Kendall Miller

Kendall Miller is one of the founding partners of Gibraltar Software, an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) that develops & markets commercial applications for .NET developers including: Gibraltar – an application logging & monitoring platform; and VistaDB – a small-footprint, SQL Server-compatible embedded database engine. Both products are used by customers around the world ranging from individual consultants through Fortune 100 companies and governments.

Before starting Gibraltar Software, Kendall worked for multiple startups leading their technology development from concept through profitability. In each case, he's focused on translating Enterprise-level performance and capabilities down to smaller companies. Using multiple generations of Microsoft technologies over the past 15 years, Kendall is experienced with the details of modern .NET development as well as the challenges that have stayed the same for generations. You can follow his blog at rocksolid.gibraltarsoftware.com or follow him on twitter (@KendallMiller).

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Creating your Own Software Company: A Survival Guide

Creating your own software company seems easier than ever, but it takes a lot more than a good idea to make a business. Find out real world lessons about what it takes to create and market a software product as an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) including:

• Picking the right product to build around

• Marketing in the Internet Age

• What it looks like when you're successful

Presented by one of the founders of Gibraltar Software, we break down some of the commonly held myths around software products so you can learn from our mistakes and get a look into the reality behind the dream.

Designing for Others: Lessons from Commercial API Development

When you're writing code for other teams you need to think beyond the traditional best practices of object oriented software design. Learn some practical techniques to ensure other developers want to use your API including:

• Key principles of commercial API design.

• How to have your cake and eat it too: optimizing for your maintenance and their enjoyment.

• Real world examples from commercial products highlighting what works and what doesn't.

Whether you're developing commercial API's now or just want to be sure developers will like your code years from now these practices will help you deliver.

Come and have a good laugh as we show some of the mistakes we've made, all the while picking up a new perspective to look at how you design your software.

Natural Laws of Software Performance

Just like you can't defeat the laws of physics there are natural laws that ultimately decide software performance. Even the latest technology beta is still bound by Newton's laws, and you can't change the speed of light, even in the cloud!

We'll dive into examples of how technology has changed the tactics of high performance but is still at the mercy of these natural laws. Understanding them will help you create applications that scale without arcane tricks or endless hardware. No actual Physics will be abused in the talk, just bad software.