Berliners love bears

While I was in Berlin for the Microsoft TechEd Europe conference, I had to take time out to collect further evidence to support my ongoing thesis that Berliners love bears.







- the last one on the right is a giant panda bear

Microsoft PDC 2009

I've arrived in L.A. for Microsoft #PDC09. It's just like L.A. Story--sunny.... 72.

Microsoft Tech Days Halifax Sold Out

Next week, Halifax will host the Microsoft Tech Days conference. I'm happy to say that the Halifax event is sold out.

The sessions include a wide range of interesting topics: Visual Studio 2010, Expression Blend, Windows 7 UI development, ASP.NET, RESTful web services, and collaborating with SharePoint. I plan to use this opportunity to get the word out about the Halifax Users Group for SharePoint (HUG SharePoint).

Michael Gannotti Interview

With over 31,000 followers, SharePoint social media expert Michael Gannotti (the SocialMedia Samurai, @gannotti) is one of the most prolific tweeters/bloggers in the SharePoint community.

During Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2009 (#SPC09), Mike came by and did two interviews with me at the Metalogix booth. The first one has been posted here: http://socialmedia.mikegannotti.com/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=278 (direct link to video: http://www.vimeo.com/7262459).

In this first interview, we talk about Metalogix SharePoint Site Migration Manager and how it makes upgrade to SharePoint 2010 a whole lot easier. Migration and upgrade to SharePoint 2010 was also the topic of my session at SPC09.


- @gannotti and @cawood talk about SharePoint 2010 upgrade and management


Unlike the out of the box options, upgrading to SharePoint 2010 with SharePoint Site Migration Manager does not require the same software, hardware, DB and service pack prerequisites. For example, you can migrate from SPS 2003 on SQL Server Express running on a 32 bit version of Windows in a simple copy and paste interface.

HUG SharePoint!

The Halifax Users Group for SharePoint is up and running.

If you're in the Halifax, Canada area and you're a SharePoint fan, contact me.

Ballmer: The SharePoint business is absolutely on fire

Today's Microsoft PressPass article helps explain the motivation behind the success of SharePoint. At Metalogix we’re the world champs at getting people onto SharePoint from other systems.

Here's an excerpt:

"PressPass: Starting on Monday, you are kicking off a busy week of activities for Microsoft, and your first stop is the SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas. Why did you choose to begin there?

Ballmer: The SharePoint business is absolutely on fire, and I’m excited to meet with our customers, partners and developers who are driving this success. I’ll have the opportunity to catch up with customers and hear how they use SharePoint to collaborate, work together and drive intranet and external Web sites. This product has such a wealth of value that the customer, partner and developer stories are incredible.

In addition, the SharePoint community is discovering that in the same way Office delivers a valuable suite of productivity technology, SharePoint unleashes a suite of capabilities that dramatically improves the way people work — it is so much more than the sum of its parts. I find it enlightening to hear their questions and gain new insights about how SharePoint is impacting businesses all over the world.

PressPass: To date, SharePoint is one of the fastest growing server products in Microsoft’s history — what is behind this growth?

Ballmer: Businesses and consumers are facing significant challenges in today’s climate with the increase in information across numerous technologies and devices. With amplified pressures to control costs, businesses are looking for new ways to harness the increasing amounts of information in a productive and cost-effective way. That is exactly what SharePoint does — it is built as a business collaboration platform to allow people to interact with each other, with content, and with both internal and external data to increase their productivity. As a result, SharePoint helps companies deal with the ever-growing and ever-changing business landscape."

SharePoint Conference is Sold Out

The Microsoft SharePoint Conference for 2009 is sold out! I'll be presenting a session about SharePoint upgrade and it's good to see that the wave of SharePoint enthusiasm continues.

From the Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog:

"We’re officially SOLD OUT! With 7000+ SharePoint experts, developers, partners, users, MVP’s and enthusiasts this is officially the BIGGEST SHAREPOINT CONFERENCE EVER!!! We’ve had a phenomenal response to the conference this year with a 94% increase in attendance and we can’t wait to see you all in just over 10 days!"