1274 300175.

Inspiring Students in Computing Back...

Mon, 10 Oct 2016 23:58:11 GMT

Our 'Inspiring Students in Computing' event is back!

Now in its 5th year, our event for local A'Level students is back; this time at a new location in the centre of Leeds.

As part of our Community Education activities, this event once again brings together luminaries in the field of computing to enthuse and inspire local A'Level students, with an aim to encouraging more to take up Computing as a career choice.

This year, we include:

Techincal writer and educator, Rob Miles, Twitter @robmiles
Executive Director of the .NET Foundation, Martin Woodward, Twitter: @martinwoodward
Microsoft Integration MVP Michael Stephenson, Twitter: @michael_stephen
Microsoft Tech Evangelist, Amy Nicholson, Twitter: @AmyKateNicho
Microsoft Tech Evangelist, Paul Foster, Twitter: @paulfo
Microsoft Data Solution Architect, Gary Short, Twitter: @garyshort
Microsoft Chief Envisioning Officer, Dave Coplin, Twitter: @dcoplin

If you are a teacher of A'Level Computer Science students, and are interested in bringing them along, please get in touch!

Don't forget, if you are regular attendee with your students, that we're now at a new location - Crowne Plaza, Leeds.

“The Crowne Plaza Hotel on Wellington Street in Leeds enjoys an excellent location in the heart of Leeds City Centre. The hotel has secure parking for 120 cars, 3 coaches and is easily reached via the M1, M621 and M62. We are also just a 10 minute walk from Leeds Train and Bus Station.”

Black Marble on the agenda at Microsoft Transform

Mon, 03 Oct 2016 12:39:02 GMT

We are delighted that our Managing Director Robert Hogg, and IT Director, Rik Hepworth, appeared on the same platform as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at Microsoft Transform.

With an overall theme of transformation, Robert and Rik spoke about how Black Marble has transformed frontline policing with our award-winning application tuServ, and what a difference it can make in the future.

Speaking at the conference, Satya Nadella said that artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning will soon become vital parts of society but maintained that they will still be controlled and shaped by humans for our benefit. “We are not building an AI-first world, we are building a people-first world with AI everywhere,” he told the digital-focused event in Canary Wharf. “Ultimately, technology is in the hands of humanity. It is up to us to imagine the future and shape it using technology.”

Brilliant Time at DDD North 2016

Sun, 02 Oct 2016 23:03:08 GMT

Saturday 1st October saw the return of DDD North to Leeds. Once again, we were overwhelmed by the interest and support in this event.

DDD North is a free one day technical event for developers. This is the sixth Developer! Developer! Developer! Community Event, and the tickets once again sold out in a really short space of time.

As a regular sponsor, and founder, our MVPs and staff regularly give up their time to support and contribute to these events, and the feedback received on Twitter has been so positive.

Rik is back as Microsoft Azure MVP!

Sat, 01 Oct 2016 12:36:28 GMT

Black Marble is delighted to announce that Rik Hepworth has been awarded Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for Azure for the third time.

This is great news, and a reflection on Rik's continued high quality contribution to the Azure community.

Rik joins fellow Black Marble MVPs Robert Hogg, Andy Dawson, Richard Fennell and James Croft, and all five will be attending the MVP Summit in November.

Black Marble on TechDays Online September 2016

Fri, 30 Sep 2016 13:27:30 GMT

Robert Hogg, Microsoft MVP and Regional Director, and Senior Consultant James Mann, presented on Day 1 of UK TechDays Online - they covered the Bot Framework over a 3-hour period with Microsoft's Simon Michael.

Richard was unable to attend the DevOps day in person, but recorded a session for transmission.

Rik Hepworth, fellow MVP, hosted on Day 4, and was joined by Richard Fennell, our resident DevOps expert.

All the sessions are now available on Ch9, and are listed below:

What is a BOT and how to create one... with Robert Hogg and James Mann.
BOTs: the benefits of this technology with Robert Hogg and James Mann.
BOTs: Everything else you need to know... Enjoy! with Robert Hogg and James Mann.
A whistle stop tour of Visual Studio Team Services and DevOps with Richard Fennell.
Dev/Test in the Cloud with Azure and Friends with Richard Fennell and Rik Hepworth.

And look what is the most watched session on Channel 9 stream for TechDays UK Online...!

Congratulations to James and Richard!

Fri, 01 Jul 2016 12:19:00 GMT

Great news for two of our MVPs - Richard Fennell has been renewed for the 9th time in Visual Studio and Development Technologies and James Croft for the 2nd time for Windows Platform Development.

A Warm Welcome to our New Starters

Mon, 20 Jun 2016 17:53:37 GMT

We are delighted to welcome aboard another slew of new starters.

This time we have Summer Interns, students experiencing a year in industry and full-time employees. They are in roles in test, development and Business Development.

They are a great asset to the business, and we look forward to working with them.

Black Marble wins the Worldwide Partner Award for Developer Platform

Tue, 31 May 2016 18:00:00 GMT

Black Marble recognised as winner for 2016 Microsoft Partner of the Year for Developer Platform.

Today Microsoft announced that Black Marble has won the 2016 Microsoft Partner of the Year for Developer Platform Award. The company was honoured among a global field of top Microsoft partners for demonstrating excellence in innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft technology.

"We were thrilled and delighted to be recognised for our success delivering Developer Platform solutions to our customers. We know the competition was tough, and it's an honour to be singled out from our peers on the global stage" - Linda Hogg, Black Marble.

Awards were presented in several categories, with winners chosen from a set of more than 2,500 entrants from 119 countries worldwide. Black Marble was recognised for providing outstanding solutions and services in the Developer Platform category.

“We are honoured to recognise Black Marble as this year’s winner of the 2016 Microsoft Developer Platform award,” said Gavriella Schuster, general manager, Worldwide Partner Group, Microsoft Corp. “Black Marble is a prime example of the excellent talent we see in our Microsoft partner community to deliver innovative and transformative solutions to our mutual customers.”

The Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards recognise Microsoft partners that have developed and delivered exceptional Microsoft-based solutions during the past year.

Please contact us if you would like to know more about our Developer Platform solutions.

The Developer Platform Partner of the Year Award recognises a partner who excels at delivering modern apps by innovatively leveraging the people, process, development tools and platforms to create, or support the creation of great software through the connected use of Visual Studio and Azure. The Partner has demonstrated a quantifiable impact on the customer’s business through software design, development, testing, ALM (application lifecycle management) and DevOps practices, with significant changes in terms of speed, quality, deployment, uptime, reduction in costs or organizational roadblocks, customer satisfaction improvements or other types of business or development impact.

SharePoint Migration - which way to go

Wed, 27 Apr 2016 11:14:17 GMT

Have you given any thought to your current version of SharePoint, and when it will come out of Microsoft official support? Are you considering moving to a later (or the latest!) version of SharePoint?

No matter what version of SharePoint you are currently running, we can help you through migrating to the next version, or the latest version, which has just been released. With our SharePoint expertise, and our thorough planning services, we can guide you through the process, ensuring you get the best possible outcome for your organisation. We can help you consolidate your SharePoint infrastructure, unifying your collaboration solution into one solid platform for the future.

On 24 May and the 21 June, we will be running our Reasons to Migrate events at Black Marble HQ. Get in touch for more details

Surface Hub now Shipping to Business Customers

Mon, 11 Apr 2016 14:22:56 GMT

On the 25th March 2016, Microsoft announced that the Surface Hub is now shipping to business customers.

Brian Hall, General Manager for Microsoft Devices Marketing said: "We are not just releasing a powerful device. We are releasing a team-empowering solution that will make meetings more productive, modernize workflows, and let people engage with data much better. We designed Surface Hub from the ground up for ink and touch, and harnessed the best collaboration and security features of Windows 10, Skype for Business, Office, OneNote and Universal Windows apps."

With our track record in developing for Windows and the Universal Windows Platform, Black Marble is ideally placed to create applications to run on Surface Hub, and in fact, we have already developed tuServ to run on it.

As well as Black Marble being highlighted by Microsoft as one of the first companies to develop for Surface Hub, they also produced this Case Study focusing on our approach. Our Managing Director, Robert Hogg said: "We genuinely feel that digital inking is one of the best features of Surface Hub. With an authenticated pen, a user can move between devices and the audit trail will work…. That oversight brings a lot of comfort to customers."

If you would like more information on Black Marble's Surface Hub development services, please get in touch.

Black Marble at Build 2016

Tue, 05 Apr 2016 23:37:04 GMT

The Black Marble team had an excellent time at Microsoft //build/ 2016. Great content, and side sessions in The Hub, lead to all-round positive feedback from the team.

You can check out our album on Facebook, including pictures of the team exploring HoloLens!

Robert Hogg renewed at MVP for 10th Year

Fri, 01 Apr 2016 23:32:42 GMT

Robert Hogg was once again awarded Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP), still with a focus on Integration and Connected Systems, but sitting under the Microsoft Azure banner.

Robert's tally is now 10 unbroken years as an MVP, as well as a Microsoft Regional Director.

Black Marble has 5 MVPs on staff.

Presenting at Techorama 2016

Sun, 06 Mar 2016 21:01:00 GMT

Our MVPs Richard Fennell and Rik Hepworth are back at Techorama this year, presenting on "Real world DevOps with Azure and VSTS".

Now in its third year, Techorama is an international developer conference, created by 3 community-driven techies, that takes place in Belgium.

Robert Hogg speaking at NDC London 2016

Fri, 08 Jan 2016 16:49:39 GMT

Robert Hogg is presenting on Day 3 of NDC London on the Internet of Things.

Since its start-up in Oslo 2008, the Norwegian Developers Conference (NDC) quickly became Europe`s largest conferences for .NET & Agile open space development. However, since then, the conference has come a long way. NDC take pride in doing things differently and aims to deliver the ultimate experience for developers. In December 2013 NDC did the first NDC London conference, and was a huge success, with it returning in January 2016 at ICC London at ExCeL. There 122 speakers, covering 31 technologies over 138 talks.

Andy Dawson awarded Microsoft MVP for Office Servers and Services

Fri, 08 Jan 2016 13:21:59 GMT

We are thrilled to announce that Dr. Andrew Dawson, our IT Manager and Consultant, has been awarded Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for Office Servers and Services.

Awarded in the January cycle, Andy's award takes our MVP tally to 5, turning Black Marble HQ into a veritable MVP Towers!

Making the announcement on Twitter, Andy said "Delighted and honoured to have been awarded an #MVP for 2016!"

Sessions from Future Decoded 2015 Now Live

Thu, 07 Jan 2016 17:02:28 GMT

The Future Decoded On Demand Hub is now live; access exclusive videos and resources from Future Decoded 2015. A landmark event, it featured some of the brightest minds sharing their views on what the future holds for business, society, leadership, technology and more. Including our Customer Success Story with Cambridgeshire Police exploring Innovation in Mobility for Lone Workers (scroll down to access).

Black Marble in the Government Digital Marketplace

Mon, 04 Jan 2016 17:08:38 GMT

The Government's Digital Marketplace enables organisations to deliver services that meet the evolving needs of government and public sector organisations. It comprises 3 frameworks to date, and Black Marble has been awarded a place on 2 of them: Digital Services and G-Cloud 7.

In 2013, Black Marble successfully became part of the Digital Services Framework, which includes specialists for work on specific digital projects, and again in 2015 on Digital Services 2.

In December 2015, Black Marble was awarded a place on G-Cloud 7 - the Government's latest cloud-services procurement framework.

Please get in touch if you would like more details.

Black Marble at the Panasonic Utilities Innovation Forum 2015

Tue, 17 Nov 2015 20:41:35 GMT

Black Marble is exhibiting and presenting at the Panasonic Utilities Innovation Forum, taking place in Liverpool on the 26th November.

Simon Parr, former Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire Constabulary, will be joining us to discuss innovations in mobility for lone workers.

If you are attending, pop by our stand and say hello!

Black Marble at the Smart City Expo

Tue, 17 Nov 2015 19:46:39 GMT

Black Marble is delighted to be participating in the Smart City Expo, as part of the Microsoft CityNext booth.

Featuring world renowned speakers, and popular side events, the Smart City Expo World Congress (SCEWC) attracts thousands each year, making it consistently the top event for exhibitors and visitors alike.  The SCEWC seeks to give everyone involved the chance to be inspired, share experience and knowledge, strive for innovation, network and do business.

As an award-winning partner for Public Sector: Public Safety and National Security, Black Marble was invited to participate in the Microsoft CityNext Booth - demonstrating tuServ and innovations for Lone Workers.

SCEWC takes place between 17th and 19th November at the Fira Barcelona, Gran Via.

Black Marble's Adventures at Future Decoded

Thu, 12 Nov 2015 20:28:11 GMT

Future Decoded returned in 2015, and Black Marble was there!

Our Managing Director Robert Hogg, MC'd the Microsoft patterns & practices Azure Architecture track with Christopher Bennage and Masashi Narumoto - it was very well received!

Robert also joined Jonathan Black, of Cambridgeshire Constabulary, in the Green Theatre to talk about Innovations in Mobility for Lone Workers.

We also had a stand in the Visual Studio UK zone, which was a great focal point for attendees looking to connect with the Black Marble team.

UK Azure Data Centres coming in 2016!

Tue, 10 Nov 2015 10:00:00 GMT

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, has announced that Azure Data Centres are coming to the UK in 2016. With this announcement, a major stumbling block for many UK organisations, particularly in the Public Sector, has been removed!

Black Marble is excited about the difference this will make to our customers, and look forward to helping them in their journey to the cloud.

Plus! Black Marble's tuServ will be available in the cloud from early 2016.

Get in touch for more details.

Rik Hepworth Renewed as MVP for Azure

Thu, 01 Oct 2015 15:51:55 GMT

Black Marble is delighted to announce that Rik Hepworth has been awarded Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for Azure for the second time.

This is great news, and a reflection on Rik's continued high quality contribution to the Azure community.

Rik joins fellow Black Marble MVPs Robert Hogg, Richard Fennell and James Croft, and all four will be attending the MVP Summit in November.

You can follow Rik on Twitter.

Architecture Forum 2015 - Agenda

Wed, 23 Sep 2015 01:31:41 GMT

Currently finalising the Agenda for our 8th Architecture Forum, and will update the content here as it is confirmed. Actual running order may vary.

.NET’s Voyage into Open Source - Martin Woodward, Executive Director, .NET Foundation

In 2014, Microsoft open sourced .NET Core, the .NET Compiler Platform (aka “Roslyn”) and launched the .NET Foundation. In this presentation, Martin Woodward will discuss the transition the .NET teams in Microsoft made into working in the open. He will also cover how development teams at Microsoft are adjusting to working in a new way and how the community has become an integral part of the .NET open ecosystem.

Martin Woodward is the Executive Director of the .NET Foundation where he helps foster open development and collaboration around .NET. He is also a Principle Program Manager on the .NET team in Microsoft. Before joining the .NET Foundation, Martin worked on the team that introduced Git into Visual Studio and was responsible for ensuring that Mac and Linux developers could be successful collaborating with Visual Studio Online and Team Foundation Server.

Understanding your application’s architecture with Visual Studio 2015 Code Maps - Giles Davies, DX Evangelist, Microsoft UK

Understanding your application’s architecture is key to both improving the architecture and being able to understand the impact of a change. Sometimes you won’t be very familiar with the codebase, or a part of it, and trying to visualise what you have can be challenging.

This session will show how Visual Studio 2015 Code Maps can be used to understand the overall architecture of an application and to understand the impact of a potential change using dependency maps and drilling progressively deeper into the architecture all the way down to the code level.

Giles Davies works in the Developer Experience and Evangelism Group in Microsoft UK as a technical specialist covering Visual Studio, Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio Online. Giles has had various roles including that of developer, technical lead, software architect, consultant and project manager. He has used a range of development processes including formal methods, Rational Unified Process and Scrum and is a regular speaker at both Microsoft and independent events.

Cortana Analytics Suite - The World of Disappearing Technology - Andrew Fryer, Data Evangelist, Microsoft UK

One slide, 20 technologies and one girl. During this session we will show you that any specifically advanced technology will ultimately disappear into your apps, making them smarter and more relevant.

Andrew Fryer works in the Developer Experience and Evangelism Group in Microsoft UK as a technical specialist focusing on data management, manageability and security.

Nano Server in Windows Server 2016 - how to 'contain' your excitement with Ed Baker

Windows Server 2016 is currently in Technical Preview and brings with it a tiny headless server called ‘nano’ as well as the much acclaimed ‘container’ technology. This session will explain and demonstrate both these ground breaking revolutionary advances in the Microsoft Server family.

Ed Baker is an Infrastructure Technical Evangelist with Microsoft UK. This takes him all round the UK presenting and demonstrating the latest and greatest things in Microsoft Server and Client technology as well as all things Azure.

The Intelligence of your Things - Azure IoT Suite - Amy Nicholson

The Internet of Things (IoT) starts with your things—the things that matter most to your business. IoT is at an inflection point where the right technologies are coming together and we are able to connect devices to the cloud and leverage streams of data that was previously out of reach.

In this session we will look at how early adopting businesses are leveraging the IoT trend and the architectures they are using with Azure IoT Suite and Cortana Analytics. Welcome to the Internet of Your Intelligent Things.

Amy is a Technical Evangelist at Microsoft after completing a Computer Science degree and an internship at Bing, Microsoft’s search engine. She is passionate about data science and IoT and always keen to share experiences and expertise with like-minded individuals and organisations. She blogs, presents and you’ll find her online at TechNet and Techdays Online, as well as in person at events like the Data Culture series. You can follow her on Twitter and on her blog.

Real world 2 speed IT - Powered by Microsoft Azure & Integration with Michael Stephenson

In this session Mike will discuss some of the aspects of a 2 speed IT model which can be enhanced through the use of the cloud. Mike will also use some innovative demos combining the Microsoft Azure Cloud and Minecraft to simulate business scenarios from real world projects where Microsoft Azure has been used to supercharge the sprinter teams in a 2 speed delivery model.

Black Marble at the Worldwide Partner Conference 2015

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 01:32:08 GMT

It was a whirlwind week for the Black Marble team at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Orlando this week.

Celebrating not one, but two global Partner of the Year awards, Black Marble had a hectic schedule from the start. We started with a pre-day with the ALM team, and continued throughout the week, with Keynotes, sessions, and meetings lasting from 7am and finishing during the evening with celebrations at the Disney Park!

We have put together an album of our highlights on Facebook!

Microsoft Release tuServ Video Case Study

Thu, 16 Jul 2015 11:22:10 GMT

Microsoft has highlighted how tuServ enables Cambridgeshire Constabulary to save time and money.

Developed by Black Marble and delivered on Microsoft devices, including tablet and phone, Superintendent Andy Gipp explains "With tuServ, we have the tool that allows us to be better cops and deliver a better service to the public."

They have produced an excellent video case study, highlighting our work with Cambridgeshire Constabulary.

Digital Detective - tuServ on the Microsoft Partner Story Website

Mon, 13 Jul 2015 00:55:12 GMT

tuServ, our mobile policing application developed for the Windows Platform has been profiled on the Microsoft Partner Story website. This site highlights interesting and innovative stories from Micrsooft partners globally.

During the week of the Worldwide Partner Conference, the story focusing on tuServ was showcased, find out more directly on the Partner Story site.

Plus, the story was further highlighted via the presence of a huge banner in the WPC Expo hall!

Congratulations to our July MVPs

Wed, 01 Jul 2015 02:01:55 GMT

Congratulations to Richard Fennell, renewed for the 8th time as an ALM MVP! And to James Croft on being awarded MVP for Windows Platform Development - first time MVP! With Robert Hogg and Rik Hepworth, that takes us to 4!

Surface Hub Available to Order in July 2015

Tue, 16 Jun 2015 12:12:57 GMT

Microsoft has announced that the Surface Hub is coming to 24 Markets (including the UK) and businesses can order devices from 1^st July at $6,999 for the 55-inch and $19,999 for the 84-inch, for shipping in September. The Surface Hub is the result of several teams across Microsoft thinking holistically across hardware, software and cloud services to design a new kind of productivity experience to meet the needs of today’s modern workforce.

Please get in touch if you would like to register your interest now for more details as they become available in the next few months!

Black Marble Wins Two Microsoft Global Partner Awards 2015

Tue, 02 Jun 2015 18:36:56 GMT

Black Marble takes home two awards in the prestigious Microsoft Worldwide Partner Awards 2015!

Our first award is for Public Sector: Public Safety and National Security, which recognises partners who excel in providing public safety, national security, and defense (PS&NS) customers with innovative and unique services or solutions based on Microsoft technologies. Black Marble won this award for tuServ - our innovative mobile policing application.

Our second award is for Windows 8 Custom App Developer Partner of the Year, which recognises a partner for exceptional innovation in application development on the Windows 8 phone and tablet platforms that delivers outstanding customer business value.

Phil Sorgen, corporate vice president, Worldwide Partner Group, Microsoft Corp said "Microsoft’s success as a company is dependent upon our ecosystem of great partners, and Black Marble is a shining example of the kind of innovation our partners continue to drive year after year." He expands on the awards on his blog.

To top off a great year for Black Marble, we were also a Finalist in the highly competitive category of UK Country Partner of the Year.

Black Marble back from Ignite 2015

Tue, 12 May 2015 19:51:15 GMT

The Black Marble team had a great time at Ignite 2015 - it was a great first outing for the new Microsoft mega-conference, among 23,000 other attendees!

Check out our album on Facebook to find out more about our adventures, and join us on 20th May for our ReIgnite event to find out more about the highlights!

Black Marble back from Build 2015

Fri, 08 May 2015 19:39:00 GMT

The Black Marble team had a great time at //build/ - attending sessions, trying out HoloLens and making the most of the Californian weather!

Check out our album on Facebook to find out more about our adventures, and join us on 20th May for our ReBuild event to find out more about the highlights!

Robert Hogg renewed as MVP for 9th Year!

Wed, 01 Apr 2015 15:00:00 GMT

We are delighted to announce that Robert Hogg, our Managing Director, has been renewed for the 9th time as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP).

Recognised for his community contributions, Robert is also a Microsoft Regional Director.

tuServ at the Home Office Security and Policing Event

Thu, 05 Mar 2015 17:12:40 GMT

Since its inception over 30 years ago Security & Policing has provided a platform for professionals from the UK and across the world to engage with the very highest level of security expertise.

The event is aimed at police, law enforcement and security professionals who are tasked with security, civil protection and National Resilience. Security & Policing showcases world leading products and services, taking advantage of the unique opportunity to bring together people with operational needs with companies that have the relevant solutions, all within a secure environment.

Black Marble is delighted to announce that tuServ will be exhibited at the event, in the Government Zone, alongside Cambridgeshire Constabulary, as well as on the Microsoft stand.

If you would like more details, please contact us.

Off to Build, Ignite and WPC

Mon, 09 Feb 2015 19:43:19 GMT

We can confirm that we are sending teams to the three premier Microsoft conferences taking place in 2015.

This includes Build, the conference for software developers on the Microsoft platform - attendees include our MD, Robert Hogg, our IT Director Rik Hepworth and a team of dedicated developers and designers. And an always welcome return to San Francisco.

Straight after Build, we have a team attending Ignite, to talk cloud infrastructure and management, productivity, big data and the internet of things, unified communications, mobility and more. First time in Chicago for a conference for our team.

Finally, Robert and the Sales team are off to WPC in Orlando in July!

A great year ahead for conferences, and hope to see you there.

Robert Hogg made Microsoft Regional Director

Fri, 06 Feb 2015 19:38:28 GMT

We are delighted to announce that our MD, Robert Hogg, an 8-times recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award, has been further recognised for his community evangelism by being made a Microsoft Regional Director.

A small global group of individuals, recognised for their tireless evangelism for the software development and IT community, we are honoured for Robert to be further recognised in this way.

Black Marble at Tech Days Online 2015

Fri, 06 Feb 2015 16:22:18 GMT

Black Marble MVPs Rik Hepworth and Richard Fennell presented this week at the very successful Microsoft TechDays Online 2015.

Both presented, and both helped out behind the scenes in the moderation room, fielding questions from the audience.

Pictures courtesy of screen grabs, @TechNetUK, @MSDevUK and Microsoft's Andrew Fryer (@deepfat).

Intel Publish Case Study on Black Marble's tuServ

Mon, 02 Feb 2015 12:47:48 GMT

Black Marble is delighted to announce that Intel has published a case study into our work with Cambridgeshire Constabulary.

Cambridgeshire Constabulary had a requirement to create a mobile solution, and having selected Lenovo tablet devices powered by Intel Core i5 and Atom processors, they engaged Black Marble to create a cryptographically secure application for their officers.

Delivered across tablet and phone, tuServ is a game-changing application for officers, revolutionising how they gather and manage their information.

Richard Fennell and Rik Hepworth speaking at Techorama 2015

Tue, 27 Jan 2015 18:00:00 GMT

We are delighted to announce that Richard Fennell and Rik Hepworth are both speaking at the European Conference, Techorama, taking placing in Belgium on the 12th and 13th May.

It is Rik's debut, and Richard's second time at the conference in this format, but third time overall.

It is an excellent line-up of speakers and ticket sales will start at February 2, 2015 (9 AM) via Eventbrite.

Rik Hepworth Speaking at SQL Bits

Tue, 20 Jan 2015 18:45:05 GMT

Rik Hepworth has joined the line-up for SQL Bits 2015!

SQLBits is a conference that various members of the Black Marble team attend regularly and rave about. It’s the event if you want to gain knowledge and insight into all aspects of databases and data management, reporting, BI and more. Microsoft are a platinum sponsor of the event this year and some big names are flying in to present.

Rik will be talking about virtual networks and virtual machines in Azure. Whilst not directly DB-related, it’s an important topic these days when designing the architecture for your application.

Martin Beeby Joins our TechUpdate Line-up

Thu, 15 Jan 2015 19:09:46 GMT

Microsoft DX Evangelist Martin Beeby is joining the line-up for our Annual TechUpdate on the 29th January.

Martin Beeby works for Microsoft where he talks to developers about HTML5, Windows 8 and the web. Martin has been developing since he was 16 and over the past 16 years has worked on projects with many Major brands.

Martin has written articles for, and been featured in, .NET Magazine, ZDNet, the Microsoft Developer Network, Ubelly.com and Windows Magazine.

Martin is joining our MVPs, Robert Hogg, Richard Fennell and Steve Spencer during the afternoon session for developers - why not register to attend?

The morning session for IT Pros, features MVP Rik Hepworth and our top IT team Andy Dawson and Andy Davidson - again, why not register?

Black Marble presenting at TechDays Online!

Sat, 10 Jan 2015 18:49:06 GMT

TechDays Online is three days (and one evening, this year) of technical content delivered by MVPs and Microsoft evangelists across a broad range of topics, streamed live.

Each day covers a different topic area and is lead by one of the Microsoft DX team. Tuesday is led by Ed Baker and is around Devices and managing a mobile first world. Rik Hepworth will be talking about Azure Active Directory, and Robert Hogg is doing a session on Internet of Things with Microsoft's Paul Foster.

Tuesday evening is An evening with Office 365.

Wednesday sees Andrew Fryer curating The Journey to the cloud-first world and Friday, Martin Beeby is in the chair for Multi-device cross platform development. Richard Fennell presents on the final day.

Don't forget to register!

Tech Update Returns on 29 January

Thu, 08 Jan 2015 23:10:13 GMT

Join us at The Holiday Inn on 29 January for our annual Technical Update for Microsoft Technologies.

The morning is focusing on IT Pros, and while it is filling up fast, there are still some spaces!

The afternoon is all about the Developer, and again, still some places going!

Robert Hogg and Rik Hepworth awarded in the IT Pro New Year Honours!

Mon, 05 Jan 2015 23:17:40 GMT

We are delighted to announce that Robert Hogg and Rik Hepworth have been included in the New Year's Honours, awarded by Microsoft TechNet UK!

Both MVPs, it's great news to see their community work and support of the UK IT Pro community recognised, and it's a great list to be included on.

Robert has written up his thoughts about it.

Join us at our Christmas Open Day!

Wed, 10 Dec 2014 23:27:29 GMT

Please join us at BM HQ on the 17 December for our Open Day!

Come along for the bacon butties and mince pies, and stay to chat to our staff. You can be sure of a warm welcome!

RSVP by emailing lisa@blackmarble.com to confirm.

Merry Christmas!

Black Marble Awarded Microsoft ALM Partner of the Year for Ireland!

Tue, 18 Nov 2014 17:17:03 GMT

Black Marble was over the moon to receive the Microsoft ALM Partner Award for Ireland today at the European ALM Summit, held in Barcelona.

On hand to receive the award was our MD, Robert Hogg, our BDM Director, Lisa Hancock, and our Microsoft ALM MVP and ALM Ranger, Richard Fennell.

Delighted with the win, Richard said "A terrific outcome for us, and a big thank you to the team at Microsoft in Ireland who have always supported us!"

Black Marble at Future Decoded

Thu, 13 Nov 2014 16:17:57 GMT

Black Marble was delighted to participate in Future Decoded, Microsoft UK's premier conference run in London on the 10th - 12th November.

On the Monday, following keynotes by Jeremy Paxman, Stella Rimmington and Martin Sorrell, and a Q&A with Satya Nadella, Black Marble's MD, Robert Hogg, presented with Cambridgeshire Constabulary on tuServ, and mobile computing in the Police. Plus Rik Hepworth demonstrated it on the Enterprise Mobility stand.

Great conversations and session on the Tuesday, the Partner day.

Following another series of great keynotes on the Wednesday, Robert presented once again in the Mobility Track, and Rik in the DevOps track. Each session went well. We also had a stand in the Visual Studio Village.

To top it off, we had some of our teams attend sessions to learn from the experts presenting, ensuring we had a well-rounded experience of Future Decoded.

Why not check out our Future Decoded album?

Steve Spencer speaking at DunDDD

Wed, 05 Nov 2014 16:31:55 GMT

Black Marble's Development Director, and Microsoft Azure MVP Steve Spencer has been selected to speak at DunDDD, taking place in Dundee on the 29th November.

Steve's session is 'Migrating Azure Cloud Services to Azure Websites and Webjobs', and there is an outline below:

The Azure platform is evolving and the introduction of Websites and Web jobs has made the platform more flexible from a deployment perspective. Deploying applications to Azure cloud services is often a time consuming and inflexible process. This talk will introduce website and web jobs and discuss migrating an existing cloud service application to websites and web jobs.

You can check out the Agenda online.

You can also register online.

Black Marble and Data Culture

Wed, 05 Nov 2014 13:57:41 GMT

Microsoft Data Culture series – Black Marble is participating in Microsoft’s Data Culture series of events, to showcase the Microsoft Data Platform, Business Intelligence and Analytics capabilities.

Why not join us?

ALM with Visual Studio and TFS 2013 - Leeds

Mon, 03 Nov 2014 13:46:58 GMT

We are hosting the UK Visual Studio team evangelists Giles Davies and Colin Beales at our offices on 26^th November, with a full day of demo-driven Visual Studio and TFS content. Some places are still available if you want to join us – lunch and refreshments included.

Update (14 November) - this event has now gone to a waiting list, but we are planning to run it again in February/March 2015.

Great time at TechEd EMEA

Fri, 31 Oct 2014 16:24:37 GMT

Black Marble once again sent a full team along to TechEd EMEA, which took place this month in Barcelona.

Great sessions, delivered by experts, ensuring our team enjoyed the full experience, and came back energised for their work going forward.

Why not check out our TechEd album?

Rik Hepworth Awarded MVP for Azure

Wed, 01 Oct 2014 15:00:00 GMT

We are delighted to announce Rik Hepworth, our IT Director, has been awarded MVP in Azure! Rik joins Robert Hogg (Microsoft Integration), Richard Fennell (ALM) and Steve Spencer (Azure) as an MVP at Black Marble.

You can follow Rik on Twitter.

Architecture Forum in the North 2014

Wed, 01 Oct 2014 13:39:28 GMT

We're delighted that are Architecture Forum in the North is back for its 7th year, on 10 December at The Holiday Inn, between Leeds and Bradford. Note, this is about 1 week later than usual!

On our agenda this year is:

Andrew Barratt - Managing Director, Coalfire Systems.
Simon Carter - BAE Systems.
Andrew Fryer - Evangelist, Microsoft.
Gary Short - Data Scientist.
Phil Winstanley - Microsoft.
Jonathan Woodward - Microsoft.

You can register online. Look forward to seeing you there!

Black Marble and DDD North 2014

Mon, 01 Sep 2014 13:19:37 GMT

Black Marble is delighted to once again be a Platinum Sponsor for DDD North. Now in its 4th year, and running at the University of Leeds, it is a great opportunity for the developer community to come together and share their knowledge.

It welcomes new speakers and old hands, and the sessions are selected democratically, through voting.

Black Marble was lucky enough to get three sessions on the 25-strong agenda:

Robert Hogg (speaking with Iain Angus) - The Internet of Things, thought about it? Now try it.

Richard Fennell - What is Desired State Configuration and how does it help me?

Riccardo Viglianisi - Visual Studio CodedUI: Improving Resilience in your Automated tests.

Plus, we always have a great team on hand to support and run the day!

Our New Website!

Sat, 30 Aug 2014 00:00:00 GMT

It’s been a while, but our website has been given a revamp – new look, responsive design and bringing a modern UI to the Black Marble brand. Plus it stays loyal to our values and allows our personality to shine through. Built by our own team on Umbraco, and hosted on Azure Websites, we are delighted with the results.

Black Marble achieves Intelligent Systems Competency

Thu, 28 Aug 2014 00:00:00 GMT

We are pleased to announced that we have achieved Silver in Intelligent Systems, the Microsoft Competency that deals with the Internet of Things.

Intelligent systems solutions are end-to-end solutions that connect industry devices to back-end systems and drive business intelligence. With our additional competencies in Business Intelligence, Application Integration and Application Development, we are ideally placed to generate these solutions.

Black Marble off to TechEd Europe

Wed, 27 Aug 2014 00:00:00 GMT

We're taking a full team to TechEd in Barcelona this year! Look forward to seeing you there.

TechEd Europe is Microsoft’s premier technology conference for IT Professionals and Enterprise Developers, providing the technical education, product evaluation, and community resources to plan, architect, deploy, manage and secure a connected enterprise.

Black Marble Awarded Gold in the Microsoft Application Development Competency

Wed, 02 Jul 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble is delighted to be awarded the Gold standard for the Microsoft Application Development Competency. We have been awarded Gold, because we have demonstrated the highest, most specialised ability and commitment in Application Development, offering best-in-class solutions to customers and undergoing a rigorous approval process.

We have proven our expertise in developing innovative applications using Microsoft platform technologies, including Windows Server and Windows 8 operating systems, the Windows Azure platform, Microsoft Visual Studio development system, and emerging cloud-based and web business models.

Black Marble has also been awarded the Silver standard for the Microsoft Business Intelligence Competency, showing we are delivering solutions that address your specific reporting and analysis requirements at all levels of business, and across multiple devices.

Richard Fennell is an MVP for the seventh year in a row!

Tue, 01 Jul 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Richard Fennell, our Engineering Director, has been awarded the status of Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) in Visual Studio for the seventh year in a row.

In 2011 Richard was invited by Microsoft to become a Virtual Technology Solutions Professional (V-TSP) and has been an ALM Ranger since 2010.

Well done, Richard!

Black Marble Team Grows by 5 new Staff Members

Mon, 02 Jun 2014 00:00:00 GMT

We are delighted to announce 5 new recruits join the Black Marble team today.

With 2 new software developers (James Croft and James Stoker) and 2 new software developers in test (Ben Outram and Peter Roberts), the development team is growing steadily. Plus our Sales team has grown with Amy Gwyther joining as an Assistant Business Development Manager.

Black Marble at Build 2014

Wed, 02 Apr 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble is attending Build 2014 in San Francisco, with a team of our top consultants.

Black Marble attendees at Build include Directors Robert Hogg, Steve Spencer and Rik Hepworth.

You can follow us on Twitter and on Facebook, to keep up to date with our activities and news!

Robert Hogg and Steve Spencer renewed as MVPs

Tue, 01 Apr 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble’s Managing Director Robert Hogg and our Development Director Steve Spencer have been renewed as Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs).

Robert is now in his eighth year as an MVP, currently for Microsoft Integration, and Steve is in his fourth, currently for Microsoft Azure.

Black Marble get Manchester Car Park Finder App into Windows Phone Store

Sat, 01 Feb 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble have created a Car Park Finder app using the Transport for Greater Manchester data feeds to enable anyone in and around Manchester to find nearby car parks. Plus it provides turn by turn guidance to the car park.

Black Marble is off to SharePoint and Build Conferences

Wed, 01 Jan 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble is taking a team to the SharePoint Conference in March, and Build, Microsoft's Premier Developer Conference in April.

Shape-Shifting Santa and the Merry Mutation Machine

Sun, 01 Dec 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Following the success of last year's Christmas Card - this year, our artistic team has surpassed themelves with the epic story, 'Shape Shifting Santa and the Merry Mutation Machine'.

Specially commissioned, the book tells the tale of how (once again) the Black Marble Brigade save Father Christmas with the aid of the following Microsoft teams: Azure, Kinect for Windows, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and Visual Studio. Plus this year, we have the added sponsor - Artisan du Chocolat!

Plus Black Marble makes a donation to both Bletchley Park and The National Museum of Computing for every card we send!

Not got your own copy yet? Simply like us on Facebook and send us your address and we will send you your own copy!

Black Marble gets Channel 5 Windows Phone 8 App in Store!

Sun, 03 Nov 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Fantastic tv-on-demand Windows Phone 8 app for Channel 5 now in store. Designed by Tricky Business, and built by Black Marble, this is available to download now.

Black Marble also produced the Windows 8 Demand 5 app.

Don’t forget to get in touch with Black Marble if you want to find out how we can help you get your own Windows 8 or Windows Phone 8 app developed for your business.

Richard Fennell Guest Blog on MSDN on VPNs and Azure

Sat, 02 Nov 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble's Engineering Director, and resident ALM MVP Richard Fennell has a Guest Blog Post on MSDN, covering How VPNs can help you use your MSDN Azure benefits with TFS Lab Management.

For more information on Windows Azure and how Black Marble can help, call Lisa on 01274 300175.

You can follow Richard on Twitter.

Black Marble helps Manchester with Open Data on Azure

Fri, 01 Nov 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble's project with Transport for Greater Manchester is highlighted by Microsoft in a Video Case Study as part of the CityNext programme.

Transport for Greater Manchester selected top Windows Azure Microsoft Partner Black Marble to assist in making their transport data open - providing real-time information to app developers throughout the UK.

Microsoft previously featured the project in a written Case Study.

For more information on how Black Marble can work with your organisation to create an Open Data framework please contact Katy on 01274 300175.

Visual Studio 2013 Official Launch on 13 November

Wed, 02 Oct 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Join Black Marble for the Official Live Launch of Visual Studio 2013

We will be live-streaming the Official Visual Studio Live Launch on 13 November 2013 at our offices. Why not join us?

Refreshments will be served, and our Visual Studio consultants will be available to talk through any questions you may have.

Black Marble at DDD North 2013

Tue, 01 Oct 2013 00:00:00 GMT

As well as being a Premium Sponsor of DDD North, several Black Marble team members are speaking on the agenda - Richard Fennell, Gary Short, Steve Spencer and Rik Hepworth - and with a Grok Talk - Robert Hogg and Leon Nightingale.

Plus, a large contingent of Black Marble staff are attending, supporting DDD North, as the premier Developer Community event running in the North of England.

If you want to speak to anyone about Black Marble on the day, look out for Linda Hogg who is usually located at the registration desk.

Black Marble in The Times with TfGM and Azure

Sun, 01 Sep 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble's work with Transport for Greater Manchester using Windows Azure and leveraging Big Data has been highlighted this week in The Times. It can be viewed on-line.

It focuses on the benefits to Manchester for the opening up of transport data, to enable developers to be creative with apps and games to inform and entertain the consumers.

Great Speakers on board for new Series of Black Marble Events

Fri, 02 Aug 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble's new season of events kicks off on 25 September with our ReBuild session - a round-up of the key news from //Build in San Francisco earlier this summer. Speakers include Microsoft's Mike Taulty and Andy Wigley.

Also on the 25 September, is our TechEd Revisited - a round-up of the announcements from TechED 2013, with Martin Woodward and Andrew Fryer.

Finally, on board for the Architecture Forum on 4 December are Andrew Fryer, Giles Davies, Simon Thurman and Paul Foster.

Microsoft Launches Black Marble and TfGM Case Study as part of their CityNext Campaign

Tue, 02 Jul 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Greater Manchester wanted to improve its transportation services by creating mobile device apps that travellers could use to better plan, manage, and enjoy their journeys. Transport for Greater Manchester decided to make its data publicly available and Black Marble used Windows Azure to create and host a real-time open data platform. Third-party developers are using this platform to create a wide range of apps that make it easier and more enjoyable to use Greater Manchester’s public transport network.

You can view the Case Study online.

Richard Fennell is an MVP for the sixth year in a row!

Mon, 01 Jul 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Hot on the heels of Steve Spencer being renewed as an Azure MVP, Richard Fennell, our Engineering Director, has been awarded the status of Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) in Visual Studio for the sixth year in a row.

In 2011 Richard was invited by Microsoft to become a Virtual Technology Solutions Professional (V-TSP) and has been an ALM Ranger since 2010.

Well done, Richard!

Microsoft Highlights Black Marble's Award-winning Solution for the John Lewis Partnership

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Microsoft's Enterprise Insights Blog focuses our on award-winning, Azure and Windows 8 based, shoe store solution for the John Lewis Partnership. Following our win at the Great British Innovation in Retail Awards, we are now progressing with a Pilot project for John Lewis, focusing on several key stores.

The Enterprise Insights Blog highlights the work we are doing across the Microsoft Platform to make this solution a reality.

Black Marble at the Worldwide Partner Conference

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble's Robert Hogg is taking our Business Development Team to the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) 2013 in Houston in July.

We are looking forward to making new connections, and renewing the old!

Black Marble creates a solution in the Cloud for Transport for Greater Manchester

Sun, 02 Jun 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) wanted to open up their transport data to partners and developers so they could create applications to run on a range of mobile devices and services. They approached Black Marble to create a rapid development platform based on Windows Azure to provide a scalable, resilient and cost-effective solution.

You can read our Case Study to find out more about our solution and the technologies involved or visit the TfGM Open Data project website.

Black Marble at Build

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 00:00:00 GMT

We are attending Microsoft's premier Developer Conference in San Francisco - Build, with a team of 10+ attendees, including Directors Robert Hogg, Steve Spencer and Rik Hepworth.

You can follow us on Twitter and Facebook to keep up to date with our activities and views!

Gary Short joins the Black Marble Team bring Data Science to the Fore

Wed, 01 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

MVP and former DevExpress and Gibraltar Labs evangelist Gary Short is joining Black Marble to Head up our Data Science practice. Gary specialises in Big Data and Data Science, and we are looking forward to increasing our focus in this area in the coming months.

Follow Gary on Twitter @GaryShort.

Black Marble is taking a team to Build

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble is taking a team to Microsoft’s Premier Developer Conference – Build Windows in San Francisco in June. Follow us on Twitter for updates on all the news and announcements at the conference.

MVP Renewal for Steve Spencer and Robert Hogg

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT

We are delighted that Microsoft has decided to once again to give their Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award to our MD Robert Hogg and Development Director Steve Spencer.

Robert is now in his 7th year as an MVP, and Steve in his third.

Azure Global Bootcamp Coming to Yorkshire

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble is hosting the Yorkshire Chapter of the Global Windows Azure Bootcamp taking place in 40+ locations globally at the same time.

Organised by and for the community, April 27th, 2013, comes with the possibility of joining a Windows Azure Bootcamp on your doorstep. This one day deep dive class will get you up to speed on developing for Windows Azure. The class includes a trainer with deep real world experience with Windows Azure, as well as a series of labs so you can practice what you just learned.

You can register here but please be sure to look carefully over the prerequisites.

Black Marble MVPs off to the MVP Summit at Microsoft Corp

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble MVPs, Robert Hogg, Steve Spencer and Richard Fennell are off to the MVP Global Summit later this month.

Featuring more than 400 technical sessions, Robert, Steve and Richard get to spend time with their peers from around the world, receive access to exclusive technical content, participate in direct feedback sessions, and meet with Microsoft executives and product groups.

You can follow them on Twitter:

Black Marble Takes its Flagship Tech Update to London

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT

In its tenth anniversary year, Black Marble is taking its Technical Update to London. Specifically focusing on organisations in the Public Sector, this event explains the Microsoft Roadmap across the whole platform. It addresses how the products connect, what happened to them in the past 12 months, including why you might have missed and what is due in the 2013.

A must attend event for all IT Managers, Business and Technical Decision Makers, to ensure you know what to expect, so you can plan your year ahead. This event takes place at Microsoft’s offices in London (100 Victoria Street, SW1E 5JL), and you can register here.

Black Marble’s Technical Update has been running in Yorkshire for 10 years.

Previous feedback:

"Excellent as ever. Really useful update and good to see which direction Microsoft are going as well as reminding me what Black Marble is good at."

"Lot of information well presented and summarised as always."

"Good dynamic and pace. Appropriate level of detail."

"Excellent event - right balance between marketing pitch and technical overview. Good working examples of how the IT can help the business."

Black Marble gets Channel 5 Windows 8 App in Store

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Fantastic tv-on-demand Windows 8 app for @channel5_tv now in store. Designed by Tricky Business, and built by Black Marble, this is available to download now.

Don’t forget to get in touch with Black Marble if you want to find out how we can help you get your own Windows 8 app developed for your business.

Black Marble is a Certified MAAP Delivery Partner for Windows 8

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Are you interested in having a Windows 8 Application developed? Black Marble has been certified by Microsoft as part of the Microsoft Application Acceleration Programme (MAAP) to deliver Windows 8 solutions for their customers.

If your organisation has a Microsoft account manager then you may be eligible for assisted funding for the development of a line-of-business Windows 8 Application. Please get in touch with your Account Manager or with Black Marble (01274 300175) for more information and for guidance on whether your company is eligible.

Black Marble has already completed several successful MAAP projects in the UK, and our team of Windows 8 Developers and Designers are ready to bring their knowledge and experience to bear on your application

Join us in January 2013 for More Great Events!

Sun, 02 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Once the holiday season is out of the way, don’t forget to join us in January for more great events.

It kicks off on 17 January with What’s New in Windows Azure, taking place at Black Marble HQ. Then on the 30th January, we have a full day dedicated to our Annual Technical Update – a Roadmap for all things Microsoft. So much has come out in the past 12 months, and so much more on the cards, that we are splitting the day into two. The morning is focusing on IT Managers and the afternoon on the Developers’ story. Join us at The Holiday Inn in Tong!

Twas the Night before Christmas

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

To celebrate 15 years of Black Marble this Christmas we have put together a special limited Edition Christmas based on the classic ‘A Visit by St. Nicholas’, more usually known by its first line: T’was the night before Christmas. There was been a fantastic response, some of which we have collated here, but includes: ‘Awesome! Simply awesome!’, ‘They surpassed themselves this year’ and ‘… quite frankly the best Christmas card I’ve received for years!’.

Specially commissioned, the book tells the tale of how the Black Marble Brigade save Christmas once again, ably supported by the following Microsoft teams: Visual Studio, PixelSense, Microsoft Virtual Academy, Windows Azure and of course Windows 8. Plus we have included links on our website for images you can print out and colour-in (for your kids, right?).

Plus Black Marble makes a donation to both Bletchley Park and The National Museum of Computing for every card we send!

Not got your own copy yet? Simply like us on Facebook and send us your address and we will send you your own copy!

Black Marble wins the Inaugural JLP Great British Innovation in Retail Award 2012

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

We are delighted to announce that Black Marble won the inaugural John Lewis Great British Innovation in Retail Award, 2012.

John Lewis has invited some of the most innovative and exciting British technology companies and universities to work with them to solve key business challenges through innovation. Through a day of presentations to a panel of expert Judges, Black Marble won with a solution focusing to address issues in Queue Management, with a particular reference to children’s shoes.

Paul Coby, IT Director for John Lewis, said in his blog (4 September 2012): “We want to build on our heritage of British innovation in technology to build commercial success in the new emerging omni-channel world of retail. We are aiming to build up an “eco-system” of John Lewis technology partners in retail innovation.”

Black Marble’s Richard Fennell and Jessica Armitage with John Lewis IT Director Paul Coby, and a Microsoft Surface!

Andrew Spooner from Microsoft Joins the Agenda of Black Marbles Windows 8 Event

Sun, 04 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Creative Technologist, Andrew Spooner, joins colleague Mike Taulty to present at our Windows 8 event on 27 November.

Andrew specialises in the usability and user experience side of Windows 8.

There are still places for our event, so please register!

You can follow Andrew on Twitter.

Black Marble Participating in the Great British Innovation Event

Sat, 03 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble is taking part in the John Lewis Great British Technology Innovation for Retail Event on 5 November.

John Lewis is being increasingly known for innovation in shops, but are perhaps less well recognised for its heritage of technology-enabled innovation. John Lewis has invited some of the most innovative and exciting British technology companies and universities to work with us to solve key business challenges through innovation.

And Black Marble is delighted to be one of those companies!

Black Marble at the SharePoint 2012 Conference

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble has a team heading out to Las Vegas for the SharePoint 2012 Conference.

Following the conference, we are running a What’s New in SharePoint 2013 event on 21 November, to share what we discovered.

Rik Hepworth Joins Andrew Fryer at the Virtual Machine User Group in Leeds

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

The Virtual Machine User Group (VMUG) is a community of like-minded individuals dedicated to the successful deployment of virtual infrastructure and their associated technologies. They run regular User Group events around the UK, and on 25 October, Rik Hepworth joined Microsoft Andrew Fryer to present on Server 2012 and Hyper-V.

For more information, visit the VMUG site.

You can follow Andrew and Rik on Twitter.

Speaking at the Designing Beautiful Apps Event in Dublin

Sun, 02 Sep 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble’s IT Director is sharing the stage in Dublin with Bill Buxton, Andrew Spooner and Josh Holmes.

Rik Hepworth will be speaking at the 1-day conference in Dublin, ‘Designing Beautiful Apps’. Bill Buxton, Principle Researcher at Microsoft Research will be keynoting, and Rik’s session is ‘8 to 88 inches – Designing for Everyone’. The focus of the event is the importance of design across all of Microsoft’s products and services including Windows 8. Showcasing how to help designers and developers design beautiful Windows 8 apps.

You can register here but if the event is full, it is also being streamed online.

Bringing Windows 8 and all the new from Build to Yorkshire

Sun, 02 Sep 2012 00:00:00 GMT

We are running two Windows 8 events in Yorkshire on 27 November to keep you up to date with all the news, not just from Build but from the UK experts.

The morning session is Introduction to Windows 8 Development, and features Microsoft evangelists Mike Taulty and Andrew Spooner.

The afternoon session is Black Marble wins the Inaugural JLP Great British Innovation in Retail Award 2012.

Andrew Spooner from Microsoft Joins the Agenda of Black Marbles Windows 8 Event

Black Marble Participating in the Great British Innovation Event

Black Marble at the SharePoint 2012 Conference

Rik Hepworth Joins Andrew Fryer at the Virtual Machine User Group in Leeds

The Visual Studio 2012 Launch

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 GMT

To complement the launch of Visual Studio 2012 on the 12th September, Black Marble is taking part in Microsoft UK's RoadShow covering 4 cities in 5 days at the beginning of October. Come along and join us! The events are headlined by Shanku Niyogi, Director of Programme Management at Microsoft, whose team have been instrumental in the creation of the product.

Plus we are running 2 events in Yorkshire, if you can't make the Roadshow on 13 September and 26 September.

Black Marble supports DDD North in Yorkshire

Thu, 02 Aug 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Now in its second year, DDD North comes to the University of Bradford's Management Centre on Saturday 13th October 2012. Black Marble is supporting this event.

It is a community led agenda of sessions and speakers, all on a Saturday and for free!

The agenda has now been published, and is great event for developers to get together with like-minded individuals to hear great speakers and network.

The event is free to attend.

Stay up to date on all the goings on with DDDNorth by following it on Twitter - and when tweeting please use the hashtag - #DDDNorth.

Winter Event Schedule now open for Registration!

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:00:00 GMT

We are delighted to announce that our regular timetable of events for the Autumn-Winter are now open for registration!

This is a big year for Microsoft new releases, and we plan to update you with everything you need to know! Starting with a day on SharePoint 2013 on 21 November – all the updates and announcements from the SharePoint conference in Vegas, as well as live demos!

Our Architecture Forum returns on 5 December, and will once again feature key industry speakers focusing on how the new releases impact architects.

And finally, our Technical Update hits a major milestone in January 2013 as it turns 10! And with so much going on from Microsoft, we have decided to split it into 2 events – the morning will focus on the story for IT Managers and Business Decision Makers, and the afternoon for Developers and Technical Decision Makers!

Richard Fennell Awarded MVP for Fifth Time!

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Richard Fennell has once again been awarded Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Status for Visual Studio (ALM), for his regular contributions to the technical community.

Richard is also an ALM Ranger and Virtual Technology Solutions Professional.

Microsoft Announce the New Microsoft Surface

Mon, 04 Jun 2012 00:00:00 GMT

In June 2012, Microsoft announced they are extending the Surface brand to deliver Microsoft designed and manufactured products that showcase the capabilities of Windows 8. This means that the former Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface will now be known as Samsung SUR40 with Microsoft PixelSense.

Black Marble is proud to announce that we are developing for both platforms - Windows 8 Development for the Microsoft Surface and PixelSense Development for the Samsung SUR40.

Black Marble save Inrix Time and Resources through Visual Studio TFS Solution

Sun, 03 Jun 2012 00:00:00 GMT

A previous customer of Black Marble’s, Inrix approached us to assist with a solution to integrate their Visual StudioTeam Foundation Server with BMW’s own preferred in-house system. The result was efficient, reliable and saves resources.

Robert Hancock, Black Marble TFS Consultant said “We used specially written scripts and Visual Studio TFS to provide a solid integrated service that has run smoothly since implementation.”

A full copy of the Case Study is available.

Black Marble Streamline Visual Studio TFS Implementation for Major Mergers and Acquisitions Company

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble assist mergermarket with its Visual Studio Team Foundation Server implementation, carrying out consultancy to ensure it is streamlined to industry best practice standards. James Sharp, Head of Software Development for mergermarket said “We were delighted by the professionalism and knowledge of the Black Marble ALM Consultant.”

A full copy of the Case Study is available.

Black Marble at Microsoft Cloud Day

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble's Richard Fennell and Steve Spencer are speaking at the Microsoft Cloud Day in London on 22 June.

A great event for anyone building or considering building applications for the cloud. With a keynote by Scott Guthrie, other speakers include Steve Plank, Michael Washam, Yossi Dahan, Richard Conway, Andy Cross and the Microsoft Windows Azure Evangelist Team.

Black Marble and Reasons to be Appy

Wed, 02 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble are at Reasons to be Appy in London on 29th May. From the creators of Flash on the Beach, Reasons to be Appy is an event for designers, typographers UI designers and coders, all keen to hear more from experts in the field.

Black Marble will be there with the Samsung Sur40 for Microsoft Surface.

NE Teams Take First and Second in the Imagine Cup UK Final

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Earlier this year, Black Marble supported the NE Hackathon for the Imagine Cup, and we were delighted to hear that two of the teams we helped won the North East Heats. We were even more pleased to hear that come the finals for the UK, they finished in the top two!

Team Eyeworks finished in first place, and are clearly thrilled to be travelling to Australia later this year to represent the UK. In a very close finish, Teesside 0x32 finished in second place.

This is great news for students in the North East, and we wish Team Eyeworks well.

Rent your Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface from Black Marble

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble is delighted to announce that we are now offering a rental service for the Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface throughout the UK and Ireland.

If you want an SUR40 for a one-off occasion such as a corporate event or tradeshow, either internal or external, please get in touch. The SUR40 is v2.0 of the Microsoft Surface, and Black Marble is a Surface Premier Partner.

Plus Black Marble has a set of existing applications that can be configured for your event – please call for a competitive quotation.

For details on our Rental Service please call Katy on +44 1274 300175 or +353 1 901 4625.

Robert Hogg and Steve Spencer make MVP again!

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Robert Hogg and Steve Spencer have once again been awarded Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Status. Robert, now in his sixth year as an MVP, has been awarded for Connected Systems: Developer, and Steve Spencer, moving into his second year as an MVP, this time for Windows Azure.

Black Marble is delighted that they have once again been recognised for their contributions to the technical community.

Black Marble demonstrates the Samsung SUR40 to Government Departments

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble spent an exciting day in London recently, showing how the innovative Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface could drive innovation and better modes of working in government. Visitors to the Microsoft stand at the HMRC and DWP Partner Expo saw Black Marble show how leading edge technology can improve the way organisations communicate and collaborate. The SUR40 is unique in its ability to perceive objects that are placed upon it, and Black Marble used a number of software products to relate the technology to staff from DWP, HMRC and other government departments.

“It’s always fun to show people something genuinely unique” said Black Marble’s IT Director, Rik Hepworth. “We were pleased that we could help our friends at Microsoft and I think it really inspired some creative ideas about how the technology could make a difference to how people work.”

For more information about how Black Marble delivers solutions using Surface call Katy on 01274 300175.

Black Marble join Microsoft and Samsung in London to Launch the SUR40

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble once again joins forces with Samsung and Microsoft, this time in London, for the launch of the Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface. Black Marble is a Surface Premier Partner, and has been at the forefront of the drive for the SUR40 in the UK.

The Microsoft Surface is the ideal platform to bring people together to connect, learn, and decide; enhancing the way people collaborate and connect with a 360-degree interface. And, with PixelSense™, Microsoft Surface sees and responds to touch and real world objects—supporting more than 50 simultaneous inputs.

Black Marble is a member of the Microsoft Partner Network, with Gold in Application Lifecycle Management (Visual Studio) and Portals and Collaboration (SharePoint), and Silver in Digital Marketing, as well as being an internationally recognised Microsoft Surface Partner. Our skills and experience make us ideally placed to develop solutions for delivery not only on Samsung SUR40 (Surface 2), but also on Windows Touch devices.

Black Marble in Paris for European Launch of the SUR40

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble has joined Samsung and Microsoft in Paris for the European launch of the Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface. Black Marble is a Surface Premier Partner, and has been at the forefront of the drive for the SUR40 in the UK.

Why not check out some of our Demo application videos from the National Retail Federation Conference and Expo in January 2012?

Microsoft Hardware Retail App - application highlighting how a product catalogue could be displayed on the Surface.
External Concierge - application demonstrating places of interest in and around a given location.
O7 Game - a two player board game for the Surface.

Black Marble at the Yorkshire Mafia Conference

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble are delighted to be joining the line-up of the largest B2B conference in the North of England – the Yorkshire Mafia 2012. The conference is now an annual event, that sprung from a Yorkshire business community that was established in 2008 on LinkedIn. The group is a collaborative community of business people, in, from, or with significant business interests in Yorkshire.

We will be showcasing our Microsoft Surface 2 – the Samsung SUR40.

The event takes place on 21 and 22 March at the Royal Armouries in Leeds, and attendance is free.

Architecture Forum now in London

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

We are bringing our Architecture Forum to London on 22 June.

In December 2011, we ran our 4th Annual Architecture Forum in the North, and due to popular demand, we are bringing the event to Microsoft London on 22 June.

The premier event for Software Architects on the Microsoft Platform, we will have the same great speakers available. The event is free and now open for registration. Please join us!

You can review the agenda from the December event.

Speakers include from Microsoft:

Andrew Fryer - @deepfat
Simon May - @simonster
Steve Plank - @plankytronixx
Simon Thurman - @simonthurman
Robbie Leggett
Giles Davis - @visualstudiouk

Also speaking are:

Danny Crone from nFocus - @dannycrone
Robert Hogg from Black Marble - @roberthogg
Gary Short from Gibraltar Software - @garyshort

Black Marble join Samsung at ISE 2012 in Amsterdam to focus on the SUR40

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble is delighted to announce that we will be attending Integrated Systems Europe 2012, taking place at the RAI in Amsterdam. The ISE is a professional AV and systems integration trade show.

As a Microsoft Surface Premier Partner, we have been invited to exhibit with Samsung, focusing on the SUR40 [link: our internal page on SUR40] - the second generation Microsoft Surface. Attending from Black Marble is Robert Hogg and Katy Hicks, and they will be showcasing the work we are doing on the SUR40.

Some examples of our SUR40 demos, filmed at the National Retail Federation Conference and Expo in New York earlier this month are available on Youtube:

Microsoft Hardware Retail Application
External Concierge
O7 Game

Please call for more information - 01274 300175.

ALM On-line Assessment Tool Launched

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Microsoft has launched a new on-line tool to help provide feedback and inputs into your Application Lifecycle Management strategy and adoption. The tool will take you through the different aspects of ALM and provides a report as a summary.

Once completed, you will have the option of being connected to expert partners (such as Black Marble!), events and resources that will help you progress your ALM practices.

Why not try the ALM Assessment for your organisation?

A Series of Online Events

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble is launching a series of online events, running in bite-sized chunks on (most) Mondays through until the end of June.

These sessions will explore different aspects of SharePoint, Azure, ALM and New User Interfaces.

Joining details will be supplied 1 week prior to the event.

These events are free to attend, and please share with your colleagues.

If you want more information, please call 01274 300175.

Winner of Black Marble Open Day Draw Announced

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Now an annual occurrence, we have a great Open Day and John was one of many visitors to our office to drop his name into the hat for the draw for the X-Box 360 + Kinect. Everyone enjoyed bacon butties, mince pies and Christmas pudding, while exploring Black Marble HQ.

John works for Robust Details, a UKAS accredited product certification body. It is a non-profit distributing company limited by guarantee.

Black Marble Authorised to Deliver 3 Kinds of Software Assurance Benefits

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

With Software Assurance Planning Services we provide expert guidance to help you plan and manage your next Microsoft software deployment. Our planning experts work on-site to help you evaluate how best to deploy an array of Microsoft solutions on-premises, in the cloud or hybrid environments. With flexible offerings, Planning Services can help you streamline deployments with customised plans tailored to the needs of your organisation.

Black Marble is authorised by Microsoft to redeem Software Assurance Benefits against the costs of the following Deployment Planning Services:

We have worked with customers in the Public Sector, as well as the Commercial Sector to deliver Planning Services.

Black Marble Taking Part in 6 Weeks of Azure with Microsoft

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble is delighted to be one of the key partners supporting Microsoft Six Weeks of Azure. Starting in January 2012 Microsoft will be delivering 6 weeks of FREE* assistance to UK based companies who want to build or extend applications with the Windows Azure Platform covering the commercial and technical aspects of adopting Windows Azure.

You can view a draft agenda and why not join around 200 companies already signed up?

*The training webinars and materials will be provided without charge, but participants will require a Windows Azure account to participate in some exercises. Use of the Windows Azure services may incur charges.

Black Marble at the National Retail Federation in New York

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble is delighted to announce that we will be attending the 101st National Retail Federation Annual Convention and Expo in New York later this month.

As a Microsoft Surface Premier Partner, we have been invited to exhibit with the Microsoft Surface team on the 16th and 17th January, between 12 noon and 3:00pm. Please do get in touch if you wish to meet up – attending from Black Marble is Robert Hogg and Katy Hicks, and they will be showcasing the work we are doing on the SUR40, Microsoft’s second generation Surface (now available for pre-order).

Black Marble supports Bletchley Park and The National Museum of Computing

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Once again, Black Marble is supporting Bletchley Park and The National Museum of Computing this Christmas – for every Xmas card we send we are making a donation to these great organisations that are so important to our industry.

This year, the Black Marble Brigade are saving Santa once again in our Christmas adventure: Cold Call Christmas! – why not check out all parts of the adventure online?

Black Marble brings Windows 8 to Dublin

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Following the success of our Re-Build event, focusing on Windows 8, in the UK, we are taking it to Dublin on 6 December.

We will take you through what you need to know about Windows 8, for the Developer and the IT Professional.

This event will take place at Fitzwilliam Hall, starting at 2:00pm.

Quote from our Yorkshire Re-Build Event: “Lively and informative as always”.

You can register to attend here.

Black Marble at the Premier Software Testing Event in Europe

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble is exhibiting at EuroSTAR – the largest and most prestigious event on the software testing calendar. It is being held in Manchester between 21-24 November. The leading names in testing will meet for an intensive 3 days of learning, networking and discussion.

Black Marble will be exhibiting with the UK Microsoft Visual Studio Team, a Platinum Sponsor, as the first UK Partner to achieve Gold in the Application Lifecycle Management Competency. Black Marble has a leading team specialising in ALM, with an ALM Ranger, and an Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for ALM.

Black Marble is certified to deliver Developer Tools Deployment Planning Services (DTDPS) days – this is a Software Assurance benefit designed to help organisations plan effective Visual Studio deployments. DTDPS helps lower the perceived risk and cost of deployment for customers.

Black Marble ALM Event in Dublin

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble is delighted to announce its first Dublin event on 6 December, covering ‘The Right Tools for your Application Lifecycle’.

Steve Spencer and Robert Hancock will be going through the right tools for the whole development process – focusing on Visual Studio Team Foundation Server. This event will take place at Fitzwilliam Hall, starting at 10:00am.

You can register to attend here.

Dan Haywood from Microsoft Speaking at our SharePoint event

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Dan Haywood, Technology Solutions Professional (TSP) from the Digital Marketing Platform Group (DMPG) will be joining us as a guest speaker at our event on 17th November [link to event] – ‘Delivering High Impact WebSites with SharePoint’. Dan, who spoke on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) at the SharePoint conference last month, will again be speaking on SEO for SharePoint 2010 Internet Sites.

You can follow Dan on Twitter @danhaywood

Black Marble – First Yorkshire, Now Dublin

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Following a year of successful engagements throughout Ireland, we are delighted to announce the official establishment of new location in Dublin. Please look out for news around Black Marble events running in Dublin/Belfast in the near future.

You can contact us on +353 (1) 901 4625.

Our Next Series of Events are now Live!

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

We are delighted to announce our new series of events is now open for registration.

This year we are covering Microsoft Build conference on 12 October – the morning will cover IT and the afternoon the developer approach. On 17 November, we have a session on Delivering High Impact Websites with SharePoint, followed by A Guide to Successfully Adopting the Cloud for IT Managers.

December sees the return of our Architecture Forum in the North, now in its fourth year! We are opening up the sessions to a new range of speakers this year, and plan to repeat it in Dublin and London (watch this space for dates and venues).

Black Marble Supports GiveCampUK!

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

GiveCamp was founded by Microsoft Developer Evangelist, Chris Koenig, in Dallas, Texas in 2007. His vision was to bring together passionate developers and local charitable organisations for an entire weekend, and see what would happen. And over the weekend of 21st to 23rd October, it is the chance of the UK developer community to support their local charity sector.

As a long term supporter of the developer community, we know that great skills, knowledge and talent are plentiful. GiveCamp gives the charity sector an opportunity to experience first-hand what the great and good of our developer community have to offer. Black Marble is proud to be part of the first GiveCamp event here in the UK.

Black Marble is supporting DDD North

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT

The UK's premier FREE Developer conference comes to the North of England, this October. On Saturday 8th October 2011, the University of Sunderland will be the host for this community event. Black Marble is supporting this event.

There will be a community led agenda of sessions and speakers, all on a Saturday and for free!

Session Submission is now open to all, and is particulary welcoming to new speakers. This is a great opportunity for new speakers to gain experience in a friendly environment. Once a full range of sessions has been submitted, it will be opened up to voting by the community, to choose the sessions they want to see.

The event is free to attend.

Stay up to date on all the goings on with DDDNorth by following it on Twitter - and when tweeting please use the hashtag - #DDDNorth

Black Marble are going to Build

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Robert Hogg, Steve Spencer and Rik Hepworth are heading out to Anaheim in September to attend Build, the Microsoft conference with a focus on Windows 8.

Billed as the conference that will demonstrate how Windows 8 will change everything, Build is the conference for modern hardware and software developers.

Black Marble back at the Worldwide Partner Conference in Los Angeles

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble’s Robert Hogg and Katy Hicks are attending the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Los Angeles during the week beginning 11 July 2011.

Always a great event for networking, we are looking forward to making new connections and meeting old friends.

@roberthogg, @sdspencer, @rikhepworth

Richard Fennell Awarded MVP for Fourth Time

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble’s Engineering Director Richard Fennell has once again been awarded MVP for Visual Studio (ALM). Now in his fourth year, this adds to Richard’s status as an ALM Ranger.

Our TFS Phone Explorer Application has been Awarded one of the Top Prizes in the Red Gate Software WP7 Competition

Tue, 03 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Red Gate are excited about the opportunities for .NET developers, using existing skills and tools to produce fantastic apps for Windows Phone 7. As a result, and supported by Microsoft, Red Gate ran a competition for developers to produce an application that fellow developers would love.

Black Marble entered our WP7 TFS Phone Explorer application, which enables you to access your TFS Server to perform common operations such as viewing recent builds and adding work items. It’s a clear and useful app that calls a custom web service sitting on top of TFS 2008 or TFS 2010.

The Judges liked the sheer practicality of our app and said it showed creative thought about what would deliver the most value in the mobile environment, drawing on our own considerable development experience.

On 5 May 2011, it was announced that we had been awarded one of the top three prizes. Red Gate issued a Press Release announcing the winners and the judges’ comments.

“We’re delighted by the response from the .NET development community and thank Microsoft for its support in promoting and helping to judge the competition,” says Neil Davidson, Red Gate’s co-CEO. “The third ecosystem Microsoft is building provides a huge opportunity for .NET developers to use their skills to develop mobile tools that the community will love.”

To try out for yourself, just search the market place for Black Marble and TFS Phone Explorer or try this marketplace link.

Great Speakers in the North for Connected Development

Mon, 02 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble is delighted to be involved with Microsoft Connected Development, supported by UK TechDays – a Northern based event showcasing the highlights of Tech Days, Mix and TechEd US!

Speakers from Microsoft include Mike Taulty, Simon Thurman, Giles Davies and Martin Woodward and they are joined by speakers from the UK's Gold ALM Partners- nFocus and Black Marble

Topics range from ‘What’s new in SilverLight?’, through developing for Windows Azure, passing Virtualisation of the Test Environment and on to Developing for Windows Phone 7. Plus an opportunity to network and ask the experts!

Lunch is provided.

Black Marble and West Yorkshire FRS Go for Growth

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble’s work with the West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service has been highlighted in a Management Today supplement.

Featured as the cover story in this supplement, it once again emphasises the benefits to the West Yorkshire FRS from Black Marble’s skills with the Microsoft platform, and in particular SharePoint 2010.

The article demonstrates how remote team working is now easier than ever because of new server technologies and mobile web access for West Yorkshire FRS.

Darren Stone, IT manager at West Yorkshire FRS wanted a system that could be made available to different organisations 24 hours a day, and following work carried out by Black Marble, they decided to standardise on Microsoft technologies.

Some of the benefits to the Service for using SharePoint include:

Central location for business information
Development platform for new applications
User-friendly tools require little extra training
Collaboration opportunities with other services

TFS Phone Explorer from Black Marble Now Available

Sun, 03 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble are happy to announce the Market Place relase of our TFS Phone Explorer for the Windows Phone 7!

Why not try it out? Access your TFS Server to perform common operations.

This client takes a custom web service to a TFS 2008 or 2010 server, which are available from Black Marble. But if you want a quick look we have set up a demo web service so you can trial the application, the details for which are:

User ID - demo
Password - demo
Domain demo
URL https://tfssample.blackmarble.co.uk/tfs/tfs/tfsservice.svc

Just search the market place for Black Marble and TFS Phone Explorer or try the marketplace link. We are interested to hear your thoughts!

Robert Hogg renewed for his Fifth Year as an MVP

Sat, 02 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble’s Managing Director Robert Hogg has made it into his fifth year as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for Connected Systems.

Robert joins Richard Fennell (ALM MVP), and this year’s new awardee, Steven Spencer (Azure MVP), swelling the Black Marble ranks to 3!

The Connected Systems Division was formed by Microsoft in 2005 as a new Server and Tools sub-unit, and includes Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Active Directory, BizTalk Server, Host Integration Server, RFID, and Windows

This Easter bring SharePoint and Xbox together with Black Marble

Sat, 02 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Any customer who commissions a SharePoint Vision Workshop from Black Marble this April, will be entered into a Prize Draw for a chance to win an XBox 360 with Kinect!

A Black Marble SharePoint Vision Workshop is a great way to identify how your business could benefit from a SharePoint 2010 implementation. Whether you have any of the previous versions of SharePoint, or are completely new to the platform, we can highlight how a solution delivered through SharePoint 2010 can be used to deliver, optimise and harness information in your organisation.

A portfolio of components allows SharePoint to offer a comprehensive out-of-the box experience, and its fully customisable nature allows solutions to be tailored to the specific needs of the business. Black Marble can help you understand the potential of SharePoint by drawing on experience to assist with the creation of a clear business case for applying SharePoint collaboration technologies to your business.

Black Marble holds the Gold Portals and Collaboration Competency in the Microsoft Partner Network, as well as Silver in Content Management and Digital Marketing (SharePoint for Internet Sites).

The Draw will take place on Monday 2 June.

For further details are to be found here!

Black Marble’s Steve Spencer Makes MVP for Azure

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

We are delighted to announce that our Development Director, Steve Spencer has been awarded Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for Azure!

Steve regularly speaks in the UK and Ireland on Azure.

Steve joins Richard Fennell (ALM MVP) and Robert Hogg (CSD MVP), to bring Black Marble’s MVP total to three!

Avviso – Content Management Framework for SharePoint 2010

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble, in partnership with editorial design company Words & Pictures, have developed Avviso, an add-in for SharePoint 2010 that greatly improves the content publishing experience.

Avviso contains a wealth of extensions to the SharePoint platform that enables better creation of rich, impactful published content: Crisp template-based pages as well as the ability to produce unique, vibrant designs; the ability to create features and article series; better categorisation and aggregation of content; richer content management for published pages.

You can view a demonstration video on Youtube, as well attend one of our regular preview events, details on the Avviso website

Our work with West Yorkshire FRS Highlighted by Microsoft

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble’s work with the West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service (FRS) on Microsoft SharePoint 2010 has been highlighted by Microsoft as a Case Study.

West Yorkshire FRS wanted to create a digital hub for the organisation to improve collaboration between teams and within departments and wanted an experienced partner to assist with the implementation. Drawing on our experience as a Microsoft Partner, with the Gold Standard in Portals and Collaboration, we carried out an initial health check on their existing system, adhering to Microsoft Best Practice standards. As a result of the consultation and follow-up work, West Yorkshire FRS decided to standardise on Microsoft technologies, continuing to draw on Black Marble’s skills, including a migration to SharePoint 2010.

"SharePoint is now the prime digital hub of the organisation and a business-critical system that is required to support our staff in their fire prevention and rescue work around the clock."

Katy Pinder, ICT Project Manager, West Yorkshire FRS

Black Marble back in Ireland for Azure Roadshow

Sun, 02 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble returned to Ireland for further dates in the Microsoft Azure Roadshow - this time visting Cork, Limerick, Galway, Derry and Dublin.

The Roadshow is divided into two - with Jumpstart sessions taken place during the morning and Acceleration Labs delivered during the afternoon. Delivered through workshop style presentations and interactive tuition, the workshop will focus on ‘jumpstarting’ attendees into building scalable applications on the Azure platform, as well as working with them to discuss any issues they may have.

This workshop is aimed at developers, architects and systems designers with at least 6 months practical experience using Visual Studio 2008 and C#.

More information is available on the Microsoft Ireland website.

If you would like more information on how Black Marble can help with your Azure implementation, please call Katy on 01274 300175.

Welcome to Microsoft Samsung SUR40 (Surface 2)

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

At the 2011 International CES in Las Vegas, Microsoft, in partnership with Samsung Electronics, announced Samsung SUR40 (Surface 2) – the next generation of the Microsoft Surface experience featuring PixelSense ™ Technology – powering the slimline new version of the multi-touch interactive device without the use of cameras.

From a weighty coffee-table-sized 42” deep device, the new Surface has dropped that to 4” with a 40” LCD screen – and it can be used in both the horizontal and vertical position. Made with Gorilla glass – drop a bottle on it from a height of about 18” and it won’t even be scratched – the new Surface can recognise fingers, hands and objects placed on the screen – up to 50 of them! It is robust enough for the challenges of active usage in retail, hospitality and education.

And Black Marble is one of the few international Surface Partners that has been involved since the inception of Surface V2, including involvement in the TAP for the past year, attending key NDA events, taking part in developer workshops through to readying applications for general release with customers. Thus ensuring we build upon our skills and experience with Surface V1 to be ready to deliver applications on this great new platform – providing customers with a new way to experience and use information and digital content, engaging the senses, improving collaboration and empowering people to interact.

“Microsoft continues to innovate in vision-based interaction and software designed for touch. With the introduction of the next generation of Surface, using PixelSense technology, we’ll bring more tables and walls to life with amazing natural experiences for people to enjoy together,”

Black Marble Big XBox Elf Check Bonanza

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Any customer who commissions a TFS “elf” check this December from Black Marble will be entered into a Prize Draw for a chance to win an XBox 360 with Kinect!

A Black Marble Visual Studio Team Foundation Server (VS TFS) Health Check is a great way to identify any inefficiency in the development process across projects and applications, as well as providing guidance in how to pull it back on track.

Make use of our years of experience and knowledge around the Visual Studio family of products – we are a Microsoft Inner Circle Partner, hold the Gold Application Lifecycle Management Competency in the Microsoft Partner Network and our Engineering Director is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) in Visual Studio (ALM).

For further details: Prize Draw Rules

Black Marble support Bletchley Park and TNMOC for Christmas Once Again!

Sun, 05 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT

This year, the Black Marble Brigade are saving Santa once again in our Christmas adventure: Going Postal!. Part Five has gone live today, and the remaining instalments appearing on the 17th and 22nd of December.

Black Marble gets its own ALM Ranger

Sat, 04 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble’s Engineering Director Richard Fennell has been further recognised for his in-depth skills with Application Lifecycle Management by being awarded the status of ALM Ranger.

News of Richard’s new status was announced yesterday, and he joins a very respected global team. We are delighted that Richard has been further recognised by Microsoft for his skill and knowledge in the ALM field.

Visual Studio ALM Rangers deliver out of band solutions for missing features or guidance.

Visual Studio ALM Rangers are responsible for the creation of reusable “out of band” solutions for missing functionality in the Team Foundation Server (TFS) and Visual Studio Team Server (VSTS) family of products.
Visual Studio ALM Rangers are striving for active community readiness knowledge sharing.
Visual Studio ALM Rangers can and are influencing VSTS.vNext … the next generation of the tools.

They are a mixture of Microsoft staff, MVPs and other industry leaders.

And why not take advantage of our skills this Christmas and give yourself the opportunity to win an Xbox and Kinect? For every customer who purchases a Visual Studio Team Foundation Server (VS TFS) Health Check during December, you will be entered into a draw! More details here!

Gold in Portals and Collaboration for Black Marble

Fri, 03 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble is delighted to announce they have attained the Gold standard in the Portals and Collaboration Competency, in the re-launched Microsoft Partner Network.

Our Gold Portals and Collaboration Competency, coupled with our Silver Content Management Competency mark Black Marble as the skilled and experienced company for SharePoint consultancy. In fact, as the only Gold Portals and Collaboration Partner in the UK, we are the best people to introduce SharePoint 2010 to your business!

Black Marble is Gold in Application Lifecycle Management

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble is delighted to be the first UK Microsoft Partner to achieve the Gold standard in the Application Lifecycle Management Competency.

Microsoft restructured its Partner Programme in October, and now partners need to attain a higher standard to obtain Gold in any competency. Black Marble specialises in working the Microsoft Visual Studio suite of developer tools to manage the Application Lifecycle, and is pleased to be recognised for our efforts.

With our Engineering Director, Richard Fennell’s recognition as a Microsoft MVP for Visual Studio (ALM) and his new status as an ALM Ranger, Black Marble has shown they are the UK specialists in this field.

Also, why not take advantage of our skills this Christmas and give yourself the opportunity to win an Xbox and Kinect? For every customer who purchases an Visual Studio Team Foundation Server Health Check (VS TFS) during December, you will be entered into a draw! More details here!

Going Postal with Black Marble this Christmas

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Today sees the return of the Black Marble Christmas Adventures, with ‘Going Postal’ – can our team of superheroes save Santa in this Yuletide tale? This year Black Marble Brigade utilises great Microsoft Technologies with Windows Phone 7 and Microsoft Surface in their heroic endeavours.

Look out for the next instalment on Friday 3rd December, with the remaining episodes appearing:

8th December, 10th December, 15th December, 17th December with the final exciting instalment on 22nd December!

Architects, Tools, Methods and the Cloud

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

We’re all in with Microsoft for our Architecture Forum in the North on 8 December. Microsoft speakers Simon Thurman, Simon Davies, Giles Davies and Ranjit Sodhi are joining Black Marble regulars Robert Hogg, Steve Spencer and Richard Fennell to a day of great presentations and discussions around Tools and Methods for Architects with a distinct Cloud flavour.

Taking place at The Holiday Inn [link to our Venue page] on 8 December, why not join us? Register here.

Expect lots of Christmas cheer!

Architects back in the North with Black Marble

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Our third Annual Architecture Forum in the North returns with a focus on ‘Tools and Methods for Architects’ on 8 December.

Fresh from the PDC at Microsoft Corp, join Black Marble speakers Robert Hogg, Richard Fennell and Steve Spencer as well as Microsoft’s Simon Davies, Simon Thurman and Giles Davies, among others to hear the latest for Architects.

Plus it’s close to Christmas so there’s sure to be an X-Box giveaway!

Sharing our SharePoint 2010 Expertise

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble has been implementing solutions on SharePoint 2010 for over a year, and in November we are running an event to demonstrate some of the key features we use to deliver the best results.

Plus, during the afternoon session, we will explore how SharePoint can be used for content management and how a visually exciting and dynamic experience can be produced.

Great News on Kinect this Xmas from Black Marble

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The great game console gift this Christmas is the XBox with Kinect – and watch this space for some exciting news from Black Marble on that very topic!

Mixing it in the North with Black Marble and Microsoft

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Want to know more about Windows Phone 7? Wondering how Microsoft’s platform will help deliver the next generation of web applications? Join Black Marble and Microsoft for Mix in the North, exploring the next generation of rich internet applications, websites and multi-touch devices.

We are joined by Michael McClary and Will Coleman of Microsoft for this event.

What Visual Studio SKU is right for you?

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble is running a series of 4 events taking you from Visual Studio Express to Visual Studio Ultimate to help you figure out which product will work for you.

These events are running in London and the North – choose which venue suits you to find out which product suits you!

From Express to Ultimate: Improving Productivity with Visual Studio

21 September – Black Marble HQ, West Yorkshire, Click Here to Register
12 October – Microsoft London (Cardinal Place), Click Here to Register
16 November – Black Marble HQ, West Yorkshire, Click Here to Register
12 October – Microsoft London (Cardinal Place), Click Here to Register

Don’t forget to follow Black Marble on Twitter to keep up to date with all our forthcoming events!

Taking Black Marble to the PDC!

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble are delighted to be providing this year’s PDC with 1% of its overall attendees! 9 of our guys are attending the Microsoft Professional Developer’s Conference taking place this year for the first time at Microsoft in Redmond.

Our team will join other leading-edge developers and architects to hear first-hand from Microsoft’s leaders about the next generation of Microsoft developer technologies.

What is the Path to Productivity for your Business with Visual Studio?

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Join Black Marble at Microsoft London to find out which Visual Studio SKU will work for your development team and business. Using our experience as a top Application Lifecycle Management and Visual Studio consultancy house, and Microsoft Inner Circle partner to determine the best tools for your business productivity.

This event is taking place at Microsoft London – Cardinal Place, 100 Victoria Street, London, SW1E 5JL.

New Scrum Master and Developer at Black Marble

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble’s Development Director Steve Spencer, is now a Certified Professional Scrum Master and Scrum Developer.

Scrum is an the leading agile framework for completing complex projects, and Black Marble use it for software development projects, to assist in managing the Application Lifecycle

Richard Fennell Awarded MVP for Visual Studio (ALM) – Again!

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble’s Engineering Director Richard Fennell has once again been awarded Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for Visual Studio (ALM). Now in his third year as an MVP, Richard joins MD Robert Hogg, now in his fourth year as an MVP (Connected Systems).

Richard regularly speaks at events and conferences both nationally and internationally in his field, and is just recently returned from the Norwegian Developers’ Conference. His next engagement includes a series of Black Marble Events on Visual Studio 2010 and how it can benefit your business.

Advantages for your Business with Visual Studio 2010

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Do you have a development team? Are they using Visual Studio 2008 or 2010? We are running a series of FREE events in Yorkshire, London and Edinburgh in July and August, highlighting how Visual Studio 2010 can aid Application Lifecycle Management (ALM).

Black Marble is a leading expert in delivering the full ALM story; we promote best practices for quality in development and delivery to help you manage and optimise your entire software development process.

Remember, our events are free, and all our speakers present at a National and International level. As well as a presentation, these sessions include a round table discussion where you can put your questions to the experts.

Black Marble, Yorkshire - 22 July | 5 August
Microsoft, Edinburgh - 10 August
Royal College of Physicians, London - 29 July | 12 August

Black Marble Zone at the Irish Software Show

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble is out in force for Epicenter, the Irish Software Show. Robert Hogg, Steve Spencer and Iain Angus are all speaking in the Black Marble Zone on the 8th June 2010.

Their sessions include:

SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 Launch Today!

Mon, 03 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Today is the global launch of Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010. At 4pm UK time Stephen Elop, President of the Microsoft Business Division delivers the keynote focusing on how peers and partners use the Microsoft platform to delivery maximum productivity, enhance choice and aid developers build innovative solutions.

Black Marble has been an early adopter of SharePoint 2010 and is delighted to be able to offer consultancy services around the platform, assisting your business in staying ahead of the curve. If you would like to find out more about how we can help you implement SharePoint 2010, please call 01274 853385.

You can watch the Keynote online here

Robert Hogg into Fourth Year as MVP

Sun, 02 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble MD Robert Hogg has been given the Most Valuable Professional award for the fourth year running!

MVP for Connected Systems, Robert is delighted to once again be recognised for his work in this area, and to be joining a fantastic group of

Richard Fennell – MVP for Visual Studio (ALM)

Sat, 01 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble’s Engineering Director Richard Fennell had a name change to coincide with the recent launch of Visual Studio 2010 – no longer an MVP for Team System, he is now an MVP for Visual Studio (ALM).

Richard Fennell delivering three sessions at the Norwegian Developers Conference

Fri, 02 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Richard Fennell is speaking at the Norwegian Developers Conference, 16-18 June. The conference will focus on agile program development on Microsoft platforms.

Richard has three sessions:

The conference has 135 sessions, with more than 50 speakers including Mads Torgersen, Chris Sells, Rob Conery, Mike Cohn and Robert C. Martin.

Themes from the conference include:

Agile projects including LEAN, SCRUM, Kanban, and Agile Testing.
Test–Driven Development for beginners and advanced developers.
Silverlight and Rich Internet Applications.

More information is available from the Norwegian Developers Conference Website, we well as information on how to register.

Techdays in the North a Big Success

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT

During Microsoft’s week long series of events to support the launch of Visual Studio 2010, Black Marble’s TechDays in the North sessions were a big success. 100+ arrived in Yorkshire to hear Microsoft’s Matt Nunn outline Visual Studio 2010 and to watch Richard Fennell’s demo.

The afternoon continued with Robert Hogg and Lauren Fear overviewing the key announcements from Mix 2010, including Windows Phone 7, before SilverLight Guru Jesse Liberty presented in his entertaining and educational style.

If you want to find out more about how Visual Studio 2010 can be implemented within your business, please get in touch (01274 300175).

Black Marble in Vegas for MIX 2010

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble’s Robert Hogg and Lauren Fear are in Vegas during March for MIX 2010 – the premier web conference from Microsoft. Now in its fifth year, MIX is a gathering of designers and developers who together are building innovative web sites. With in-depth exposure to new Microsoft technologies – including Windows Phone 7!

Black Marble will be mingling with the industry’s inspiring leaders on a wide-range of topics from SilverLight to Expression through Internet Explorer.

Plus on 15 April, we are bring you the highlights of MIX at our own event running as part of Microsoft Techdays – Mix in the North, featuring Microsoft SilverLight Guru Jesse Liberty

Black Marble presents Microsoft TechDays in the North!

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Following our popular Architect Insight Forum in the North, Black Marble is delighted to bring you Microsoft TechDays in the North!

Microsoft are celebrating a number of product launches and innovations during TechDays: a week of technology and social events. Black Marble is joining in with a Northern event exploring how you can get the most from the latest technology releases including Visual Studio 2010 and SilverLight4 and explore how Microsoft's platform and tools bring together the clients, servers and services needed to build rich engaging applications.

We’re opening with a morning on Visual Studio 2010 featuring Black Marble and Microsoft US’ Matt Nunn, Visual Studio Program Manager. Matt will be exploring Visual Studio Team Foundation Server. You can register here.

During the afternoon, Black Marble will be bringing you Mix:Remixed – all the highlights from Microsoft’s web conference in Vegas as well as Microsoft SilverLight Guru Jesse Liberty as part of his tour of User Groups throughout the UK and Ireland. You can register here

Why not come for the day? Always great food, and great chance to interact with the experts!

Black Marble is Supporting givewithbing.com

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble is supporting the Bing campaign to raise money for Sport Relief through endless Searching.

Every 10 qualifying searches on Bing generate 5p for Sport Relief! Rather than run a mile, why not exercise your searching muscles and still raise money.

The campaign is running until 31 March.

Black Marble has relocated to Woodland Park

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble recently went on an epic quest to find new premises!

After thirteen years at Angel Way in the middle of Bradford, Black Marble has relocated to Woodland Park on the outskirts of Bradford. Completely refurbished to our specification, the new premises is an exciting new chapter in the Black Marble story.

We are located just off Junction 26 of the M62 – a convenient location for all staff and visitors.

Visit our contact page for directions and a map of where we are!

Visual Studio and ALM Event now coming to Edinburgh

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Following on from the Black Marble-Microsoft successful Visual Studio 2010 and ALM events run in Yorkshire and London, we are now taking it to Edinburgh. Microsoft speaker Giles Davies will return with Black Marble’s Richard Fennell, MVP for TFS. The event will be run at Waverley Gate, Microsoft’s offices in Edinburgh and conveniently located close to the railway station.

Click here to register for this event.

Here is what some of the attendees from the London/Yorkshire events had to say:

"Excellent level of professionalism throughout the day." "Very informative and useful as always. The debugging history feature was invaluable in itself not to mention the UI code testing, thanks." "Job well done! Brill new features; especially testing"

Return of the Black Marble Brigade

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

After saving Christmas in 2007, the Black Marble Brigade are returning in an all-new adventure for the 2009 Black Marble Christmas card series.

Part 1 in the post now, as well as appearing on our website. Part 2 is due 7th December, and part 3 on the 10th.

This year, for every card sent we are making a donation to The Bletchley Park Trust and The National Museum of Computing

Black Marble Speaking at NxtGenUG on Project War Stories

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Robert Hogg and Steve Spencer present on Software Project Management War Stories for NxtGenUG at Coventry Aero Club. It is a pragmatic look at what things make projects succeed including how to manage software developers, how to be managed and how to finish a project with your sanity intact.

Black Marble joins Inner Circle for Visual Studio

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble has joined the Microsoft Visual Studio Team System Inner Circle programme. The programme is an initiative from Microsoft to engage with key application life-cycle management (ALM) partners worldwide, and Black Marble is one of only a few in the UK. As an Inner Circle partner we work closely in a recriprocal relationship with the Microsoft experts, both nationally and internationally, receiving specialised training and early access to the next generation of Microsoft Developer Tools.

Black Marble's Engineering Director, Richard Fennell, is an MVP for Visual Studio Team System.

Black Marble at the Professional Developers Conference in LA

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

No fewer than EIGHT Black Marble developers are hitting the West Coast of the US for the 2009 Professional Developer's Conference (PDC). The PDC is the definitive event focused on the technical strategy of the Microsoft developer platform. Black Marble will join 1000s of attendees from around the world to mingle with and learn from the people who make it happen.

The PDC guides developers, architects and technology leaders with guidance in the following key areas:

Microsoft's vision and roadmap for the future of developer technology
Deep, technical content delivered by Microsoft's technology leaders
Hands-on access to the latest developer technologies and over 1,000 Microsoft product and technology experts
Unique networking opportunities - so if you're there ... make sure you get in touch with Black Marble!

Directors and MVPs Robert Hogg and Richard Fennell are among the attendees from Black Marble.

Black Marble in Berlin for TechEd EMEA 2009

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble’s Rik Hepworth and Suzanne Kelwick are in Berlin for the sold-out Microsoft TechEd EMEA 2009. Why not look out for them around the conference? And keep up with Rik’s thoughts as the conference progresses.

TechEd EMEA provides developers and IT professionals a comprehensive technical education across Microsoft's current and soon-to-release suite of products, solutions and services. It provides hands-on learning, deep product exploration and opportunities to connect with industry and Microsoft experts.

Black Marble hits Vegas for the SharePoint 2009 Conference

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The official Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2009 has sold out, but Black Marble is attending in force. Geared up for the exciting new announcements around SharePoint 2010, look out for Black Marble's Robert Hogg and Andy Dawson on stage on Thursday morning with Ryan McMinn from the Access team presenting about exciting new functionality in SharePoint.

The conference will be looking towards the future with deep content centred on SharePoint 2010, as well as sharing real world experience and guidance to assist in maximising your investment in SharePoint Server 2007. With ample opportunities to network with technical and industry experts, don’t forget to look out for the Black Marble team!

And on your return, why not attend our Office 2010/SharePoint 2010 event on 5 November? Get all the latest launch news direct from our experts and see the latest features demonstrated live.

Connect ... Collaborate ... SharePoint.

Remember Remember the 5th November

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

After our successful Visual Studio 2010 event, we are now anticipating a fantastic day for our Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 Early Access day on 5 November. Black Marble will be fresh from the SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas and will be sharing our knowledge with you about the great new features in the 2010 release of Office and SharePoint.

And if you’re at the SharePoint Conference – look out for Black Marble staff!

Black Marble Tours Bletchley Park and the National Museum of Computing

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble proudly supports the important work of the Bletchley Park Trust and the National Museum of Computing, and in September 2009, a number of the Black Marble team took the opportunity to tour both organisations.

The Bletchley Park Trust manages the historic site of Station X , the base of British codebreaking activities during World War II and birthplace of the modern computer.

The team behind the National Museum of Computing are striving to bring a hands-on approach to technology history, with the world’s first purpose built computer centre, the oldest working computer and of course, Colossus – the first digital, programmable, and electronic machine.

We would like to thank Niki Holmes-Bridges from the Bletchley Park Trust and Kevin Murrell and Bob Jones from the National Museum of Computing for their kindness and our behind the scenes tour, contributing to our great day out.

If you would like to help the work at the Bletchley Park Trust and the National Museum of Computing, please visit their websites and select Donate.

Black Marble speaking at The Irish Software Show

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble directors Robert Hogg and Richard Fennell, and consultant Iain Angus, are speaking at “epicenter” – The Irish Software Show, in Dublin (26 – 28 August). Three days of software excellence for software architects, CTOs and developers of all knowledge and experience levels. The event is running over four zones, with 74 sessions in total. The Microsoft stream of epicenter 2009 builds upon the biggest ever Microsoft conferences ever held in Ireland, the Irish Microsoft Technologies Conferences of 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Robert has two sessions: “Oslo, Microsoft’s Vision for the Future of Modelling” and “Software Project Management War Stories”, and Richard has two sessions: “Application Lifecycle Management – Moving Beyond Source Control” and “Making Testers part of the Development Team”. Iain will be speaking on Azure, Microsoft’s Cloud Computing Initiative.

Black Marble in the WPC 2009 Keynote Address

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

During the Day 1 Keynote at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans, the auditorium heard Black Marble's IT Director Rik Hepworth air his views and thoughts on the forthcoming Office and SharePoint 2010 releases.

Plus, if you are attending the conference, you can find out more about Black Marble's Service Offerings at the 'Services Ready' booth opposite Hall E, and why not arrange to meet up in Hall A with WPC Connect?

Richard Fennell: MVP Status Renewed

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble are delighted to announce Richard Fennell’s renewal as an MVP (Microsoft Valued Professional) for Team System, joining Robert Hogg (MVP for Connected Systems).

Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) are exceptional technical community leaders from around the world who are awarded for voluntarily sharing their high quality, real world expertise in offline and online technical communities. Microsoft MVPs are a highly select group of experts that represents the technical community's best and brightest, and they share a deep commitment to community and a willingness to help others.

Black Marble Sponsors The National Museum of Computing

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble's donation to The National Museum of Computing enabled the opening of a new research office.

The office includes a large selection of published books, including a very wide section on the history of computing. The facilities include photocopying, viewing micro-film and micro-fiche, and equipment for replaying video cassettes in those important (historic) formats such as UMatic and VHS.

The National Museum of the Computing is dedicated to showing the development of computing from 1940 to the present day. It houses both the Colossus computer and some of the famous Enigma machines.

Robert Hogg makes Fellow of the BCS

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble MD has added Fellow of the BCS to his growing list of titles. The grade of Fellowship of the BCS comprises the most senior and respected professionals in the field of IT. Black Marble is proud to be a corporate member of the BCS, and has among its staff: 4 Chartered IT Professionals and 16 Members of the BCS.

Black Marble MD becomes Honorary Fellow at the University of Hull

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble MD, Robert Hogg has been appointed Honorary Fellow in the Department of Computer Science, at the University of Hull.

Black Marble at the MVP Summit

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble MVPs Robert Hogg and Richard Fennell have just attended the Microsoft MVP Global Summit. Featuring more than 400 technical sessions, Robert and Richard were among their peers from around the world that received access to exclusive technical content, participated in direct feedback sessions, and met with Microsoft executives and product teams.

Black Marble sponsors Alt.Net in the North

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble are proud to sponsor the Northern date for Alt.Net ... the community Open Space forum conference, where the attendees set the agenda. It opens on Friday 17 April, with an evening session to set the agena for the following Saturday. More details can be found at http://www.altdotnetuknorth.info/

Black Marble joins Microsoft's Business Advisor Podcast Series

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Robert Hogg was one of the experts called upon by Microsoft to contribute to the "Save to Gain" podcast, part of their "Business Advisor" series. This is a set of podcasts featuring commentary from Microsoft executives, independent experts and partners discussing topical business issues. Robert joins Scott Dodds, general manager of the Small and Medium Solutions and Partners division at Microsoft UK and David Sumner Smith, Programme Director of Telegraph Business Club, to provide some practical guidance on how to cut costs without harming the productivity or efficiency of your business.

The Black Marble Technical Update Returns

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble’s Annual Technical Update returns on the 21st January at 2pm … and we’re ready to reveal what little gems you may have missed in 2008, and what you can expect in 2009 and beyond. If you’ve never been to a Black Marble event before, this is a great introduction, it covers the products you know, and those you didn’t know were there. Looks like a great turnout this year. so come early, and join us for a fabulous lunch!

And don’t forget, from 6pm Ed Gibson, Chief Security Advisor to Microsoft UK is returning to speak his mind – his third visit to Black Marble, and always a popular event.

Visit our Events section to register.

Architecture Forum - Great Success

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble hosted the first Architecture Forum in the North today and despite the treacherous weather conditions, there was a great and enthusiastic turnout.

The day opened with Matt Deacon, Chief Architectural Advisor from Microsoft espousing on Sustainable IT, followed up by Simon Thurman, a Microsoft Architecture Evangelist on Patterns and Practices. A round table arrangement for lunch kept the conversation going, all over fabulous turkey sandwiches and freshly made mince pies … one thing you can say about a Black Marble event, you always get fed well! The afternoon kicked off with Senior Architectural Engineer from Microsoft, Simon Davies explaining Azure, and the final session of the day saw Black Marble MD and Architecture MVP Robert Hogg discussing Oslo and Microsoft’s vision for the future of Modelling.

Everyone had a really great time … especially the lucky attendee who went home with a free X-Box courtesy of Black Marble!

Black Marble Christmas Cards are back ...

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Following 2007's successful series of Christmas cards, 'Black Marble Saves Xmas' ... we had such fun putting them together, that we had too many ideas for this years ... and as a result we have decided to share them with you throughout December.

So enjoy your Holiday Season, take a look at our official card and find out what isn't falling through your letter box ...

Architecture Forum in the North

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble and Microsoft invite you to join us for an event featuring the top architecture experts in the UK. This is an unique opportunity to provide IT Managers, IT and software architects from Northern businesses the chance to learn about the latest technologies and best practices from Microsoft in the field of Architecture, including the exciting new announcements about cloud computing that were unveiled at the Professional Developers Conference in October.

This full day event will provide insightful information about the latest techniques, demonstrating how with Microsoft’s architecture tools and technologies you can address your current business needs. Both the morning and afternoon tracks can be booked and attended separately.

Agenda

9:30 - Welcome/Introductions

9:45 - Sustainable IT – from Datacentre to Cloud with Matt Deacon, Chief Architectural Advisor, Microsoft.

10:45 - Break

11:15 - Patterns & Practices - Guidance for the Architect with Simon Thurman, Architect Evangelist, Microsoft.

12:15 - Lunch

13:15 - Windows Azure and the Azure Services Platform – What is it all about? with Simon Davies, Senior Architectural Engineer, Microsoft.

14:30 - Break

15:00 - Oslo, Microsoft’s Vision for the Future of SOA with Robert Hogg, Black Marble.

16:15 - Summary

16:30 - Close

For more information, including how to book:

Architecture Forum in the North, Part I - Architecture Best Practices and Architecture Forum in the North, Part II - A Vision for the Future of Architecture

Or you can call on 01274 841 305 to reserve your place.

Do you want to attend FREE high quality technical presentations from the best in their field?

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

On 19 November we are running a day full of FREE events ... including a free lunch!

The day opens with a CRM event - We will show that Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is a fully integrated customer relationship management (CRM) system, which gives you the capability to easily create and maintain a clear view of customers from first contact through purchase and post sales.

The afternoon brings on board MSDN - What’s New in Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1? with Mike Taulty and Eric Nelson.

Finally, the evening brings Enhancing Developer Productivity with DevExpress CodeRush and Refactor! with Oliver Sturm.

Remember - all our events are free - you do not need to come for the whole day ... and there is great food!

Call on 01274 814305 to book ...

Microsoft Spotlights Black Marble working with Prontaprint using MOSS 2007

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Design and print-on-demand service provider Prontaprint wanted to enhance service quality and standardise new brand positioning across its 175 franchised centres. It brought in Black Marble to take advantage of our skills and experience with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 to build a Web solution to improve collaboration between the centres as well as with customers.

You can read more about the project here: Franchiser Uses Web Collaboration Solution, Increases Sales Order Value by 55 Per Cent.

New Series of Events from Black Marble

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble's new series of events kick off on the 22 October with Effective Companywide Project Management with Microsoft Project, featuring guest speaker Paul Major of Program Framework. This is paired with TechNet's Security Improvements with Windows Server 2008 and Bitlocker, and followed up by Silverlight, XNA and Gaming with Richard Costall and Peter McGann.

Check out our Events page for more details on all our forthcoming events!

Richard Fennell Awarded MVP for Team System

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Richard Fennell, Engineering Director at Black Marble has just been awarded Microsoft Valued Professional (MVP) for Team System.

Richard joins Robert, Black Marble's MD, in the ranks of MVP in the UK.

Ask the Expert at TechEd IT US

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Robert, our resident BizTalk MVP spent the week of TechED IT in the US on the BizTalk standing, in the role of 'Ask the Expert'.

Black Marble involved in the Launch of SBUG

Thu, 01 May 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Burley Kawasaki announced the launch of SBUG ... the UK SOA and BPM User Group at the Microsoft Architecture Insight Conference 2008. Its mission is to enable its members to maximise its understanding of the Microsoft SOA and BPM product and partner landscape.

Black Marble is proud to be in at the formation of this User Group, and we look forward to contributing to its future, as well as promoting Architecture Conferences in the North of England.

Robert Hogg now MVP for BizTalk

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Robert Hogg, formerly Microsoft Valued Professional (MVP) for Visual Studio Architect is now MVP for BizTalk.

And in April 2008, he attended the MVP summit at Microsoft in Redmond, check out his blog for details of his time there.

Richard Fennell and Tom Wardill Speaking at Developer Day Scotland

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Richard Fennell and Tom Wardill are presenting at Developer Day Scotland on 10th May. Richard is presenting on Continuous Integration to Improve Quality and Tom is presenting on ASP.NET MVC: Testing the Web.

Robert and Richard Speaking at Irish Microsoft Technology Conference

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Robert Hogg and Richard Fennell are speaking at the Irish Microsoft Technology Conference in Dublin on the 3rd and 4th of April. Robert is covering BizTalk and ESB and Richard is discussing SQL Server 2008.

Heroes Happen {here}

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble are taking part in the Microsoft Launch of Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008.

These products provide a secure and trusted platform for creating and running your most demanding applications. Combined, the products provide a solid foundation for next-generation web applications, broad support for virtualisation technology and access to relevant information. Advanced security technology, developer support for the latest platforms, improved management and web tools, flexible virtualisation solutions, and access to relevant information from throughout your organisation enable you to drive your business forward.

Check out our launch events {here} and visit the Official Site {here}.

Black Marble at the Irish Web Technology Conference

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Robert Hogg and Mat Steeples are speaking at the Irish Web Technology Conference, which runs Tuesday 26th February - Friday 29th February 2008.

Their hot topic is Volta ... Decisions in application architecture are currently made well in advance of implementation. They discuss how future changes in development tooling will change the way that multi-tier web application architecture is implemented.

SharePoint, Silverlight and Windows Mobile

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:00:00 GMT

If you haven't already registered for our February 26th events, why not take this opportunity to do so now? The morning is covering SharePoint 2007, the afternoon MSDN event is Silverlight and the evening is Windows Mobile Development with Visual Studio 2008.

Refreshments, including lunch, are provided!

Ed Gibson Secures the North

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Ed Gibson, Chief Security Advisor for Microsoft UK once again wowed the evening crowd at the Black Marble Community Event at the end of January. A strong turnout ensured an enthusiastic round of Q&A followed Ed's enlightening presentation, leaving all the attendees with something to think about

Soa and Esb Architecture with BizTalk

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT

In 2008, Wrox Press published an EBrief by Robert Hogg and Ewan Fairweather (BizTalk Premier Field Engineer): Soa and Esb Architecture with BizTalk.

It explores Service Orientated Architecture and the Enterprise Service Bus, focusing on how it can be implemented using Microsoft BizTalk Server. It explains the need for SOA Architecture in an enterprise business and looks at the key Business and IT Drivers in business, how they can interact, and where there are conflicts that SOA can help resolve. Specifically, the author discusses Microsoft ESB Guidance and how, by using BizTalk 2006, ESB implementation can provide a solid platform for SOA development; management across the IT and Business Space with the Governance and tools provided in the ESB Toolkit; pointers to online resources, including guides on installing and deploying ESB; and how to avoid common SOA pitfalls.

The Continuing Adventures of the Black Marble Brigade ...

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Check out parts 2 to 6 of Black Marble Saves Christmas ... Can BizTalk Boy and SharePoint Sprite overcome the evil carollers??

Can Black Marble Save Christmas ... ?

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Find out how in our Xmas series.

Will Santa get his list back? Who is the mysterious man in black? All this, and more will be revealed ...

Black Marble Presents at TechEd 2007

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble directors Robert Hogg and Richard Fennell presented at TechEd Developers Europe 2007 on "Implementing Enterprise Service Bus using Microsoft Biztalk Server".

Ed Gibson Returning

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Ed Gibson, the charismatic Chief Security Advisor for Microsoft UK, is returning to the North of England to speak again.

Ed is an ex-FBI agent and delivers a fascinating talk on his experiences and views on security in the IT world and how to combat organised crime on the Internet.

This event is likely to fill up so please book early. Booking open now.

Another MSDN Event in November

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT

MSDN, in association with Black Marble are returning again in November - focusing on SQL 2008 and featuring Mike Taulty and Mike Ormond. Booking open now.

A Year of Unprecedented Growth For Black Marble

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble continues its amazing year of growth with a move into larger premises and the addition of more new staff, including Suzanne Lewis, who joins our senior consulting team.

Mix:UK 07 is the premier event for web designers and web developers

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Don't forget to register for Mix:UK 07 - the premier event for Web Designers and Web Developers, coming to London this September (11/12). Early Bird registration expires 10 August. Black Marble will be attending in force, might see you there!

Speakers include:

Scott Guthrie, General Manager in Microsoft's Developer Division
George Moore, General Manager for the Windows Live Developer Group
Andy Hood, Creative Development Director, AKQA
Beau Ambur, CEO of Metaliq Inc
Paul Dawson, Head of Interactive Media, Conchango
Danny Thorpe, Senior Software Designer and previously architect of the Gears API at Google, and former Chief Scientist at Borland and Chief Architect of the Delphi compiler
Pete Barr-Watson, Interactive design industry veteran and best-selling author

Robert Hogg Takes his Team to Korea

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Robert Hogg has taken the winning UK Imagine Cup team to Korea to take part in the International Final. Unfortunately, the team were unsuccessful but made a great effort. Check out the Black Marble Blogs for more on Robert's experiences

MSDN in association with Black Marble comes North

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Running the same day as Black Marble's own Seminars from September, Microsoft's MSDN events, presented by members of the Microsoft Developer Platform Evangelist Team are taking place at the same venue.

Bookings for these events can be made through the usual Black Marble booking system.

More New Faces at Black Marble

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 00:00:00 GMT

This has been a year of strong growth for Black Marble, which has been reflected in the expansion of our team - new members include Paul Bloomfield, Robert Hancock, Andy Dawson and Steve Spencer.

More new staff are scheduled to join us over the summer.

Black Marble talks Security with Ed Gibson at Northern Universities.

Tue, 01 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Robert Hogg joined Microsoft Chief Security Advisor Ed Gibson on a short tour of Northern Universities to discuss issues of security in IT.

They visited York, Hull and Manchester and met with a great reception from the students and other audience members.

You can find out more about Mr. Gibson at Microsoft.com.

Robert and Ed are returning to the University circuit in the Autumn, the schedule of which is currently being arranged.

If you are interested in Mr. Gibson and Robert coming to speak at your University, please call Linda on 01274 853390

New Look for Black Marble Offices

Tue, 01 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

To fit in with Black Marble's ever-expanding workforce, we have moved to bigger offices. Our new accommodation is in the same building so do not worry about finding us!

Robert Hogg become MVP

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Robert Hogg has been made an MVP (Most Valuable Professional) for Visual Developer Solutions Architect. This is a great honour, and Robert is delighted to receive it in recognition of his contribution to the IT Developer Community in the UK.

Mentoring the Next Generation in the Imagine Cup

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Robert was delighted to mentor the winners of the UK leg of the Imagine Cup. Mat, Matt, Jim and Michelle aka The Seedlings from the University of Hull outshone the competition to represent the UK in the international final to be held in Korea in August.

Microsoft Developer Launch Event coming to Black Marble

Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Our Technical Update on 31 January is now including Martin Parry, a Developer Evangelist for Microsoft.

The Developer Evangelists for Microsoft are taking the developer launch for Office 2007 and Vista on the road in the next few weeks and are now including our Technical Update for Developers in their schedule.

Visit our Events page to book.

Richard Fennell is Expert of the Month on the Best Practice Network

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 00:00:00 GMT

This includes his article: Vista - A Manager's Overview. IT systems are presented with a number of challenges today. Microsoft Vista, the newest version of the Window family of products is designed to try to address these issues.

Black Marble Continues to Grow

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble welcomes aboard another new recruit - Jon Fowler has joined our development team. Other recent expansion has seen Black Marble acquire a senior developer and new project manager.

Black Marble Back at DDD4

Wed, 01 Nov 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Richard Fennell will be speaking once again at DDD4 at Microsoft in Reading on the 2 December. The topic will be "But it # my PC!" or continuous integration to improve software.

Check out our events page for more details or visit the official site: DDD4 Agenda.

Ed Gibson/BI Events Re-scheduled

Sun, 01 Oct 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Due to complications with Ed Gibson's schedule we have had to postpone the Leeds leg of Ed Gibson - On the Road and as a consequence Black Marble's first event 'Making the Most of your IT Systems using Business Intelligence', has been postponed to 27 February 2007.

As we saw such a huge interest in the event we managed to secure Ed Gibson to speak at the first of Black Marble's community events on 7 December at 6pm, following Black Marble's day of events.

New Developer at Black Marble

Fri, 01 Sep 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble are delighted to welcome on board James Mann, a new member of the development team.

Black Marble's team continues to grow with the welcome addition of James Mann.

New Office Administrator for Black Marble

Fri, 01 Sep 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Laura Midgley becomes the latest new addition to Black Marble's team, taking on the challenging role of managing the ever-growing company office.

Black Marble welcomes another new staff member!

Wed, 07 Jun 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble are delighted to welcome on board Mike Stocks, a new member of the development team.

Black Marble presents at the 3rd Developer Developer Developer day at Microsoft UK

Sat, 03 Jun 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Black Marble were delighted to present at Developer Developer Developer Developer Day 3 on 3 June. This FREE one day event built on the success of the previous DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper Days. As before it was all about developers learning, sharing and interacting with each other in an informal and relaxed atmosphere.

There were NO Microsoft speakers presenting, just speakers from the UK .NET developer community; although there were some of the Microsoft UK Developer Team on hand to help out and chat to attendees.

Richard unexpectedly started the day when he was asked to stand in for an ill speaker, and fortunately had a presentation on Unit Testing Graphical User Interfaces using Reflection almost ready to go. Robert's presentation, Linq to the Future finished off a great day.

For more information on the event from both Richard and Robert's perspectives, please check out our blog!