Microsoft Corp. announced that New Zealand-based Ambient Design Ltd., creator of ArtRage, is the US$100,000 grand prize winner of the Microsoft Tablet PC Does Your Application Think in Ink? contest, a competition challenging developers to utilize the Windows XP Tablet PC Edition Software Developer Kit (SDK) 1.7 to create new applications or ink-enable existing Windows XP-based applications.

Interest in the contest attracted 260 global submissions from independent software vendors (ISVs) and 12.5 million visitors to the contest Web site from 22 March 22 through 31 Aug 2004.

"We are very pleased to have the Tablet PC application contest draw such a strong international response from the developer community," said Frank Gocinski, Tablet PC ISV and business development manager at Microsoft. "The developer community has always been at the forefront of cutting-edge technology, and it's exciting to see them embracing the power of the SDK and its ability to ink-enable new or existing Windows XP-based applications for the Tablet PC."

The SDK Makes Any Windows XP-Based Application "Write" for Tablet PC

The Tablet PC SDK, a pure superset of Microsoft Windows XP Professional, extends the Microsoft Windows XP technology stack by adding application program interfaces (APIs) that allow developers to design a role for digital ink within their applications. The API is presented as a simple and easy-to-use object model that supports the collection, rendering and recognition of digital ink in Windows XP-based applications.

The winner, Ambient Design, is a New Zealand-based software development company specializing in the development of easy-to-use, creative applications. Ambient's winning application, ArtRage, is a painting package designed to provide a realistic and fun simulation of using paint on a canvas, along with pens, pencils, crayons and other tools. The first runner-up collecting $15,000 is Agilix Labs Inc., a leading developer of mobilized software solutions, for its development of GoBinder. GoBinder helps faculty and students take notes and organize assignments, research projects, schedules and class work.

In alphabetical order, the remaining 10 finalists included the following:

Active Ink Form Designer from Active Ink Software Inc.

eDrawings from SolidWorks Corp.

EMS Field Bridge from Image Trend Inc.

MathJournal from xThink Inc.

OrangeGuava Desktop from OrangeGuava

PDF Annotator from GRAHL software design

Pink from XAND Corp.

SignDoc from SOFTPRO (Software Professional GmbH & Co. KG)

TalkWrite from Revelation Computing Pty Ltd.

VisualClip 1.0 for Windows XP Tablet PC Edition from Graftabl.com