SharePoint Conference 2009 Wrap-up

"Wow..." -- a Microsoft Vice President's reaction when I told him at this year's sold out Microsoft SharePoint Conference (#SPC09) that Metalogix Software has migrated and upgraded over 1000 customers to SharePoint.

SPC09 was amazing; with over 7400 attendees, it was larger than the Mircosoft TechEd Conference and TechEd is for ALL Microsoft products. Although, I have been to a few conference over the last year, I still had a great time catching up with old friends from my Microsoft days.


- the Metalogix booth at Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2009

Metalogix Booth and Zune HD Giveaway

This year, Metalogix had a fun conference giveaway. Each day, the person who scored the highest score on our custom Xbox 360 game, Metalogix SharePoint Shooters, won a brand new (and highly acclaimed) Zune HD.


- the exhale games sign for Metalogix SharePoint Shooters



- trying to win a Zune HD from Metalogix


- winning a Zune HD from Metalogix

Metalogix Session

CTO, Julien Sellgren, and I were pleased to have the opportunity to deliver a session at such a key conference. We spoke about SharePoint upgrade and migration, showcasing two demos: SharePoint Site Migration Manager for SharePoint 2010 and Website Migration Manager. The last time I presented at the Microsoft SharePoint Conference was in 2004. That year, there were about 900 attendees, so things have changed considerably.

The expo was on a similar scale as the Microsoft TechEd show. There were a few new names, but mainly the usual suspects.



Gannotti Interview

With over 36,000 followers (and counting), 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.



Since I posted about this interview in my blog, the second interview has been posted. In the second video, we talk about Metalogix Website Migration Manager (WMM). Website Migration Manager can migrate any web pages from other web systems to SharePoint. e.g., Interwoven, Oracle Content Server (Stellent), HTML, cold fusion, ASP, ASPX, Vignette, etc.

Keynote Address

I think the keynote was the largest session I've seen at any Microsoft conference. There were around 7,000 people in the audience.

Steve Ballmer and Jeff Teper were the main speakers, but a few others (e.g., SharePoint point man, Arpan Shah) went on stage to do demos. They showed off the new editing experience, but most demos were pretty technical.



Venue

Las Vegas is an interesting venue for this type of conference. The distraction of having so many things going on here (gambling, shows, parties) made it difficult to monitor the twitter feed and blog posts because attendees talk about so many things they're doing that aren't related to SharePoint. For example, my tweets about meeting comedian Louie Anderson while waiting for my flight to Vegas.


- the Mandalay Event Center hosted SPC09

Although I found myself either working or sleeping, I did manage to fit in a visit to the Mandalay Shark Reef Aquarium after the show was over.


- Kimodo Dragon


- puffer fish


- lion fish

HUG SharePoint



During SPC09, I announced the launch of the Halifax Users Group for SharePoint (http://www.hugsharepoint.org/). HUGSharePoint will provide Atlantic Canada with its first SharePoint user group. This is one of two SharePoint projects that I have in the works.

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.

Update: Since I posted about this, the second interview has been posted. In the second video, we talk about Metalogix Website Migration Manager (WMM). Website Migration Manager can migrate any web pages from other web systems to SharePoint. e.g., Interwoven, Oracle Content Server (Stellent), HTML, cold fusion, ASP, ASPX, Vingette, etc.

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!"

Moving to the Cloud

Tomorrow, I leave for a conference road trip to Tampa and Denver for the Moving to the Cloud Migration Solutions Series for Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS).

I'll be showing Microsoft partners how they can migrate their customers' data to the cloud using Metalogix software. In particular, I'll be demonstrating how to move content from on-premise SharePoint servers to SharePoint Online with Metalogix SharePoint Site Migration Manager, and also how to move files and web content using FileShare Migration Manager and Website Migration Manager.

And who knows, maybe I'll even give a sneak peak of one of our new Microsoft Exchange apps.