Gizmos and gifts dazzle Microsoft faithful

Beverley Head
Tuesday, 08 September 2009 16:24

IT Industry - Development

Microsoft’s TechEd 2009 has kicked off with delegates bristling with more technology than usual thanks to the HP mini-notebook preloaded with Windows 7 and Office 2010 that was offered to all full-fee paying attendees.

The Microsoft faithful religiously attend the annual developer events (this year being held on Queensland’s Gold Coast) to get the inside drop on new technology with Windows 7, Office 2010 and Windows 6.5 the stars of this year’s show. (However an early evening demonstration of Windows 6.5 saw the technology blot its copybook when the demonstrator’s phone crashed.)

Delegates who have been trialling Windows 7 already said they have been impressed at how efficiently the new operating system runs on older, in some cases four year old, computers unlike Vista which had generally required a hardware update.

While some delegates said that there seemed surprisingly few compelling reasons to force enterprises to move from XP to Windows 7, others acknowledged subtle cues were emerging from Microsoft that a move may be needed soon.

West Australian users for example have found that Microsoft is not issuing an XP patch to cope with the State’s decision not to proceed with a move to daylight saving. Although workarounds are available, the general feeling is that over time large enterprises will be pushed to make the transition to Windows 7.

While these issues will be thrashed out in detail over the next three days of TechEd 2009, the opening night party was all about networking, gizmos and gifts.

Rows of delegates unpacked their mini notebooks, plugging them in and playing at the recharge bays. Even more delegates took to the exhibition floor lured by stands featuring Guitar Hero, Xbox 360 and a concept car bristling with game consoles. The true believers were also keen to purchase everything from dress shirts to bike lycra emblazoned with Microsoft logos.

In an environment where the male to female ratio must have been at least 50:1 the toys were clearly for the boys. From Avepoint’s Honda dirt bike which was being raffled to Excom’s remote controlled dirt bike.

But for iTWire the standout raffle prize was the ride-on-Esky mounted on a powered scooter being raffled by Charles Sturt University which was spruiking its degrees which come complete with Microsoft certification. Now there’s posh.

Disclosure: Beverley Head is attending TechEd as a guest of Microsoft.