Chip in the back of head 2006 - Day 2

Today was the first "technical day".  The keynote was from Bob Muglia, who's our VP for Server & Tools.  He spoke about our commitments to our customers – which are: Fully Integrated Servers, The Right Server for the Right Job, Self Managing Dynamic Systems, End-to-End Connected Systems, Comprehensive Database and Analysis Tools, Universal Distributed Storage, Secure Anywhere Access, Rapid Application Development Tools, Direct Customer Connection, Cut the Cost on the Desktop and New World of Work Infrastructure.  The point being that we (Microsoft) are “doing stuff” to make each of these a reality.  e.g. The Right Server for the Right Job (role based servers) – we have done a lot (and will do more) around the branch office (with Windows Server 2003 R2 and Longhorn Server), around the Web Platform (with IIS 6.0 and 7.0 in Longhorn), Virtualisation with Virtual Server, etc (you get it).  For each of our commitments we have evidence of what we have done so far and a roadmap of what’s coming to make it even better.  In Longhorn Server for example, the Right Server for the Right Job, would include the Server Core (Windows Server without the GUI and all the other stuff not needed to run Windows), the ability to install just the bits required to run a particular role (File Server, Print Server, etc).  Secure Anywhere Access, would include our Federated Identity stuff, Network Access Protection (the ability to only allow “approved” PCs onto the network) and the great stuff that we’re doing with Terminal Services (application publishing & seamless windows).

Other sessions I attended included a great session on Longhorn Server, and a fantastic demo of Voice Recognition in Windows Vista.  The Voice Recognition bits are in the December Customer Technology Preview (CTP) of Vista, so if anyone is running that, have a play - it's VERY impressive.

That's all I’ve got time for today, so that’s it – more tomorrow…

Dave.