So, this week, it's TechReady6, an internal "conference" designed for folks within Microsoft Services. Staffers from all over the place come out to Seattle for this -- TAMs, Consultants, folks from DPE (still haven't found out what that stands for), PDRMs, Practice Managers, etc.
Folks also come out from all across the globe - saw several attendees from France, the UK, Israel, Canada, etc. It was pretty cool to see.
Technical content ranges - most of the sessions are in the 200-300 range, though there are a handful of 400 level sessions. Anthony Witecki and I saw Mark Russinovich this afternoon - he spoke on the new core (and when I say core, I mean waaaaaay deep down core - no fluffy stuff like BitLocker, UAC, or the client-facing stuff that hit the streets with Vista) advances in Windows Server 2008. Stuff like _____, _____, and the way-too-cool ________________. Make sure you grab a copy of Windows Server 2008 and start playing with it. MSDN, TechNet, go buy the thing when it launches on the 27th - whatever you need to do. It's cool. Get in early.
TechReady is also trying to go green this year - that was a big splash this morning. Bamboo plates (rather than paper or poly), rather than bottled water, they gave us nice Nalgene water bottles. The badge holders (conference badge, not our Microsoft ID badge) are recyclable, as are the conference satchels (they're not that spiffy - I would've preferred a nice T-shirt, or a nice backpack - Brian and James got nice backpacks last year when they went to Tech-Ed. Their blog is very good -- but, for the meantime, it's SSL protected using an internal certificate - so, ignore the cert warning - it's good stuff - it's even snowing on their blog.)
You may have heard the announcements last week that Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista SP1 went RTM. I haven't had a chance to play with Windows Server 2008 yet, but I'm installing Vista SP1 as I write this. Looking forward to seeing
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Vista SP1 took over my computer while I was in the middle of writing that sentence. Now I have to play with it and see what its all about.
More TechReady6 tomorrow. Catch you on the flip side.