Tech∙Ed Europe 2009: Party like it’s 1989

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Yesterday, Tech∙Ed Europe 2009 officially started. Coincidentally yesterday also marked 20 years the Berlin wall fell and 70 years since the infamous Kristallnacht. Both events are landmarks in German history. Since we’re in Germany this week, we’re obliged not just to respect these events, but also celebrate the way Germans celebrate most things: with beer 😉

 

Tech∙Ed Technical, Day 1

Yesterday marked two sessions and two keynotes. I attended a level 200 session by Kenon Owens on Virtualization. The session provided a broad overview of Microsofts integrated Virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter. While it was fun to see a fresh ex-VMware employee talk passionately about Microsofts virtualization products, I took the opportunity to attend my mailbox.

The second session I attended was a Mark Minassi session. This session will probably end up as one of the highest rated sessions. This session I saw a new side of Mark, I hadn’t seen yet. Mark obviously is a math genius: “Asymptotically the security of a network reaches 100%, when the amount of money to implement measures reaches infinity.”

TechEd Keynote

Keynote time

After these two sessions and lunch, Marien and I attended both Tech∙Ed Europe 2009 keynotes. This first keynote, the Developers Keynote, by Jason Zander was very inspiring (although I needed to ask Marien questions regularly). The Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) within Visual Studio (demoed by the Partners responsible for the solutions most of the time) and the news surrounding the TeamPrise acquisition was good and practical information. It made me realize Visual Studio is a special Integrated Development Environment (IDE): it leverages the power of the ecosystem, successfully.

The second keynote was presented by Stephen Elop and functioned as the main keynote of the event. Where the Developers keynote only files 1/5 of Hall 25, the main keynote was about to fill up with 7200 IT Pros, developers, IT Managers and Microsoft personnel. Luckily we wouldn’t have to be bored: although we found a 3rd row seat, we were entertained while 6000 other persons entered the room. By who? By Tony and Daniel of course! They were handing out SWAG, told us the seven things we wouldn’t see in Berlin and organized a little contest where five people were eligible to win a Windows 7 netbook by answering questions about Berlin. Good fun!

The Keynote itself was about “IT dreams” and how to achieve them by persuading your boss to implement Microsoft software. I personally don’t have information about the percentage of IT Managers in the room, but it must’ve been a lot: The keynote was totally focused on them. Exchange 2010 and the System Center range of products were demoed by Julia White and Jeff Wetlaufer and these were absolute highlights.

Party like it’s 1989 at Potsdamer Platz

Afterwards we left for the hotel where we had a dip in the pool and diner in the Inter∙Continental Club lounge. I started on a bottle of Johny Walker, but didn’t finish it, because we left for Potsdamer Platz.

mandala_berlin_05[1]

Joachim Nässlander had invited us to have beers in the bar of the Mandala Hotel. While outside it was raining and everyone was getting soaked while watching huge Domino bricks fall, statespersons speak and rockstars performing, we were having drinks with several of Joachims peers over at SpecOps and Knowledge Factory.

On our way back to the hotel we had a hard time reaching the hotel. Although the amount of alcohol in our blood didn’t really help, we had to wait a pretty long time at the crossing between Tiergartenstraße and Hofjägerallee. Also at the entrance of the hotel, getting to the room took longer than normal. Apparently a couple of the statespersons mentioned above were staying at the Inter∙Continental hotel, including Jan Peter, our own Dutch Secretary of State. Motorcades and Secret Service personnel aren’t much fun when you’re drunk and on the wrong side of them.

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