Tech Ed North America Developers 2008 Wrap Up

Last week’s developer event just marked three milestones:

1. Bill Gates’ final Keynote

2. MEDC integration into Tech Ed

3. The separation of Tech Ed North America into two weeks for Developers and IT Pros

At this developer event we reached out to over 5,500 developers, customers and partners.

We brought our “MEDC Dream Team” of Mobile MVP and Microsoft speakers and I’m happy to announce that we had the #1 session at the entire event!  Darren Shaffer scored an amazing 8.87 on his session covering “Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition Ultimate Performance Tuning” to take the top spot.  As a track, we took the top spot for our Technical Learning Center Chalk Talks and we were within striking distance of the #1 position with our Hands-on Labs.

Top scoring speakers and sessions included:

· Luis Cabrera-Cordon (8.33) :: Maximizing the Usability and Compatibility of Your Mobile Microsoft Visual C++ Application

· Andy Wigley (7.89) :: Accessing RESTful Web Data Services in the Microsoft .NET Compact Framework: The Lightweight Alternative to SOAP

· Dr. Neil Roodyn (8.00) :: Building Windows Mobile Applications That Work with Windows Vista Sync Center

· Nickolas Landry (8.00) :: Windows Communication Foundation on Devices

· Loke Uei Tan (7.89) :: Microsoft Silverlight UX for Mobile Devices

· Douglas Boling (8.21) :: Peer-to-Peer Windows Mobile Software

· Maarten Struys (8.00) :: Unit Testing for Devices: The Holy Grail, or Something to Use in Your Day-to-Day Work?

· Daniel Moth (8.31) :: Sharing Assets between the Microsoft .NET Compact Framework and the Microsoft .NET Framework

· Anoop Gupta (7.86) :: What's New in the Windows Mobile Line of Business Solution Accelerator 2008

· Alex Feinman (7.80) :: Using Microsoft DirectDraw in Windows Mobile Applications

· Jim Wilson (8.05) :: Mobilizing Your Web Applications with Microsoft Internet Explorer Mobile and AJAX

· Reed Robison (8.00) :: Shorten Your Mobile Development Cycle

· Liam Cavanagh (7.55) :: Taking Data Offline: Introduction to Microsoft Synchronization Services for ADO.NET

· Rob Tiffany (8.50) :: Achieving Global Scalability with Mobile Merge Replication via Republishing

· Reed Robison (8.24) :: Windows Mobile Application Deployment for Developers

· Rabi Satter (8.18) :: Shells and Kiosk: Customizing Windows Mobile

· Maarten Struys (8.58) :: Programming with the State and Notification Broker in Windows Mobile 6.0

We had an intimate dinner for 80+ customers, partners, speakers and staff at Shula’s Steakhouse which turned out to be a big hit.  Customers and partners got the royal treatment with hours of 1:1 time with Microsoft and Mobile MVP experts.  The steaks and wine weren’t bad either…

We had a device bar showing off 23 of the newest Windows Mobile 6.1 phones and ruggedized devices plus we had a surprise showing of the new HTC Touch Diamond.  We had demo stations where our expert staff could take developers on deep dives of Silverlight for Mobile, the Mobile Line of Business Accelerator 2008, and Visual Studio for Devices 2008.

It’s been my great pleasure to run this event for MCB Developer Marketing.  As someone who’s attended and worked at all our mobile developer conferences going back to the first Mobility Conference with Bill Gates in New Orleans in 2003, I have a deep connection of our developer community and a vested interest in seeing Windows Mobile succeed.    On behalf of my track Co-chair Dr. Neil Roodyn, I’d like to thank the following people who worked hard and put in a lot of hours to make this event possible:

Lax Madapaty, Loke Uei Tan, Tim McAfee, Jane Hemmen, Brian Lio, Lillian Eng, Dawn Charlson, Eric Nelson, Constanze Roman, Reed Robison, Amit Chopra, Michael Saffitz, Fernando Zandona, Leandro Olivestro, Raleigh Paenitz, Saki Tong, Hendry Effendy, Michelle Locuratolo, Jim Bresler, Ross Heise, and many others.

Best Regards,

Rob