WebSiteSpark is a program geared towards small web developer companies. The goal is to accelerate the speed of web development & help companies  to get websites up and running by providing 3 years of free software, guidance and marketing to build your web properties. 

What’s the catch?  First, you have to be a small upstart company and there is criteria on what defines a small upstart – less than 10 people including owners.  Secondly, since the program is geared towards building web businesses, you need show that you used the software for the purpose of building a website and if you don’t deploy a site within 6 months, there is a $100 withdrawal fee from the program.  Aside from that, that’s it!   I’m surprised more people aren’t taking advantage of it. You can even use the software for up to 2 additional people at your company besides yourself.   

Even better, if you are a hoster or very well connected with web development companies, you can be a provider yourself (as a Network or Hosting Partner) – this makes you the go to source for people wanting to deploy web applications – this is especially useful for small hosting companies to gain a competitive edge. How? As a network partner, you receive marketing support directly from Microsoft & become listed in our catalog of partners as the choice go-to platform for companies looking to build a web presence.

WebSiteSpark is not just for ASP.NET Web Developers

Following up on my previous post about migrating from PHP on Linux to Windows, WebSiteSpark can also help ramp up PHP development companies. Here a few samples from MSDev- our portal for training partners.

WebsiteSpark: Get Web Apps like WordPress and Drupal Running Within Minutes!In this short video we will show you where to find and give an example of how to use the Windows Web Application installers for common apps such as Drupal and Wordpress.

WebsiteSpark: Move an Existing LAMP Site onto WindowsIn this short session we discuss what resources you have available to help you transition existing LAMP sites onto the Windows Web platform.

In this post, we will walk through the checklist of resources to migrate your applications from PHP to Windows. 

Migrating your PHP Applications to Windows

1. Install PHP. Install PHP on Windows
2. Engage in discussions about PHP on IIS in the PHP general Q&A forum
3. Migrate Web Server. Execute the steps to Migrate from Apache to IISand review the How to migrate to Windows guide as well as view the  Linux-Apache-MySQL PHP Migration webcasts
4. Migrate database.Migrate MySQL to SQL Server 2008and review the  SQL Server Driver for PHP Documentation
5. Performance tune. Build high performance PHP on Windows applications with Zend and boost performance with FastCGI on II6and FastCGI on IIS7. Very helpful to walk through the hands on lab for tuning and speeding up your PHP application
6. Download web applications from the web application gallery – this includes the most popular PHP applications. The most popular are DotNetNuke and the photo Gallery

DotNetNuke® Community Edition

DotNetNuke® is the leading open source framework for building websites and web applications on Microsoft ASP.NET. Through an intuitive, menu-driven interface, even non-technical users can use DotNetNuke to easily create powerful websites or extend the functionality and features of existing web applications. More information

Gallery

A slick, intuitive web based photo gallery. Gallery is easy to install, configure and use. Gallery photo management includes automatic thumbnails, resizing, rotation, and more. Authenticated users and privileged albums make this great for communities. More information