Johannesburg, 14 Sep 2016
Mint's inclusion in technology giant Microsoft's SharePoint Dev Kitchen 2016 has positioned the gold partner to receive early exposure to Microsoft's new SharePoint Framework, rendering Mint as one of the few global partners with the privilege to work alongside Microsoft's SharePoint Product Team and deliver supreme innovation to its clients.
"The significance of working with the Microsoft SharePoint Product Team is a big leap forward for Mint as it places us at the forefront of SharePoint development," states Mint Group Sales Executive Francois Pienaar.
Dev Kitchen is an in-person event at the Microsoft campus, in Redmond, where Microsoft partners work alongside a team from the SharePoint Product Group to receive valuable insights and training on the new SharePoint framework.
As part of the Dev Kitchen initiative, Mint also received a private pre-release Office 365 environment with the new development work space and publishing model, as well as a full wiki created internally by Microsoft developers, with instant 24/7 access to Microsoft SharePoint developers and direct collaboration between all involved parties via a dedicated Yammer Group.
Further, Mint is enjoying continuous participation in various development projects, based on Microsoft's new methodologies, from which the organisation receives expert guidance and recognition.
Modernised client Web part, publishing model
The reason why Microsoft introduced its new SharePoint framework owes to the movement of Web development towards an open source platform, explains Mint US Executive Gerhard Swart.
"Microsoft wants to enable developers using these modern technologies into the SharePoint world and drive innovation and productivity by providing tools, such as gulp, Yeoman and Typescript."
Therefore, Microsoft collaborated with generic scaffolding system provider Yeoman to offer a solution that provides developers with the ability to create a client-side Web part package, using the Yeoman template and requiring only Visual Studio Code, the free version of Visual Studio.
Swart notes: "This allows open source developers into Microsoft's world of development and arms developers with their own choice of platform."
Highlighting the improvements the new development platform has introduced, he explains that developers are now provided with a development work space, eliminating the need for a connection to SharePoint. During integration with SharePoint, developers can still use their work space to test standalone Web parts. Once the developed solution gets packaged, the Web part renders from a content delivery network.
Pienaar explains: "SharePoint has traditionally been a laggard when it comes to adopting open Web standards. Therefore, this is a massive step towards bringing SharePoint in line with open source methodologies."
He adds that, over and above its involvement in Dev Kitchen, Mint has also been included in the IOT Azure Red Carpet programme, and is excited to enjoy continuous involvement in upcoming events with Microsoft.
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