TechEd Keynote – brief comments & impressions

I am keeping these brief on purpose – just my impressions in 5 sentences or less (I hope).

Bob Muglia

Cloud

Apparently there is this thing called the cloud . . . Say it:  Cloud, cloud, cloud, cloud. In the cloud, magic elves create software that works automagically. Oooo … Cloud, cloud, cloud, cloud.

Seriously though, this is a big emphasis for MS. My sense is that both the technology and implementations are early and still somewhat immature.

The Chicago Tribune case study piqued my interest (coming from Chicago), but didn’t provide huge details.

Testing

Demo of an automated testing app that pinpoints error, captures screenshots, and allows you to step backwards. Cool demo. I wonder what softwares need to be in place for this to work,

Virtualization

It’s hard to demo virtualization, since it’s all, well, virtual.

Application management

The main concept I came away with is the idea of saving state, provisioning updates and dropping the preserved application state on top of the patched virtual OS.

Danger phrase during this demo: “It’s just a check-box”
Translation of key phrase: “Available for download” ≠ “released”

Office Communication server

720 videoconferencing using commodity hardware
Cool demo, but demo gremlins messed up the effect. The background floor plan took forever to load, so the collaborative white-boarding took place on an empty white rectangle.

Windows Phone 7

Way too many animations in Windows Phone 7 OS.
Cool auto-suggest feature
Sync w/ Sharepoint demo was cool.

IE 9 –Mentioned, not demoed

Windows intune – New security suite? Mentioned, not demoed

BI in the cloud ?

(I think that’s what Mr. Muglia said, but the demo really didn’t have anything to do with the cloud)
Great demo by Amir Netz, who called PowerPivot’s sorting 100 Million rows “wickedly fast”
Code name Dallas
Odata format to integrate data from the cloud (ahh, there’s where cloud come in. Say it: cloud, cloud, cloud)
Demo of uploading to SharePoint
Demo of reporting on this with SSRS
PivotViewer – very cool demo of stop-light color-coded thumbnails in a silverlight based power-pivot like display.
Also demoed Mapping linked with geo-tagged photos

Avatar – wow ms software used to create Avatar?

Gaia asset tracking application – Used SQL, tracked production assets.

Mr. Muglia’s closing thought

Cloud creates opportunities and responsibilities

Edit: Link to the actual keynote is here

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