TechEd Day 2 - Paul Flessners Keynote

What can I say but

                        WOW!!!

But then I am bias.

 

Paul started with some computing/systems history and then moved onto our vision for connected systems.

He then went on to describe some of the features of SQL Server 2005, VS 2005 and Biztalk 2005.

Next he announced our RFID Infrastructure

Then we had a demo of some of these features from Brian Keller from VS, we got to meet “The Finalizer”

Next he announced the developer competition here https://msdn.microsoft.com/devcompetition 

Then we had the Xerox customer video, what hams!

Next up was 1 TPC-C and 4 TPC-H Benchmarks!

Then we had a scaleability and availability demo from Francois, Paul decided to taunt “The finalizer” and so that ended a network switch’s useful life! I actually have video of this that I will post tomorrow.

Next we announced that we have changed the support for SSRS to now be in all SKUs including Express, we also announced that ReportBuilder will be added to Std and also Workgroup.

Last demo was done by Donald “Demo God” Farmer who had to put up with an over demanding Paul as the IT User!

Next we announced the public availability of the June CTP for SQL and Biztalk, this is not restricted to MSDN as in previous CTPs, these are on Microsoft.com but most importantly we announced the launch of these products during the week beginning Nov 7th this year.

But even better than that was the announcement of a 5 mill gift from Paul, of a copy of SQL Server 2005 Std(when it ships) for all attendees.

Paul was then able to show some interesting market share and revenue data from Dataquest and IDC that shows that SQL Server is kicking ass today, can’t wait to see the impact Yukon has.

Next was the release of the SQL Server Migration Assistant(for Oracle) and this led to another competition around Oracle migration that allows the winner to get a custom chopper.

So as I warned a few weeks ago it really was quite the show, hope you enjoyed and as always feedback is welcome!