TechEd Europe 2010 Recap

We are now back in the office and caught up on emails from a great week in Berlin at TechEd Europe. What a great location for this event. Berlin was full of history and very easy to travel using public transportation. The food in the city was incredible. The people were so polite and helpful to understand their country.

The keynote

One advice I can give to a developer after following the TechEd keynote for the second time is: don’t go there!
About 90% of the keynote contains IT pro content. The main thing I remember about this year’s keynote: the Cloud! Microsoft wants to deliver Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS).

The buzz

I must be missing something in the Microsoft community. All the buzz I was hearing was WPF?!? Did the Microsoft universe do another shift while I was not watching. This is something I will need to look out for, since this is not the first time. I just returned from the Philadelphia .NET code camp a month prior, and the buzz was the same there.

On the show floor

3 full days and 2 1/2 days of exhibiting makes one very tired. This event, we decided to split our shifts which worked out great to save our bodies from the ware of standing all day. Thank you to attendees who wanted information that if one person did not know, would come back when the one who did was working. I think with the many times Microsoft was driving attendees to the exhibit hall, this should not have been a problem for anyone, but if it was, please let us know.

We gave many demos, handed out $300 Power Cards, and met many new and familiar faces. This is my favorite part of the show. I love talking with customers about what they are needing and seeing if and how GrapeCity can meet those needs.

Attendees were very interested in learning about our new release of Active Analysis (now with a Silverlight viewer) and a new product we are getting ready to release.

What’s next

Europe, especially Germany is a hotspot for .NET developers. We realize that we need to be supporting this community more. So, look for GrapeCity near you in the close future. Some events that are coming up include Basta, TechEd Europe, and .NET Code Camps.

Where would you like to see TechEd Europe next year? Some cities we were suggesting to each other include Frankfurt, Copenhagen, Vienna, Zurich, St. Petersburg.

If you missed something at TechEd Europe– don’t fret. You can watch session recordings online here: http://europe.msteched.com/. And check out this recap video of our time at TechEd Europe.

Come see us next year.

Scott Shorter
Technical Evangelist
GrapeCity, Inc..