A Dublin-based high-potential software company has scored a major deal with software company Microsoft to train thousands of developers around the world on its flagship .NET technology.
Under the terms of the deal, InnerWorkings will offer its entire catalogue of Microsoft .NET framework coding challenges and performance support services to help Microsoft’s customers close the skills gap for enterprise developers.
InnerWorkings serves global enterprises through a unique technology that enables software developers to learn how to write code. Developers are tasked in a hosted environment to solve real-world coding challenges.
Microsoft-based developers will have access to InnerWorkings’ catalogue of drills on key technologies such as ASP .NET 2.0, .NET AJAX Extensions and AJAX Library, Visual Studio Team System and SQL Server 2005.
“We are excited about working with Microsoft on our shared goal of driving .NET framework development skills and programming excellence for enterprise customers on a large scale,” said InnerWorkings chief executive Francis McKeagney.
“InnerWorkings offers a completely novel approach to improving developer performance and productivity within the enterprise. Developers learn real programming skills with the very latest technologies while working almost exclusively in Visual Studio,” McKeagney added.
Under the terms of the deal, businesses who are members of the Microsoft Developer and Platform Readiness programme, will receive detailed reports on the learning progress of their developers as they enhance their .NET framework coding skills.
McKeagney, who spent 13 years at SmartForce, founded InnerWorkings in 2002, drawing on his knowledge of the learning industry.
In 2005 the company secured an investment of US$8.8m from Benchmark Capital (Europe) and Mohr Davidow Ventures.
By John Kennedy
