Just back from a hectic Tech Ed Europe in Amsterdam last week and thought I would drop in a note about the event. 

After a very wet start (the weather not the content), Monday's excellent pre-conference sessions were followed by the key note on Tuesday morning. Rob gives a great overview of that session here. At the key note, it was also announced that everyone who attended TechEd Europe will be getting a copy of Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 for free when they are released. Andy Lees also announced the availability of free E-Learning courses for VS 2005 and SQL Server 2005 - well worth while checking out!

At the moment, you can also get free skills assessment for individuals for products like Visual Studio and Microsoft Server System (including SQL Server, SBS, Windows 2003, Exchange and more). This has a value of US$40 and provides you with a learning roadmap including additional learning resources like instructor-led classroom training.

The Dev track this year mostly focused on what's new in VS 2005 and SQL Server 2005. I know Rob was also busy doing a lot of Hands On Labs that we hope to replicate during the year. Apart from the general VS05 dev sessions and a couple of Security sessions, I also attended most of the Birds of a Feather discussions on Developer and IT Pro Communities and got some good best practices from some of the user group leaders from the rest of EMEA.

I'd also like to call out the second key note on Thursday by David Vaskevitch - his presentation on 'The Future of Software' really was very interesting. One of the most memorable ideas from the session was that everyone in IT completely over-estimates what is possible in two years, but completely under-estimates what is possible in ten!

If you are interested in Software Architecture, you should definitely check out Marcus Mac Innes' blog for a good in-depth look at all the SOA content that was covered this year. Marcus lists Kimberly L Tripp, Rafal Lukawiecki and Clemens Vasters as the three best speakers at this year's conference - and while I'd have to agree they were all excellent, I really have to add Steve Riley who managed to give the most entertaining (yet informative) talk on Security Policies I have ever heard.

On a final note, I'd like to thank everyone from Ireland and Northern Ireland who came along and helped make it such a great event for the Microsoft Ireland team over there! We are all looking forward to seeing you all next year! :) In the meantime of course, there is always PDC in LA and IT Forum in Barcelona to look forward to!