Microsoft ESP Insider

ESP Licensing Update

2009-11-30T15:20:00Z

Joy Murray
Director, IP Licensing, Corporate Intellectual Property & Licensing
Microsoft Corporation

It is my pleasure to update you on Microsoft’s licensing direction for the Microsoft ESP visual simulation software development platform. As announced in January, 2009 with the closure of ACES Studio, Microsoft has been exploring alternative means for licensing the ESP intellectual property (IP) to outside companies and the ESP team has worked closely with my group at Microsoft to find a successful solution. My team runs Microsoft’s IP Licensing program which licenses some of our IP to third-parties, including competitors, according to industry standard terms and royalty rates. This encourages continued innovation in our industry and has led to some remarkable business opportunities and technology breakthroughs for some of Microsoft’s IP licensees.

This fall we entered into source code and object code licensing agreements for ESP with third-party partners. Through the Microsoft ESP licensing program, partners can now build on ESP technology and create immersive experiences customized to their products and customers’ needs. As these agreements become public, you can read about them under “Partner News” on the ESP website. Because we have made this strategic shift, ESP volume licensing and single-license SKUs have been discontinued. However, product support for Microsoft ESP branded product will continue through December, 2012 and the Microsoft ESP™ Developer Center will remain active indefinitely.

We hope this collaborative program spurs new innovation and economic opportunities for our partners across the industry, which is especially important in the current global economic climate. We’re grateful for your interest in the ESP platform and if you would like to learn more about an ESP IP license, please email me at joymu@microsoft.com.

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Microsoft ESP News Update

2009-05-27T23:48:00Z

David Boker
Senior Director, Business Development Group, Microsoft ACES Studio
Microsoft Corp.

On January 22, 2009 Microsoft closed Aces Studio, the publishers of Microsoft® ESP™. This was done in response to the challenging economic climate and a sharpening of the company’s strategic focus.

Microsoft has ceased further development of Microsoft® ESP™, but ESP remains available to customers and partners. Microsoft is currently exploring 3rd party licensing options for the future of ESP and will announce details at the appropriate time.

VOLUME LICENSING: Microsoft ESP Client and SDK SKUs will remain on Microsoft’s Select and Open Volume Licensing price lists through at least December 31, 2009. ESP is no longer available as an Enterprise Agreement (EA) license offering. ESP Software Assurance has been discontinued.
SINGLE-LICENSE Full Packaged Product (FPP) SKUs (US and Canada only): The ESP Client and ESP SDK packaged product SKUs, targeted at customers seeking less than five licenses, will remain available through at least February 28, 2010 - available in the US and Canada only. They can be purchased directly from Microsoft through the online store located through the ESP Purchase web page at http://www.microsoft.com/esp/purchase_esp/overview.htm. Select either Canada or US, then below the listed reseller icons find and click the link in the text - To purchase quantities of less than five (5) licenses, please click here.
SUPPORT: ESP support will be available through December, 2012 in accordance with Microsoft’s five-year product support policy. Visit the Microsoft Support website for more details.
MSDN.COM/ESP: The ESP MSDN site will remain active for an indefinite period.
MICROSOFT.COM/ESP WEBSITE: This site will remain active as long as ESP is available on Microsoft’s Volume Licensing price lists (currently through at least December 31, 2009).

We appreciate your interest and support for Microsoft ESP. Please contact me if you have any additional questions.

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I/ITSEC 2008 Trip Report

2008-12-24T13:21:00Z

David Boker
Senior Director, Business Development Group, Microsoft ACES Studio
Microsoft Corp.

For decades , enterprise-class simulations were stand-alone solutions designed to meet the specific needs of individual customers. These custom solutions were expensive to build, purchase, and maintain and had lengthy lead times for delivery. The Microsoft ESP team had an opposite vision: to create a low-cost, PC-based software development platform upon which any simulation solution could be built. Our hope was that industry solution providers and training organizations would eventually come to see ESP as technology that empowers them, simplifies their jobs, and saves them significant time and money.

At the I/ITSEC 2008 conference in early-December in Orlando, we saw many encouraging signs that our strategy is quickly gaining supporters. If there’s one overall theme that emerged from all the amazing technology demos we saw this year, it is integration. Hardware and software companies are working together, combining existing solutions to create new ones. This shift is great news for Microsoft ESP, our partners and customers.

Last year at I/ITSEC we were a brand new player in the industry, having just announced ESP. This year it was clear that people understood why we were there, what our platform offers, and what we’re trying to accomplish. The five ESP demo stations in our booth showed how ESP can be integrated with other technologies, content, functionality, and hardware.

A station running ESP 1.0 integrated with Microsoft Virtual Earth was a great example of how ESP can be integrated with other technologies. ESP Developer Evangelist Todd Landstad spent most of the show at this station (and did most of the work putting it together). He flew a UAV Predator add-on on one screen, and showed both 2D and 3D views of the UAV’s real-time flight path in Virtual Earth. Audiences were pleased and impressed.

Dr. Kenji Takeda and his colleagues from the University of Southampton (U.K.) staffed an ESP station that showed a computational fluid dynamics demo integrating ESP 1.0 with Microsoft HPC Server 2008. It showed a helicopter safely and properly landing on the back of a moving ship – a very difficult simulation to deliver due to the various drafts created by the movement of the ship. The HPC Server ran the calculations for the helicopter and ship wake interaction, and ESP provided the user interface and visualization. You can learn more about this project in their whitepaper on our website.

An F-16 cockpit trainer from ESP partner Flight Dynamix running on ESP 1.0 drew a lot of traffic to our booth. ESP Business Development Manager Scott Andersen used this station to demonstrate how ESP can be integrated with realistic controls and cockpit environments to deliver affordable, highly realistic simulation environments.

In 2007, many customers and potential customers asked about ESP’s multi-channel capabilities, which did not then exist, so our team has been hard at work implementing this feature for ESP version 2. At I/ITSEC 2008 we showed some of the multi-channel work in progress, showcasing a helicopter scenario flying on three 60” Plasma screens in multi-channel. This station was pretty impressive, both visually and technologically.

Emerging from the 25+ year legacy of Microsoft Flight Simulator, ESP version 1.0 focused on the simulation of aviation. We’ve known all along that the military simulation market wants more, so at I/ITSEC 2008we gave them a taste of what’s to come. The team put together a great demo of the new ground vehicle capabilities coming in ESP 2.0, featuring a realistic MRAP training scenario. The demo received continuous high praise from people who saw how responsive we’ve been to the needs of the market.

Though it wasn’t difficult to convince folks on our team to fly south from Seattle for a week in the Florida sun, we all ironically spent most of our time indoors, staring at incredible simulations of the outdoors! The great news is that our booth wasn’t the only place to see ESP in action. Elsewhere on the show floor were companies demonstrating their own solutions built with ESP, including Adacel, Acron, Calytrix, NASA, Thales, SAIC and Stirling Dynamics Ltd, among others. If integration was the theme that emerged from this year’s show, it’s clear that some big players are already viewing ESP as a key component that helps makes all the integration possible.

While our team, partners, and customers were showing off what ESP looks like today and in the future, the rest of us were busy talking about it. We had many briefings with press and industry analysts that have resulted in favorable articles and comments in print and on the Web. Our own press release was picked up by a wide variety of local, national, and global news outlets.

At a presentation to our colleagues back in Redmond last week, everyone agreed that I/ITSEC 2008 was a big success for Microsoft ESP. Interestingly, a lot of folks on our Studio team who’ve never quite fully understood what we’re trying to do in this market finally got it when they saw pictures, read articles and heard stories from the conference. The solutions our partners and customers are building on our platform are already amazing and will continue to get better over time.

I look forward to seeing what our partners will have to show (and see) at I/ITSEC 2009. Hope to see you there with your ESP-based solution!

Microsoft ESP at I/ITSEC 2008

2008-12-02T03:01:00Z

Ed McCahill
Marketing Manager, ESP
Microsoft Corp.

A contingent from the Microsoft ESP team is in Orlando this week for the 2008 I/ITSEC (Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation, and Education Conference) event. I/ITSEC is an annual conference and trade show that “promotes cooperation among the Armed Services, Industry, Academia and various Government agencies in pursuit of improved training and education programs, identification of common training issues and development of multiservice programs.” In short, it’s the place to be if you work in the simulation and training industries. Check out the event website.

I/ITSEC runs from December 1-4 at the Orange County Convention Center, and we’re in booth 3718. If you’re planning to attend, be sure to stop by and say hello. Last year ESP made its public debut at I/ITSEC and our team has been hard at work since then continuing to build out the capabilities you’ve asked us to deliver.

This year we’ve got several great demos in our booth. The sexier stuff includes some work-in-progress for ESP v2.0, including new multi-channel capabilities (with an F/A-18 Hornet), and a ground scenario operating an MRAP. We’ll show off some ESP v1.0 high-end hardware integration with an F-16 Falcon cockpit made by one of our partners, Flight-Dynamix. You’ll also see a tremendous integration of technology by our friends at the University of Southampton (U.K.) who’ve built a simulation that properly lands a helicopter on a moving ship. This display of computational fluid dynamics involves ESP and Windows HPC Server 2008. Finally, our friends at Northrop Grumman will be in our booth showing off their C2MR (Command and Control Mission Rehearsal) solution that includes Microsoft ESP and Virtual Earth running on a Microsoft Surface computer. Cool stuff!

We’ll post a full trip report once the team gets back.

Welcome to ESP Insider!

2008-11-22T01:20:00Z

David Boker
Senior Director, Business Development Group, Microsoft ACES Studio
Microsoft Corp.

If you’re reading this, then chances are good that you’ve already heard about Microsoft ESP and visited our new Web site. We believe that ESP is poised to revolutionize how people in all different fields learn, research, train, plan, and prepare. Thank you for your interest!

Our newly updated site has a new design that we feel does a much better job of conveying what ESP is all about, and what you can do with it. You’ll find videos, images, and a much easier way to locate an ESP reseller. The site will grow over time, and it’s your best source of information about the product itself: what it is, how to get it, and why you’d want to.

A wealth of information about using Microsoft ESP can be found in the Microsoft ESP Developer Center on MSDN. If you’re a developer, this is the place to go to connect with other people building solutions on ESP. You’ll find helpful articles, code samples, a developer blog, and a forum.

All that said, we’ve heard that people want to better understand our vision. Where do we see simulation going over the next decade? What role do we see ESP playing? While Microsoft is a big global corporation, our corner of it is filled with people who are as passionate about the future of this industry as you are. In this blog, we’ll share our thoughts about the future and give you an ongoing inside look at what we’re up to here in Redmond.

Most importantly, we want to hear your thoughts and experiences with ESP. What’s your vision of the future? How do you think ESP will or won’t help us all get there? Are there things you don’t understand about what we’re doing, or why? Are there things you wish we were thinking about, but don’t appear to be?

Here’s your chance to speak up and engage in some conversation with us. Leave comments and feedback on our posts, and share your favorite posts with others by clicking the “Share this” link.

It was a wild ride getting ESP 1.0 out the door last year, and we’re already all hard at work on v2. We’re taking all the feedback we’ve gotten from partners, customers, and the simulation community and working to build a platform that serves even more of your needs.

So, consider the ESP Insider blog officially launched. Drop us a line. Come back and visit us regularly. Better yet, subscribe to our RSS feed so that new posts come directly to you. We’re looking forward to seeing what this blog evolves into, and thank you for joining us on our journey toward the future of simulation!