Windows Vista Launch Event in Phoenix
Today, I attended the “Ready for a New Day” Windows Vista Launch event at the Phoenix Convention Center. Overall, I thought the event was a success, seemed to be well run, and had a pretty good turnout of people there (roughly 1000?).
Registration
I arrived a little early (7:30), so registration was a breeze. They had plenty of registration booths, and there was no line. Later in the morning, I noticed that there was a bit of a line, and some people mentioned it took them about 30 minutes to get through registration. I found it a little strange that they wanted to see a picture ID at registration; I guess having your bar code with you was not enough.
Keynote
The whole event was geared toward business customers, so I found alot of the content to be a little dry. The keynote was at least a little bit entertaining, although I didn’t really see anything I hadn’t already seen before. They seemed to make a big deal about the Windows Sidebar, which seemed a little over-hyped. They even demoed a “Magic 8-Ball” sidebar gadget, which made for a very lame demo. Overall, the reaction from the crowd during the keynote was pretty positive, and everybody clapped and cheered when cool features were shown. It was pretty cool to see these kinds of reactions from people. Microsoft also brought a couple of local business users onto the stage and had them talk about their experiences with Vista, Outlook 2007, and Exchange Server 2007 such as PING and Taser International. I thought this was a nice touch, and gave a bit of a local feel to the event.
I’ve been a little worried about a lack of compelling reasons to upgrade to Vista for business customers, but there were a few good features brought up during the keynote that seem compelling. A few things that come to mind: BitLocker hard drive encryption, deployment enhancements, enhanced group policy (over 500 new group policy items!).
“Ask the Experts”
I spent most of the day in the “Ask the Experts” booth, and fielded a few questions about Windows Media Center. There were a lot of questions about HD content in Media Center and Vista in general, and also a few questions about streaming music/recorded TV to the Xbox 360. Overall, I enjoyed spending time in the “Experts” area and had a good time meeting with and talking with some of the other Microsoft MVPs.
Giveaways
There seemed to be a very good turnout by local vendors. Most of them had “free drawings” for various things including Xbox 360s, Zune players, etc. They all want your contact information to be included in the drawing, so I generally don’t participate in these. Microsoft gave away three Zune players during the keynote, and gave out a t-shirt and a free copy of Microsoft Office Professional 2007 and Groove 2007 to every attendee. Not bad for a free event.
Overall, a good event. I am happy to have been a part of this one.
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