My Day at a Microsoft Launch Event
It was fun, well sort of...
Thursday, January 25, 2007 by Island Dog | Discussion: Personal Computing
I was invited a few weeks ago to attend a Microsoft Vista/Office 2007 launch event in Orlando which was being held today. So I decided to get up early and brave the cold and rain to see what Microsoft had to offer. It was being held at the beautiful Rosen Plaza hotel in Orlando. Unfortunately, there was more than 2000 people at this event and parking was almost impossible, but I eventually made it in.
Microsoft had a very nice registration area setup with beverages and a light breakfast for participants. There were several representatives there to direct people, and they were all very friendly. I handed them my ticket and they gave me a string backpack full of goodies. By goodies I mean a pen and a t-shirt.
The presenter had just started a few minutes earlier, and he was showing some of the basic functions and some of the new features of Vista. He started off showing us the Documents folder and how in Vista you are able to "look in side the documents" and how the use of metadata makes finding and browsing your documents easier. He went on to show off other things like Windows Flip, Flip3D, and desktop search.
For some reason he spent just an hour or so on Vista, and the rest of the time telling us how great Office 2007 was. We saw a visual timeline of the progress of Microsoft Office, a few spreadsheet jokes, and a few minutes reminiscing about "Clippy". I will admit I learned a few new things about Office 2007 that I didn't pay much attention to before like previewing e-mail attachments inside the mail message.
During the breaks many people started "mingling" and I got a chance to talk to many people, most of which were from small or mid-sized companies. The big topic of discussion was obviously Windows Vista and many of the people I spoke to planned to upgrade to Vista. The interest in Office 2007 was quite high also, which I didn't personally expect.
Overall it was a good event, and I even learned a thing or two, maybe even three, and met some really nice people. Microsoft put on a great presentation, and it was well worth the drive. The Microsoft Launch events are still going on for several weeks, so if you have the opportunity to attend, go for it. You can get locations and dates from the Microsoft events website below.
Microsoft Events
Reply #2 Monday, January 29, 2007 12:46 AM
After the breakfast mingle and the Keynote presentation, the various groups departed to their respected breakout meetings. I personally attended the the decision makers (no Bush jokes, please) break. It turned out that the presentation was simply an explanation from the panel of professionals (early adopter partners) explaining why MS exchange, Office and Vista was done at their facility. Personally I run a small business and I would have liked to have a better understanding of why as a small business owner this would be practical for me as well as all my clients I advise.
In another breakout group, one of my board members attended the developers workshops. There was the introduction to .Net 3.0 and its new tools. From what I understood (he is way to technical for me) the future development tool kits for .Net 3 are a vast improvement for rapid deployment of future applications for in the Vista environment.
All in all, I felt like this was more of a presentation for the partners than MS Vista. I tried to go to the various "Ask the experts" stations set up, and just like when I call for tech support / customer service, I found I was bounced around and never really got my questions answered. So I give MS credit for being consistent.
I don't mean to bad mouth MS, I know that they have had a hell of lot of R&D put into this product launch, and I have been able to play with various betas for a better part of a year. I guess I am just glad Vista, Office 2007 and the new Exchange servers have finally arrived.
On a side note to Stardock, koodoes on the great assisting of the advanced visual effects and designs for the upcoming Vista. I truly believe you have help create the better GUI that MS OS needed so badly.
Thank you
Reply #3 Monday, January 29, 2007 3:15 PM
Reply #4 Wednesday, January 31, 2007 4:57 AM
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Reply #1 Thursday, January 25, 2007 8:56 PM