Microsoft is supporting and organizing following competitions at Assembly Summer 2009:

WINDOWS MOBILE COMPETITION

A special prize will be paid by Microsoft to the best Windows Mobile based entry in Real Wild or Game Development competition at Assembly. Finalist entries in each category that run on a Windows Mobile 6.1 platform will be automatically eligible to this competition. Simple as that! In addition, to support the developers we can provide a Samsung Omnia i900 phone to be loaned for you / team for this Summer to test the entry on a real windows mobile phone. The phone must be kept in good condition and returned at the Assembly Summer 2009 event back to the organizers. Maximum of 10 phones can be loaned.

In order to apply for a phone loan, please email to msmobile.competition@assembly.org and tell us:

• Team name + person getting the phone
• Initial information about the competition you are going to participate
• Contact information, email and phone number is adequate

We will send more information to you after that. The phones should be available in early July. Note! The deadline for requesting the phone loan is Sunday June 28th 12:00 EET.

WINNERS & JURY PROCESS

The winners will be selected by Microsoft named jury. The entries will be judged by following criteria:

• Placement in Assembly competitions (70%)
• Innovativeness and use of Windows Mobile platform (30%)

PRIZES

1st prize: 1500 euros in cash + keep your i900 + Marketplace voucher
2nd prize: 500 euros in cash + keep your i900 + Marketplace voucher
3rd prize: you can keep your i900 + Marketplace voucher

Marketplace Voucher is a voucher that covers a cost to post an application to Windows Marketplace for Mobile. Microsoft will provide support to a team to get their application to the global Marketplace. Note! Applications have to comply the Marketplace rules. See http://developer.windowsmobile.com/Marketplace.aspx

These prizes are extra on top of any Assembly prizes your entry might win in the competition you participated.

So get your creative juices flowing and develop your demo or game on Microsoft Mobile platform to get extra prizes! More information for developers see http://developer.windowsmobile.com

WORST "SEVEN" HARDWARE COMPETITION

Windows 7 is shipping later this year and Microsoft proudly presents you to challenge the new windows - by running it on "the worst" hardware you can get it up & running. You can also participate to the preliminaries on the web, check the competition page here (in Finnish, sorry). If you do well, you can also win an Assembly ticket. Or you can participate directly to the finale, if you come to Assembly and have your hardware ready!

The idea is quite simple: do you have the worst (or, oldest) hardware that can run Windows 7? So dig your storage and dust off your old CPUs and motherboards.

The winner will be judged by the Microsoft jury and following criterias will used when deciding the "worst hardware":

• How old and bad the hardware is (50% weight)
• The story of the hardware - where does it come from, what was needed to make it operational (30% weight)
• Tuning your hardware is some ways to promote the era where it came from. Time to be nostalgic! (20% weight)

The hardware must be present at the Assembly event physically on Saturday 8th August, when the Jury will inspect it. Also note, that the computer must be running Windows 7 latest release candidate and it must have network connectivity.

If you want to participate to the competition, you can do it before at the competition page (check above) or come visit & sign-up at Assembly infodesk before 8th August 12:00 local time.

You can download the latest Windows 7 release candidate before the end of July at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx

PRIZES

The winner will get Acer one D250 mini laptop.

MICROSOFT SILVERLIGHT COMPETITION

Microsoft is giving special prizes for the best Silverlight entries that are participating with browser runtime entry to the Real Wild competition. So, the three best Silverlight competition entries receive a special bonus - in addition to other competition prizes. Please note, that Silverlight 3 version will be used in the competition machine, as it will be published before the event.

Microsoft appointed Jury will see through all the browser / silverlight entries and vote for the best emphazing the following points:

• creativity
• functionality
• innovation.

PRIZES

1. XBOX 360 console & Lips game, additionally all team members (max 5) receive Xbox Live subscription time and Expression Professional subscriptions for one year
2. All team members (max 5) receive Xbox Live subscription time + ARC mouses

Want to know more about Microsoft Silverlight? Point your browswer to www.silverlight.net to get started! 

Microsoft employees are not eligible to participate into these competitions.