It's official as of today: the 2007 Microsoft Office System has been released to manufacturing.

And coincidentally, today concludes my first year at Microsoft. The day I joined the Office evangelism team, November 7 2005, things were a bit different from today:

  • Office 2007 was in the "dogfood" phase; the first beta version was months away
  • The Open XML file formats hadn't been submitted to Ecma; now the spec is in its final draft form, ready for voting by the General Assemby
  • OpenXmlDeveloper.org didn't exist; neither did this blog, for that matter
  • Megan and I weren't married yet
  • I was thinner

Other than that last item, it's been a pretty good year.

Now I'm in Barcelona for TechEd, and tomorrow 3750 developers will be here for the biggest gathering of software developers in European history. The registration area that was so deserted over the weekend will be a zoo, I'm sure.

And Megan's here with me. We're staying in the hotel across the street, and tomorrow morning I'll walk across the street to staff the Open XML Developer Group booth. I'm giving a presentation on Open XML in the Ask The Experts pavillion at 3:30 tomorrow, so if you're at TechEd drop in to hear all about what's new in the world of Open XML development.  Or stop by the booth and wish me a happy anniversary -- I'll make it worth your while.