TechEd 2005 Day 1

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I am typing this during a little mini-break from TechEd 2005 in Orlando this year. This is my first time working as staff at TechEd, and I have to say that it is hectic but fun.

I travel between the Track Cabanas that follow IIS-specific topics and the IIS booth at the Expo Pavilion. Two totally different types of work. On the one hand, there is very technical and in-depth questioning from the Cabana talks, and on the other hand, the mass-market "expo" of the Pavilion. It is interesting to put various "hats" on because people have such wide, varied expectations.

Based on the number of questions, I have to say there is a lot of buzz surrounding IIS 7.0 right now. I have worked to get an IIS 7.0 image (the same one as our most recent Dev Lab) available for demo in the Pavilion. Participants have been overwhelmingly positive when they hear about the new features being offered in IIS 7.0, like componentization of the server core and delegated config and UI, because they directly address many of their common pain points right now.

  • Web Developers do not need to be administrators to be able to manage their web app/site on IIS7
  • Server Administrators can totally componentize and lock down the IIS server to their heart's desire

I believe that great products sell themselves, and IIS 7.0 definitely fits that description. It is definitely a positive feeling to take back to the product team as we get cranking to deliver this product with the right quality, feature set, and time frame.

Needless to say, I will not be making significant progress on my other blog entries (Managed IIS6 Extensibility, amongst others) this week, but I will definitely get back to it ASAP.