TechEd 2007 SEA begins with Chris Atkinson, President of Microsoft South East Asia, coming out on to stage who starts off by stating that this is the largest TechEd SEA ever. Looking around me in this huge auditorium, I can't say that I can deny that. He then goes on to talk about "The World is Flat" (specifically the opportunities abound) and Microsoft's People Ready Vision. While talking about Education, Mr. Atkinson mentions the Imagine Cup having over 100,000 student competitors representing over 110 countries, and very proudly announces that Thailand won this year's competition (the first SEA country to win, he mentions). He goes on to highlight security and interoperability and how Microsoft and partners at TechEd will be addressing real-life issues in these areas. Chris concludes by saying that the next 4 days are critical to ensuring that our part of the world captures all the opportunities that are going to pass us by over the coming years.
Chris then goes on to introduce Lutz Ziob, General Manager, Microsoft Learning. Lutz starts by showing Microsoft's 15 years of industry leadership. He announced that over 3.3+ million certifications have been granted. But it continues to evolve to cater to industry and individual needs. The new generation of Microsoft certifications will be 1) targeted and flexible, 2) rigorous and credible, and 3) relevant and simple. The new Microsoft certification framework starts with the Technology Series (core technical skills). The Professional series are specific to job roles. Lastly, there is also the Architect Series (Microsoft Certified Architect). Lutz then goes on to describe the new logo - the left side representing the credential and the right side representing the certifications --> Microsoft Certified Professional Developer | Windows Developer. In fact, there is even a logo builder for certified professionals to create these new logos. He then goes on to mention a special discount for TechEd attendees - 1) 40% discount off exam, 2) a FREE retake (in the unlikely event attendees fail), and 3) the offer is valid until October 31. Details and more offers by Microsoft and partners available at the Microsoft Learning Pavilion. There is also a track on Microsoft Certifications at Conference Hall 2 on September 12 at 2:15PM.
The next guest speaker is the Senior Vice President of the MDEC Malaysia, Mr. Dato' Narayanan Kanan. He first starts talking about the 10 Bill of Guarantees - which the government guarantees to foreign companies and investors. He then talks about how Malaysia has the best of all worlds including developer and IT professional talent and how Microsoft has partnered with them over the past number of years on a variety of collaborative projects. Lastly, he announces that Malaysia will be hosting WCIT 2008 in May of next year and welcomes everyone to Malaysia.
Steve Guggenheimer, General Manager, Application Platform and Development Division is introduced. There are problems with his mic, but that is quickly resolved. As with the other speakers, he welcomes to the audience to TechEd and once again asks the audience to engage in dialogue with Microsoft and its partners. The presentation will be about Dynamic IT. Industry breakthroughs: 1) performance of hardware, 2) Web 2.0 explosion, 3) software breakthroughs, and 4) broadband, wireless, mobility, and form factors. In Virtualized Environments, Microsoft provides an end-to-end approach. Operating System Virtualization (Windows Server 2008, Virtual PC, Virtual Server), Application Layer Virtualization (Microsoft SoftGrid), and 3) Presentation layer Virtualization (Windows Server 2003 Terminal Services) and management of all including the physical platform is provided by System Center.
Steve then invites Ramesh Rajandran from Microsoft Malaysia to show Microsoft's virtualization technologies. Ramesh brings up the Virtualization Management Console on Windows Server 2008. The console shows various virtual machines that are running and/or off. Each machine can be assigned up to 4 virtual processors - a nice enhancement over Virtual Server. Ramesh then shows how you can use a machine through RDP by double-clicking on it. He then shows how a new Web server can provisioned very easily. He then shows Terminal Services Remote Application - giving users access to applications that they don't have on their own desktop! He takes an application on the server and makes it available to a user and shows how the user can launch the application even though the application is not residing on the user's machine. Finally, he shows Network Access Protection (enforcement of network policy to PCs in the organization).
Steve G. takes the stage again and wraps up on Windows Server 2008. He then talks about aligning processes between IT professionals, developers, and business analysts. This includes building bridges between security processes and management of these products in a simplified manner. Ramesh is invited back up onto stage to talk about Forefront and System Center. He shows very detailed reports of computers on the network (what computers have updated virus definitions, what versions, which computers are vulnerable, etc.). You can even change the level of detail that clients report back to the server. System Center pushes these policies down for us (and also the software updates). Ramesh shows a Windows Vista client that receives an update for Forefront Client and updates the system with a couple of clicks. He then goes on to show centralized patch management also through System Center. Lastly, Ramesh shows an application by Whale Communications (acquired by Microsoft) which basically allows users outside the office (let's say in an Internet cafe) to access applications within the intranet. All you need is a Web browser - pretty neat. Furthermore, Forefront automatically provides security and security policies depending on the security settings of the computer you are using. For instance, if the Internet cafe machine you are using does not have Forefront Client and you want to upload a file to Sharepoint, the server will not allow the operation.
Steve comes back and starts talking about services. He talks about a new consumption model called Software + Services. He mentions that he thinks about services in 3 levels: 1) "building block services" - these are done by developers and not usually touched by end-users such as mapping services, 2) "attached" services - such as XBox which attaches to XBox Live that makes it better, and 3) "finished services" - e.g. hosted Exchange, Dynamics CRM Live, etc. So what's the right mix? How do we balance what's in and outside the firewall? Integration and management issues. There's no single right answer. There's most likely going to be a balance and hence Microsoft is invested heavily in all 3 of these types of services. Steve plays a video of BP to concretize this point.
Steve then moves on to talk about user experiences. He calls Rohan Thomas, Developer Evangelist of Microsoft Malaysia on to the stage to talk about Silverlight and Visual Studio 2008. Rohan shows a model of a phone in Expression and shows how to rotate and animate a 3D object using only his mouse. (For the first time, there is a small amount of applause in the audience.) After working on his app for some time in Expression, he opens it up in Visual Studio 2008 and starts hooking up code. Rohan moves on to talk about Silverlight - "What about the Web?" Visual Studio 2008 already has templates for Silverlight applications. Rohan is showing how to build an application in Silverlight that is useful for booking airline tickets (this is the Silverlight Airlines demo that is publicly available but Rohan is building is from scratch).
Steve comes back onto the stage and talks about the designer-to-developer workflow. There's one last part to user experience - pulling in the right information. Jun Fwu Chin of Microsoft Malaysia is introduced to show the audience SQL Server 2008. Specifically, he is talking about reporting. He is showing a product (what product, I don't know) which has an Office 2007 ribbon interface. This looks like Report Builder, so I am assuming this is the new version.
The keynote session ends.
