WPC 2007 Andrew Canada

 Tuesday night was the regional breakout parties and as usual, Canada's party was the place to be.  Tom Cochrane headlined the event (Life is a Highway, Lunatic Fringe, White Hot, etc.) at Denver's Vinyl Club and it was a great place to connect with Canadian Partners from across the country and Microsoft Canada folks, all in one place.  I actually into a friend form high school at the event!  As you would expect, beer, laughter, handshakes and hugs were plentiful.  Tom played for 2 hours including an encore performance and finished after 11pm.  The die-hards went down to the first floor and stayed until last call, some time after 1:30am.  It was yet another great party, let's face it, Canada Rocks!

Quote

Ballmer's Message

I've always thought of Ballmer as a football coach masquerading as a CEO.  If you've ever seen an early Ballmer speech you'll know what I mean.  Extremely animated, jumping up and down with excitment and enthusiasm and his voice booming out over the vast audience.  He took some flak in the media for this a couple of years ago as un-CEO-like behaviour, but for those of us who love Ballmer's passion and eschew other overly prepared and sometimes wooden CEOs, Ballmer was a breath of fresh air.  Last year many Ballmer succumbed to the pressure and became one of these CEOs and it left many wanting the old Ballmer with all his outrageous and fun style.

 

This year Ballmer's passion was back, though still more controlled in years past, it was clear that his passion for the work Microsoft is doing across it's customer segments - consumers, small & medium business and enterprise customers - is as strong as ever.  His presentation was highlighted by the ultra-cool Silverlight demo which included a cameo by the equally cool Microsoft Surface.  Steve's message about Microsoft's future directions and the impacts it will have for all of our customers in the next 2-4 years dovetailed Kevin Turner's presentation about investments in the future.  Steve mentioned over $7 Billion in investments is expected next year and future invesments in over 70 key areas  demonstrate Microsoft's commitment to continue to lead and not be happy with the status quo.

 

Of course there is the double edge sword that while these investments are going to create amazing opportunities, the challenge will be trying to figure out which bets make the most sense for our business and how we can leverage these investments.  I'd call that a nice problem to have.  Stay tuned folks, the next couple of years promise to be exciting times!

Well I finally arrived in Denver at 2am local time, 4am Toronto time due to thunderstorms throughout the mid-west.  It's a shame there's now MS Weather application that allows you to customize the local conditions!  On to the conference!

Registration was a breeze and the staff at the Denver convention centre has been very helpful and friendly and the food was plentiful this AM - all good signs.  The glitz and glamour factor you expect from Microosft's largest conference was in full effect.  Alison Watson welcomed everyone in an opening video on horseback in a wide open range shot on a Denver prairie.  Nice! Made me want to head out to a ranch myself.

Kevin Turner kicked off the keynotes in fine style.  Normally this is Ballmer's slot, but Kevin did a great job showing the massive amount of R&D MS has put in play over the years and how that has translated into a huge raft of product launches over the past year.  MS is expecting more of the same in FY'08 and they eye chart of expected product launches is impressive.  Kevin's message was clear - "MS is in it to win it!"

Ballmer's up soon, gotta fly!

Quote

I'll be at WPC July 10-12

Welcome to my WPC Live Space. Over the next few days I’ll be sharing my thoughts, photos  and experiences from the Microsoft Worldwide Partner conference. Joining me in blogging about the conference are other partners from around the world. Their blogs are available at Digital WPC.