Work and fun - that's what happens at Tech Ed every year!

It's so great to be able to speak to so many customers at on etime in one place. We really get to learn a lot about what they're doing with our products, the difficulties they encounter, and the successes they attain. It never ceases to amaze me just how passionate people are about what they are doing and how our products help them to do their jobs. It's just great.

One of the things I notice the most about Tech Ed is how fast time flies. I just can't believe it's all over - it went by so fast! I spent quite a bit of time at our product booth and in our cabana area, and I had some great conversations with a number of attendees. I noted that there were a number of people who were new to Visual Studio Tools for Office, and it occurs to me that we still need to get the word out to a much broader audience.

As is typical when we speak to folks about VSTO for the first time, they were very impressed with what our current product could do. I spoke to a number of people who were impressed with our data binding capabilities, and they seemed to be quite excited about trying VSTO out on their projects.  A lot of folks who dropped by our booth were very impressed and interested in our plans for VSTO V3, and many were looking forward to trying out "Cypress", our add-on pack for Visual Studio that allows developers to develop add-in projects for some of the major Office 2007 applications.

Although attendees work hard at attending as many sessions as possible and learning as much as they can during the week, they are also really good at partying and having fun. I saw many of them at various parties that I attended, and you could tell that everyone was having a great time. I heard lots of great stories, lots of loud laughing and even a few spirited debates. My favorite time was at the jam session. It was really fun getting up and performing with some of the attendees, a few of which I knew from last year's Tech Ed. My only regret is that the jam session lasted only until Wednesday evening - I had originally planned on participating in the jam sessions throughout the end of the week. Bummer. <g>

This year's Tech Ed was a success for our team, and we've got some great feedback that we can take back to the team. Kudos to Kathleen, Mei, McLean, Paul and TQ for the great work they did talking to customers all week, and additional kudos to Paul and TQ for the great sessions they delivered early in the week.

Tech Ed may be over, but you'll be sure to see me and other members of the team at other events throughout the year. On behalf of the team, I'd like to thank everyone who attended Tech Ed this year and an additional thank you to those of you who came by to see us.

See you again soon...