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What makes a successful FinTech start-up?

What makes a successful FinTech start-up?

Matthew Adams

In this post we discuss the characteristics of a great FinTech startup, and the importance of the API Economy to innovation in Financial Services.
The 100 Year Start-up: Embracing Disruption in Financial Services

The 100 Year Start-up: Embracing Disruption in Financial Services

Howard van Rooijen

Hymans Robertson was set up in Glasgow in 1921 and is one of the longest established independent firms of consultants and actuaries in the UK. Hymans Robertson soon realised that the computational requirements of their models exceeded the capacity of their on-premise datacentres and that the most cost effective solution would be to use the cloud to perform their Big Compute. But before they could harness the cloud to help them solve their Big Data problems, the business needed to understand the ramifications of moving to the cloud; everything from regulatory, risk and compliance concerns,  to how their internal Ops team would need to evolve and adapt, and how to deal with moving data from on-prem into the cloud.
Why is blockchain revolutionising Financial Services?

Why is blockchain revolutionising Financial Services?

Matthew Adams

There is a lot of hype about the blockchain - usually wrapped up with talk about Bitcoin and crypto-currencies. In this article, we look at its impact on trust, and auditability in financial services, and why it may (or may not) be appropriate for your solutions.
Regulatory Compliance and Cloud Adoption

Regulatory Compliance and Cloud Adoption

Matthew Adams

In this post we review the FCA's guidelines for the adoption of cloud services by FinTech businesses, and help you to understand their impact across the value chain.
FinTech Week and the Microsoft Cloud

FinTech Week and the Microsoft Cloud

Matthew Adams

To celebrate FinTech Week, we've released an eBook based our our talk about Disruption in Financial Services at Future Decoded.
Machine Learning - mad science or a pragmatic process?

Machine Learning - mad science or a pragmatic process?

James Broome

This post looks at what machine learning really is (and isn't), dispelling some of the myths and hype that have emerged as the interest in data science, predictive analytics and machine learning has grown. Without any hard guarantees of success, it argues that machine learning as a discipline is simply trial and error at scale – proving or disproving statistical scenarios through structured experimentation.

Improve your Windows Command Prompt and PowerShell experience with ConEmu

Mike Evans-Larah

Mike Larah shares his tips for how to best customize ConEmu to improve your terminal experience for Windows Command Prompy and PowerShell
An experiment to automatically detect API breaking changes in .NET assemblies and suggest a Semantic Version number

An experiment to automatically detect API breaking changes in .NET assemblies and suggest a Semantic Version number

Howard van Rooijen

Exploring the creation of a tool to detect accidental .NET API changes for accurate SemVer in NuGet packages.
SpecFlow 2.0, NUnit3, Visual Studio and TeamCity

SpecFlow 2.0, NUnit3, Visual Studio and TeamCity

Matthew Adams

We recently upgraded our TeamCity based CI/CD environment, but we had to make some adjustments to fix failing tests.
Developing U-SQL: Local Data Folder

Developing U-SQL: Local Data Folder

Jess Panni

ILMerge Meta-Runner for TeamCity

ILMerge Meta-Runner for TeamCity

Howard van Rooijen

Meta-Runners allow you to easily create reusable build components for TeamCity, in this post I demonstrate how to create a Meta-Runner to wrap ILMerge functionality.
Azure Resource Manager authentication from a PowerShell script

Azure Resource Manager authentication from a PowerShell script

Richard Kerslake

Learn how to authenticate against Azure Resource Manager using PowerShell, for fully automated deployments.
Endjin.Licensing now supports SHA256

Endjin.Licensing now supports SHA256

Howard van Rooijen

Microsoft have added SHA256 support to Signed XML, and Endjin.Licensing has been updating to take advantage of this breaking change.
We are in the era of the modern browser - market share analysis January 2016

We are in the era of the modern browser - market share analysis January 2016

Matthew Adams

We get 1000s of page view per day, which means we get an interesting insights into current Web Browser usage statistics. Here are the numbers for January 2016.
Azure Weekly turns 1 & we're celebrating by giving away 5 Windows IoT Raspberry Pi 2 starter kits

Azure Weekly turns 1 & we're celebrating by giving away 5 Windows IoT Raspberry Pi 2 starter kits

Howard van Rooijen

We've reached our first milestone - a whole year of publishing Azure Weekly. To celebrate we're giving away stuff!

CucumberJS Visual Studio Test Runner

Matthew Adams

We've built and open-sourced a Visual Studio Extension that provides basic support for discovering and running CucumberJS tests with Node.JS, in the Visual Studio Test Environment.
Using Lazy and ConcurrentDictionary to ensure a thread-safe, run-once, lazy-loaded collection

Using Lazy and ConcurrentDictionary to ensure a thread-safe, run-once, lazy-loaded collection

Mike Evans-Larah

In this post, Mike Larah discusses how to ensure your C# collections are thread-safe, only run-once, and are lazy-loaded.
My first month at endjin

My first month at endjin

Jess Panni

Azure Batch - Time is Money in Big Compute

Azure Batch - Time is Money in Big Compute

James Broome

Consumption based pricing is a one of the USPs of Cloud PaaS services, but the default settings aren't necessarily optimised for cost. Significant savings can be made from understanding your workload.
Chaos with a rhythm - controlling innovation

Chaos with a rhythm - controlling innovation

Matthew Adams

Running a start-up or bootstrapping a new product within an established business can feel pretty chaotic. We talk about strategies for managing the time of a team, and ensuring that you become predictable.
Stop coding, start developing your product

Stop coding, start developing your product

Matthew Adams

Technologists often get hung up on technology and forget about the customer (and the business!) We talk about a real-world example and some practical advice for getting your idea business-focused.
A Step-by-step guide to setting up CucumberJS in Visual Studio 2015

A Step-by-step guide to setting up CucumberJS in Visual Studio 2015

Matthew Adams

This is a quick guide to setting up cucumber JS in Visual Studio with grunt.
Azure Machine Learning–experimenting with training data proportions using the SMOTE module

Azure Machine Learning–experimenting with training data proportions using the SMOTE module

Alice Waddicor

Step-by-step guide to bootstrapping your new product development – Part 10, Organizational Structures

Step-by-step guide to bootstrapping your new product development – Part 10, Organizational Structures

Matthew Adams

In the early days of a start up, the organizational structure is defined rather loosely, and typically by function. The technical founder has her domain, the sales & marketing founder his, and they work closely together to achieve their initial goals. As an organization grows, it is not possible to maintain that level of detailed personal control. How does a growing business structure itself for innovation? Or a larger organization pivot and allow an innovation culture to develop?
Using Azure Resource Manager and PowerShell DSC to create and provision a VM

Using Azure Resource Manager and PowerShell DSC to create and provision a VM

Richard Kerslake

Explore Azure Resource Manager and PowerShell Desired State Configuration for provisioning and configuring Azure virtual machines.