Agents Pilot Program with SDK Access and Free Hosting

Question

The Windows Live Agents team is opening a small pilot program where a limited number of developers will be given access to the SDK and provided free hosting for their Agents (bots) that use other Windows Live services.   Since space in the pilot program is limited, the Agents team is providing access to the program based on the description of your project, and what they think would be great Agents.  To request to take part in the pilot program, please take the following steps:

 

1.       The Agents team will be reviewing each request for participation in the pilot program, so please e-mail the following to [e-mail]

a.       What is your agent going to do, what’s a sample scenario of how it will be used, and who is the intended audience for the agent?

b.      Will the Agent include an Activity Window?  If so, what features will be used, if any?

c.       Is the agent being developed for a client?  If so, what is the company?

d.      What Windows Live Services will be used in the Agent?  Please see http://dev.live.com if you need some ideas...

2.       Once you’ve been notified of being accepted to the pilot program, you’ll  gain access to the SDK by registering at: http://buddyscript.colloquis.com

http://buddyscript.colloquis.com

3.       After filling out the registration information, please send your login name and email address to [e-mail]  

4.       The Agents team will then contact you with the information necessary to take part in the pilot program.

Please feel free to post any questions or comments back to this forum.

 

Cheers,

Todd Biggs

Answer 1

Todd,

 

This is great news! I definately think it's going to be a succes. The SDK is great, and the developers have a lot of ideas, so we should see some nice agents in the near future.

 

A couple of questions:

- I already have access to the SDK, can I still use this pilot program to have an Agent hosted for free for me?

- How long will the free hosting last? And is there a limit on the number of sessions per month?

- Will commercial Agents be accepted? I have one in mind (the one we discussed last time you were in Amsterdam, can't say more about it here) that uses some Live Services and still should be released. This could be a great chance for that...

 

Regards,

Jeroen

Answer 2

A couple of quick answers:

 

1. Yes, if you e-mail the Agents team and they accept your project as being a great use of Agents and Windows Live services, we'll host the agent for free.  Please e-mail the address above with your idea and services to use to get accepted into the pilot.

 

2..a  This is a pilot to make sure this works, but the plans are to provide the free hosting for Agents that incorporate Windows Live services indefinately

 

2.b  There is no limit on the size of agent we'll host.  So if you make a succesful Agent that uses Windows Live services and is used by millions of people we'll host it for you as part of this pilot program.

 

3. Yes, commercial agents will be accepted where the Agnets team thinks they're a great use of the technology and other Windows Live services.

 

I can't wait to see what  interesting Agnets are produced!

 

Cheers,

Todd Biggs

 

 

Answer 3

Hi Todd

Great to see you guys are making such quick progress.

Quick question; can existing agent partners also participate in this? We have an idea for an agent that will make great use of one of the Live services.

Thanks

Riaan

London

Answer 4

Yes they can! 

 

Cheers,

Todd Biggs