The last couple days I haven’t blogged. I’ve been too tired. What’s up? I’ve been at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference here in Boston. I’ve split my time between going to the keynotes, talking to various groups at Microsoft, walking the exhibition hall, and demoing InkGestures in the Motion Computing booth.
As Chris Kelley points out in his blog, the logistics of the conference weren’t all that great–even the Closing Conference Party fell flat compared to what Microsoft usually pulls off. In fact, despite the Boston conference center’s immense size, the facility simply has far to few bathrooms to handle a Partner-sized crowd like at WPC. Worse yet, the food was surprisingly sparse too–which usually isn’t the case for Microsoft conferences. I should have packed more snacks. Little or no food makes me extra tired.
Fortunately, Frank Gocisnski and Ken Vassallo of the Tablet team came to the rescue and invited me along to Quincy Market one night and to an Italian restaurant on the North End for the other. I’m afraid I would have been extra grumpy without their kind invitations.
It’s individual efforts and contacts like these that make conferences such as the WPC worthwhile. The frugal part of me isn’t so sure if the $1500 conference fee was worth it, but sometimes I don’t get my monies worth at buffets either. Oh well. I learned a few things and who knows what will become of this.
For instance, the one new thing–well actually two–I took away from the conference was the potential value in the new Microsoft Dynamics CRM Live product as well as the unfolding opportunities for Office Live. I need to read up on and experiment with both.
Overall I’d say the WPC is enterprise and solution-biased towards SharePoint and the like. That’s not exactly my cup of tea, but for those that are into this area I imagine they got the most out of the conference. I also enjoy talking tech too much–and for some of the marketing focused attendees this can draw a lot of blank stares, some talking past each other, or “I don’t knows.” This was my first time at WPC and now I understand better what to expect and plan for. Keep it simple. Stay focused on today’s products and marketing opportunities. Think immediate. And if you want to get someone’s attention, have real (and hopefully large) numbers to back up what you say.
Oh, and by the way, there were lots of Tablets at the conference. I did a quick survey of all the notebooks and Tablets I saw people using in the halls this morning to see if the numbers matched my intuition. Out of 46 notebooks, 14 were Tablets. Not bad. My guesstimate is that the overall ratio was a little lower, but it indicates how strongly Microsoft and the Microsoft Partners have accepted Tablets. That’s good to see.