My First Full Day @ PDC
PDC is now in full swing and I have been here for about 24 hours so far. Of course, by now you may have heard about the huge power failure that occurred around lunchtime yesterday. Needless to say, the Sept 12th power outage was a little unnerving, but as it turns out it was just a construction crew that cut the wrong cable. LA’s power grid is very “brittle” and the spike of the power returning blew out the grid.
As for the show – well, it’s BIG. The biggest PDC ever. Lots of people, lots of amazing sessions and lots of exhibitors (good ones too!).
The highlights so far:
- The Keynote. BillG was great as always. The fun part (outside of the amazing demos of Office 12 and Vista) was a video featuring Bill and Napoleon Dynamite. (Yes, from the movie)
- Microsoft MAX – this is a proof-of-concept Avalon / Indigo application that they built to show off various features. But as a photographer it is particularly cool to me. MAX is a photo sharing application that uses the peer-to-peer Indigo layer to create shared slideshows. I just installed it from – www.microsoft.com/max - you need WinFX beta installed on your machine. Check it out.
- Microsoft Gadgets – http://microsoftgadgets.com/ - we announced and showed off this new “gadget” concept that plugs into both SideBar and SideShow in Vista. I think this will be and amazing place for ISVs to innovate.
- The Mobile Deal – they announced a surprise deal for the i-mate JASJAR Windows Mobile 5 device. This thing is awesome - http://www.imate.com/ - and they sold it for $149!!! (Regular - >$1000)
- Office 12 – I just can’t wait….
- The Hands On Labs – hundreds of machines all ready for people to get their hands dirty
- Blogging EVERYWHERE
- The DVDs – wow, 5 DVDs of content and betas. Cool. Nice case for them as well.
The lowlights –
- The Mobile Deal – well, yes it was a great deal, but it caused a stampede in the middle of the keynote. They only had a limited number, so it sold it in an hour. So, lots of people who stayed for the entire keynote didn’t get a chance to buy one. Also – while customers are our #1 priority, it would have been nice to see MSFT employees get a crack at this deal.
- Asking people to “not use your laptops during the keynote” – they announced this over the PA system… no laptops? At a developer event? Yeah, right…
- The coffee. Sucks. Terrible.
- The DVDs – wow, they came with a little flyer to tell you about an error in the authoring.
More to come as the days go on. Watch for lots more pictures as well J
