Many developers are still creating apps in VB6 because many of the world’s computers still don’t have the .Net framework installed and they don’t want to have to include the framework in their install. Because the .Net framework will be part of the Vista operating system, Microsoft is looking to help developers upgrade their apps with minimal effort. Read the patterns and practices article to learn more about Microsoft’s strategy to help developers upgrade with as little pain as possible.

Michael Lehman, Microsoft’s MicroISV evangelist, is starting a new podcast  called The MicroISV Show for Channel9.  Each week he’ll be interviewing a MicroISV about their experiences.  If you’re interested in participating visit Michael’s Channel9 page and shoot him an email.

In May of 2005 I profiled Michael Zammuto of Sapago, Inc. At the time Michael had recently completed work on his software product and was looking to ramp up sales and take the product into several vertical markets. Things didn’t quite work out exactly as planned as Michael explains.

My application was an RFID system for Art Galleries and Museums. This past summer the product won three awards, one of which was Best In Show in the Small Business Division at Microsoft’s 2005 Worldwide Partner Conference. Two days later I got a call from a recruiter at Microsoft saying they wanted to talk to me about a senior position with the division that is producing Microsoft’s RFID product. The interviews went well enough that I instead jumped at the chance to be part of Windows Workflow Foundation, a key strategic technology for Microsoft which will ship with all future versions of Windows, Microsoft’s Office 12 Server and several other key Microsoft products.

Michael was kind enough to answer some follow up questions about his microISV experiences.

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One of the problems with being a small software company are the issues of procrastination and motivation. Seth Godin has a good post today on “stalling” and how knowledge work in particular, is ripe for procrastination.

A research team from the University of California has published the results of a research study that shows that office workers work on average for only eleven minutes before being interrupted and that these interruptions consume approximately 2.1 hours of every working day. One expert is calling this “work-induced attention-deficit disorder”. The researchers found that once someone is interrupted it takes about 25 minutes to get back to the original task. If you’re interested, the full report can be purchased for $199.

Bob Walsh has been very active in the microISV world over the last year and this week his book Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality is being released. Bob has been a contributor here at microISV.com as well as moderating the Joel on Software - The Business of Software forums, and that’s only in his spare time. Bob currently runs Safari Software which sells his product MasterList Professional. Because of all of his efforts, I wanted to learn more about his microISV business and his experiences writing the book.

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The microISV forums never really took off and more time was spent removing spam posts and spam users so I’m redirecting all traffic from the forums back to this post where I’m recommending that everyone visit the Joel on Software - The Business of Software forums. Most of you are probably familiar with the JOS forums but if you’re not then I highly recommend you visit. The forums there are very active and always interesting. As always, your comments are always welcome on individual posts.

Bob Walsh’s book Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality is scheduled to go on sale next week. A pdf version will also be made available by the publisher.

Update on release of Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality

Would you be willing to wait 18 years for that “luck” like he did?

It took me 18 years of failure and success to go from being a little bit lucky (Someday I will write the blogpost about how people in the PC/Lan reseller industry used to give me a hard time about how I got lucky selling MicroSolutions at just the right time.:), to a little more lucky (trading technology stocks against the uninformed) , to a lot lucky (the broadcast.com IPO , then sale), then even luckier still (collaring my stock), to even luckier still again (not trying any of the “tax savings options all the brokerage firms were trying to sell me, that would now be costing me hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties), to more lucky, starting HDNet at the right time and partnering with amazing people.

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