Friday, the 2^nd day of TechEd China in Beijing, I was packed with sessions back to back. 2 breakout sessions, 1 instructor led lab, 1 hour of booth duty. Almost had no time for a lunch, but felt happy as always to see new faces, and hear new questions.

In this TechEd, other than wearing the hat as the “expert” on Windows Embedded, I am also wearing the hat as one of the authors of the second book in a series “Microsoft 360 Degree” written in Chinese. The books talk about Microsoft corporate culture and are finished by a group of Redmond-based Chinese employees like myself. During lunch time, I joined 2 other authors/speakers and the publisher to promote the book and meet the readers. We shared the experience of writing this book, and our learning/growing stories in Microsoft. Later when I was at our product booth, one girl stopped me. She told me in that lunch session, she felt I have a very human side of Microsoft, she likes it. She is graduating and asked if she can come to work in my team. I was surprised by her request but amazed by her courage. I couldn'd say no. She was slightly surprised when I told her I am actually not working in China but US. I offered to take her resume and see if I can refer her to local teams. Another interesting thing about the book was, today outside the speaker room when waiting for a media interview from "51CTO Network", I mentioned to coworkers there that in last TechEd, I autographed a few books (like a big star*_^). Then they started chasing me to autograph for themJ.

Saturday, the last day of this TechEd China. One of the local consultants on Embedded from Microsoft Shanghai office co-hosted with me in the Community session. The little cabana like area was packed with 30+ people. That area was in an open space, therefore it also attracted a few people who were just walking by to stop. I first played the Chinese version of our vision video (BTW, all English versions of our videos can be found here), then presented a few slides of Windows Embedded product road map and the community and ecosystem overview, and then we opened for Q/A.  Most of the questions were on CE, no surprise. What surprised me was there was no lack of questions. We were warned earlier that in a few other community sessions, audience were quiet and had not enough questions. Here are a few example of the questions from the audience: how to migrate drivers developed on XP Pro to CE; what’s the catch to run Silverlight 2.0 on CE and how to make it work; what is the vision or next step of .NET Micro Framework. One customer described their current design scenario (kiosk or information terminals in rural China where feature or security updates will be quite frequent) and asked us to recommend what product he should choose. I explained what Windows Embedded Standard can offer, especially the integration with SCCM and other servicing approaches. Also suggested him to take a look at virtualization. Another customer talked about issues from their work in IPTV space.

My day in TechEd concluded with the interview with TechNet. The interviewer Andy was great, made me feeling really relaxed. We talked about 2 areas: the Chinese employee community in Microsoft (aka CHIME); and the Windows Embedded product – the vision of Smart, Connected, and Service-Oriented Devices, the product family, my sessions and the learning from the interaction with the audience.  I was glad to have another opportunity to bring awareness to our product in China.  They said the interview video will be available in December.

After almost 2 weeks of travelling and presenting, finally I felt relieved it came to a good end. It was a tiring trip but I had a lot of fun too (I am gathering photos and will post them here later).  As I wrote in a quick update email to Andy today, I felt this trip was so fruitful, I learned so much, and got pumped so much on the opportunities and challenges we are facing in China. I look forward to going back to Redmond and working with the team there and here to sort them out! The torch will be carried on in good hands, and even greater games are just about to start!

Weijuan