I attended the abovementioned event today and I must say I am deeply disappointed. It sucks. Well, not totally, but enough to turn me off.
First of all, it is a Partner Tech Day, so by right they should be trying to sell us partners why we should build our product based on the next generation Microsoft technologies due out later this year. Instead they gave us lots of technical introductions on how to do this and that using their beta and CTP builts of this and that. Hey! Shouldn't they be telling us why we should risk building my product based on new unproven technologies that Microsoft is going to introduce and how do I convince my customers that it is the right things to use? Come on, Microsoft does not have the best of reputation when it comes to producing top-notch problem-free products.
Second, their demos suck! Most of their demos don't even run properly. Some demos outright does not work at all. Given that some of these are based on betas or CTP code base, total failure of the demo is simply unforgivable. I mean, if Microsoft elites cannot get the code to work properly, what kind of confidence does that give us partners?
Third, their presentations is outright horrible. They either reproduce information available freely on the web, or throw jargons at us. I thought that they will give us some insider news or tips that would help us or give us an edge over non partners. What is worse is that they can't even give correct or up-to-date information. Throughout the presentations, everyone refer to the next Office suite as Office 12 when Microsoft has already announced that it will be called Office 2007. Either they don't bother to change their slides, or they simply don't know!
Lastly, they have no sense of timing at all. Almost all their presentation overruns. They actually have people helping them keep track of time as the presentations run. This kind lady would hold up big flash cards reminding the speakers that there are 15 minutes left, 5 minutes left and times up etc. Most of the speakers just don't give a damn to the poor woman. What's worse is the speakers will go like "I am running out of time..." and "I have run out of time but let me quickly run through..." The best is this guy who came on 15 minutes past the supposed lunchtime at 1245hrs to "sell" Visual Studio Team System which is not on the agenda at all. He went "I know that I am the only thing standing between you and your lunch and I know everyone is hungry right now but..." He went on to talk for another 15 minutes.
The only two presenters are this Chewy Chong guy who is really funny and really good both technically and with getting the point across and this Hardman guy who make a excellent effort to make sure his demo works and also gives tips around problems he thinks we might encounter.
This event is a real waste of time. I left as soon as the rain stopped.
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