This post originated from an RSS feed registered with .NET Buzz by Tim Sneath. Original Post: Ten Reasons for Developers to Attend TechEd Europe 2004 Feed Title: Tim Sneath's Blog Feed URL: /msdnerror.htm?aspxerrorpath=/tims/Rss.aspx Feed Description: Random mumblings on Microsoft, .NET, and other topics. Latest .NET Buzz Posts Latest .NET Buzz Posts by Tim Sneath Latest Posts From Tim Sneath's Blog

The one where Tim sells out to the marketing droids...

OK, so this is more of a sales pitch than I would normally include in my blog, but I've heard a couple of people over the last week say that they thought TechEd was primarily aimed at IT Pros rather than developers, and I wanted to correct that perception. In Europe, at least, TechEd actually has a slight bias towards developers (mostly because there's another, slightly smaller event called IT Forum that's pure IT Pro territory).

I'm responsible for the content of TechEd Europe this year - perhaps the most exciting and daunting challenge I've had since joining Microsoft, and I'm hugely keen to ensure that it's the best event we can put on for developers, architects and IT Pros. I'd love to hear your ideas about how we could make the event more worthwhile. Whether you've attended in previous years and think we're missing something big, or whether you've never attended because it didn't seem to meet your needs, I'd be very interested to read your feedback.

Anyway, having declared my vested interest, here's my non-marketing marketing pitch :-)

1. More than 400 breakout sessions, Q&A panels, chalk and talk discussions, and birds of a feather meetings covering every aspect of Microsoft software in the enterprise;
2. Several (currently secret) new product announcements and the first public unveiling of several big new features in Whidbey and Yukon;
3. No dull keynote monologues - I've been fighting really hard to do away with the traditional event approach of getting some random VP to waffle on about the pet subject. We've instead been working on something rather different that I hope will go down really well. Don't expect to see marketecture slides, just cool technology.
4. In-depth training on SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005; we're currently standing at 38 sessions purely on the next generation of our developer technologies. You could attend the conference twice over and only see sessions covering Yukon and Whidbey! (Oh, and every attendee will receive a copy of Yukon Beta 2 / Whidbey Beta 1.)
5. New this year: a dedicated architecture track with top-rated speakers such as Pat Helland planning to participate. We're trying to make TechEd Europe far more attractive to enterprise architects, with plenty of sessions for those who design rather than code.
6. Seven pre-conference sessions on topics including Writing Secure Code, Patterns and Practices, BizTalk 2004 and SQL Server;
7. Some great confirmed speakers including David Chappell, Fernando Guerrero, Juval Lowy, Rafal Lukawiecki, Ingo Rammer, Mark Russinovich and Clemens Vasters;
8. Hands-on labs where you can get to grips with the latest builds of SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005 and 64-bit technologies;
9. A mobile development track that's twice as big as any from previous years at TechEd. We've integrated the Mobile DevCon to ensure that there's the best possible range of sessions on development for Windows Mobile platforms, including coverage of .NET Compact Framework and SQL Server CE.
10. A really big party - of course!

Hope to see some of you there...