More info coming out of the conference.  There's just waaaaaaaaay too much for one person to handle (I've met some folks that have 4 people from their businesses and they still say that there's too much info for them all to grasp).  So, with that I wanted to hit the highlights of what I saw yesterday, and how they'll impact SharePoint work going forward.

SharePoint Development on Windows 7!
Yup, you heard it here first (well, not really first, but still).  Matthew Burnett from Microsoft did a great session on this.  SharePoint can now be installed on Windows 7 (and Vista SP1) machines.  Couple that with Visual Studio 2010 (currently also in beta) and the other requisite tools, you can now do SharePoint development w/o the need for a Server OS.  No more running through hoops to get development tools installed on servers.  This is a really huge thing.  Couple this with Window's virtualization technology, you can also create a .VHD (Virtual hard Disk) that Win7 can boot to, and have it run just like a host OS, with access to all resources (that means that if your machine/lappy has 8GB, the .VHD you booted from will have it).  This is a HUGE step forward in SharePoint development.  Yet another reason to move onto Windows 7.  But you're already on it, right? Right?

SharePoint Online
This has been in the news for a bit, but the details coming out of this are great.  At the highest level, for businesses/enterprises that don't want to have to deal with all of the effort for the care and feeding of the infrastructure, patches, health, etc. a hosted solution becomes very, very appealing.  They announced a number of clients that are on this (one of them Coca-Cola) and more moving onto it.  Now granted, there will be some limitations when you're on their Standard plan (shared hardware/infrastucture) like custom coding, branding initiatives, and the like.  If you're on their Dedicated service you have more flexibility, but again, you'll be paying for that.  The Standard plan starts for 5 users, the Dedicated starts at 5,000.  But still, at a higher level, moving to the "cloud" for a SharePoint implementation just brings up all these new opportunites for those resources that are now freed up because of this.

More to come...enjoy! - M

Well, a lot of information from a keynote and a couple tracks, so much so my head's going to explode.  But check out what I believe is going to be big news...

1. SharePoint 2010 Public Beta: November! (11/1 or 11/30, who knows, I'm hoping earlier)
2. Development on Windows 7 (or Vista...64-bit client needed but no longer do you need a local server for development!)
3. RBS: Remote Blob Storage: Basically allowing you to store content in a place other than SQL.  This is huge for media streaming
4. Access Services! Note just putting your .MDB up but converting forms and all of the other assets to SP ones...the possibilities of this one are pretty huge, given how prevalent Access is used is many enterprises

More details/info to come as the conference goes on!

- M

Hey, you got your Las Vegas in my SharePoint...no, you got your SharePoint in my Las Vegas!  Two great tastes that go great together have finally converged on Las Vegas (in fact, you can tell who the East Coasters are as they've been wandering around the hotel since like 5AM PST) for a week's worth of SharePoint geek!  Registration started at 8am here today and is through this evening.  There's over 7000 people attending so get your stuff early.

Also, AC's putting together what could probably be the largest SharePint event in history @ eyecandy in Mandalay Bay.  See any/all of you there, or around the conference as well!

-M

Hey folks, fresh off of some much needed vaca and back in the swing of things.  And, on that note, I'll be speaking at the SharePoint Saturday - Philly event on November 7th.  This is a great opportunity for those that are looking to get into SharePoint, as well as be the place to be for all things SharePoint Server 2010 (well, after the SP Conference that is).  It's 8 hours (including breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack) of all SharePoint goodness, including...

- Lots of SharePoint 2010 discussions!
- 8 hours
- Information Architect, Developer and Administration tracks
- 250 seats with tables (laptops welcome)
- Free breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snack  
- Raffles and prizes at 5:00
- Easy parking
- After hours party at the Shanachie pub in Ambler (network with speakers and attendees)

My talk will be entitled Web Content Management with SharePoint Server 2010 and it's from 10-11.  Check out the list of Speakers and Sessions.

Registration's wide open, and word has it it's already half full.  So have at it folks!

- M