[GutterPunk]

So I am going Aprill 22, 2008 to the Omaha, NE launch. Anyone going to be at this specific one?

http://www.microsoft.com/heroeshappe...r/default.mspx

Anyone else going to be attending the launch otherwise? It looks like it is going to be a good time, and I hear there is going to be a lot of info thrown out there.

-GP

[YAYitsAndrew]

I was already at the one in NYC on tuesday. In addition to vs2008, sql server 2008 ctp, and 1year of server 2008, they were handing out vista ultimate 32-bit. The talks, however, were tripe. ENJOY

[Zelig]

I would have considered it if the closest one in Canada wasn't a ~15 hour drive from me.

Living in the middle of nowhere sucks.

[CDsDontBurn]

i *can* g0 to the one in Anaheim. tell us about it, and i might go

[YAYitsAndrew]

They're not very exciting. You start off with a keynote where someone tells you that you're a hero because your software runs the world, and how awesome microsoft is. How visual studio is the best IDE, how server is more secure than linux, how sql server is faster and more secure than competition, etc. Every once in a while a guy from HP or some other company will come out and talk about how awesome THEY are (this is equivalent to a commercial).

After that you splinter off into different talks based on whether you're a business man, IT professional, database admin, or developer. These talks are at best, an overview of features in a given product. At times they are tutorials that highlight the new features. Either way, a website could replace these talks and save you time.

The real juice at these meetings is networking, which doesn't mean much to me because no one cares about flash developers at a microsoft launch party. I got some attention from one guy when I was talking to a co-worker about some game theory, but it was just idle interest; not a business lead.

If you're not there for networking, you're there because it's a work-sanctioned day off of work or because you know you're going to leave with over $1000 USD in software licenses. To a small company like me, we can outfit our entire dev team by showing up to this (because there's only two of us using VS for an asp.net backend!).

Just a heads up, the software is handed out at the end of the day. The event I attended started at 9 am and continued until 4 pm. We were able to grab the software and go at 3 pm. If you aren't in the industry, you will be tearing your flesh off by lunch time from boredom.

edit: Also, since I was in the developer track, I spent the day surrounded by the most anti-social people in all the world. Flame decal button-down shirts, dragon design on button-down shirts, it was all here. At one point I was sitting down at a table to fill something out and to my left there was one nerd arguing with a microsoft employee as if he was smarter. The microsoft guy is of course smarter, and was shutting him down left and right. To my right was some other guy telling another microsoft employee his life story "I started programming in high school" etc. If you crave human interaction during your day, try not to go alone because these guys either don't talk to you, or you won't want them talking to you.

[calidan]

It sounds like it would be better to just work then go to the event.

[YAYitsAndrew]

There's no free software at work!

[CDsDontBurn]

free software is the only incentive for me to go to work

[GutterPunk]

For server guys its so nice to get ahold of server'08 ahead of time. If I ever changed jobs that looks awesome. Which I plan to change jobs in the next year or so.