Just as many many others I'm ready to leave for PDC 05. In a couple of hours - together with a number of other Belgian geeks - I'm leaving for Los Angeles. We're flying from Amsterdam to Los Angeles.
Sunday and Monday the pre-conferences and some sightseeing are scheduled. On Sunday I will attend the "Software Development with Visual Studio Team System " pre-conference. Monday the pre-conference "NET Framework 2.0 — The Web Perspective" is scheduled.
I'm convinced that this PDC - just as in 2003 - will be a PDC to remember. Looking forward to some great content on IIS 7.0, Windows Communication Foundation, Infocard, WinFs, Windows Vista, Windows Presentation Foundation ,Office 12, Visual Studio Tools for Office 'v3', .... and many more! Looking at "the goods" I already cleaned my hard disk! I'm pretty much convinced Microsoft will be able - once again - to suprise the geeks with lots and lots of cool stuff!
See you in LA!
Not a lot of blogging lately because of an extremely busy schedule the last two weeks. Check below what we (Microsoft Belux) have been planning lately:
The ISV Community Summit will be organized on October 6th in the ICC in Ghent from 9h30 on. In this summit, targeting the Business Decision Makers and Technical Decision Makers of ISVs, we will have three sessions covering:
The Future of the Microsoft Platform for ISVs
ISV's who build on the Microsoft platform should attend this session to get an overall view of Microsoft's platform strategy and future product roadmap, including how ISVs can benefit by incorporating key Microsoft technologies into their products. Included will be a discussion of customer and partner platform momentum, 'hot' technologies for ISVs, and enablement programs to drive success.
The Visual Studio 2005 & SQL Server 2005 Opportunity to ISV's
Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 are a comprehensive data platform and tools ready to help you meet the evolving needs of your organization, ready to deliver more connected solutions faster, ready to efficiently operate the most demanding mission critical applications, and ready to connect your users with the information they need to make better business decisions. In this session you will hear how these tools offer you:
- Increased efficiency through integrated platform and tools that boost developer productivity and team efficiency, enabling organizations to deliver data-driven solutions faster and with greater predictability.
- Better decisions through broader insight into essential business processes and intelligence enabling better decisions faster.
- Operational excellence through a base platform that delivers the security, performance, scalability, and reliability demanded by the distributed, mission-critical systems of modern businesses.
Using your Microsoft Partnership to maximize return on your Sales and Marketing Efforts
Want to realize your full potential as a Microsoft ISV Partner? Learn how to work together with us to touch more customers, create more selling opportunities and drive additional revenue to your business. In addition, you'll find out how Microsoft's ISV strategy can help you to adopt new technologies through early adopter programs and technical support programs. The session will conclude with a Q&A.
If you're an ISV and interested in attending this Community Summit but did not receive an invitation, you can drop me a mail!
The Microsoft Belux Partner Conference will be organized on October 6th in the ICC in Ghent from 13h30 on. This year we wish
- to inform all our partners on our business opportunities together
- to give our partners deep insight how our solutions meet their customer needs
- Showing the added value of certifying for Microsoft Solution Competencies
Register here! More details can be found on http://www.mspartnerconference.be/.
And last but not least: the Belgian Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005 and BizTalk 2006 Launch is scheduled for November 10th in Parc à Mitrailles in Court-Saint-Etienne.
You are expected from 14h for the Keynote of a Microsoft Corporate VP. Guess who? Later that afternoon we cover the newly launched products in technical depth together with some funny stories. There will probably be two Ask-The-Experts booths where all your technical questions on Visual Studio 2005 & SQL Server 2005 will be answered. Today we're still scheduling some great speakers for this event. And in the evening we're planning a party!
I'll keep you updated if the official registration site will be live!
Earlier this week at the Microsoft Business Summit in Redmond, Bill Gates introduced Microsoft Dynamics. Microsoft Dynamics is a new brand that will replace Microsoft Business Solutions. This naming architecture aligns our brand strategy, marketing and messaging with our current products and our R & D roadmap of future releases. Until now these efforts were code named "Project Green".
The new naming convention will be applied to upcoming releases of:
- Microsoft Axapta® (Microsoft Dynamics AX),
- Microsoft CRM (Microsoft Dynamics CRM),
- Microsoft Great Plains® (Microsoft Dynamics GP),
- Microsoft Navision® (Microsoft Dynamics NAV),
- Microsoft Solomon (Microsoft Dynamics SL).
Microsoft Dynamics is a strong and dynamic name that allows Microsoft to highlight the important and dynamic relationship between the worlds of structured business processes and the unstructured data and communications that are all essential to today’s new world of work. It can be considered as a clear signal of the direction and commitment Microsoft has to the existing product lines. I'm interested to see how the integration with the .NET Framework for building custom applications on top of these products will do!
The new brand will be introduced with the upcoming product releases over the next year. Now we only have to wait for the new logo!