Microsoft in the House

Last week I went to a Microsoft seminar in Eugene. I really expected that it would have been better attended and I would have seen a bunch of people that I know. I guess folks largely get their information from so many other sources today that these seminar deals are getting a little outdated. Still, I enjoyed it and thought it was time worth spending.

They spend a lot of time on SharePoint and Microsoft's new Office Communications Server. I've always like SharePoint and still have plans to migrate our own, very home-grown intranet over to SharePoint. The Office Communications Server was interesting. My main thought was how we already have most of what they showed with our own VOIP phone system but they've achieved an even tighter level of integration with Microsoft products than what we have. For instance, they can display "presence" information just about everywhere and they are farther along with a Windows Mobile phone client. From a bigger picture, it's going to be interesting to see how Microsoft moves forward with this product and how they play with all the other phone vendors out there that require Microsoft's help for integration with existing applications. Hmmmmm...

They also spent a large amount of time on the System Center suite of products. Some of this was pretty cool and I'm always interested in management technologies that will help us work smarter, faster, more effectively, more efficiently, etc. We have an SMS server currently but I can see how System Center is so much more. And, it looks like they are building a CMDB for a future release!

I missed most of the presentation around Microsoft Dynamics because I had to run home and let my dog out but I don't think I really missed much of importance. Of all the topics on the agenda that one seemed the best one to miss.

Lastly, they spent some time talking about Windows Server 2008, Virtualization, and SQL 2008. They appear to be starting to make a big push in the virtualization market. As we just made a decision to purchase VMWare I found this particularly interesting. As I see it, for us anyway, they are just too late to Market with their virtualization stuff. The presenter said as much himself by recognizing that most of the customers he's talked to are already pretty far down a path with VMWare and aren't willing to put the brakes on for new products and technologies from Microsoft. I mean...VMWare must have a five year head start! Server 2008 had some interesting things also but, like Vista is to XP, there's certainly nothing revolutionary there.

I particularly enjoy the Directions on Microsoft Roadmap that shows all the Microsoft products, where they've been, and where they are heading. It makes budgeting and planning upgrades a little easier.