Making the rounds currently is Microsoft’s Ready To Launch Visual Studio 2005 / SQL Server 2005 / BizTalk 2006 event. It came to Seattle on Tuesday and an impressive showing of attendees arrived. Apparently thousands registered literally on the day before the event.

Before the keynote (scheduled at 9am) there was a commons area where the goal was to visit 10 of the vendors so they would put a smiley ink stamp on this orange card. By turning in this card, there was a drawing at 5:45pm for a few prizes. Most people were like mice going after cheese, but I actually talked to a few of the vendors and took some pictures. A small convertible Tablet PC was being given away.

Definitely a compact convertible.

Keynote
Started about 30 minutes late which was a lot of wasted time for a five minute video presentation that continuously looped. Microsoft could have used this time to play a longer (say 10 minutes) mini-feature overview of each of the three primary products (VS 2005, SQL Server 2005, Biz Server 2006).

Pros: barely useful overview for medium-sized companies, most useful to large-sized companies.

Cons: almost zero useful information for small-sized business. Overall keynote presentation was lifeless and boring, Somebody please get the VS General Manager to crack a few jokes or something. You can’t start a morning off with someone so dry and carry a crowd this size (sorry). VS2005 crashed during the presentation (twice, that I counted) which drew some laughs from the crowd.

Overall assessment: Too much vanilla, rah-rah information about all three products and targeted to primarily one level customer (larger corporate clients).

I could have skipped this and missed pretty much nothing. What I wished I’d seen? More medium and small-sized business targeting, a clear explanation of the version upgrade path, IE. Standard version useful for X type of customer, Pro version useful for X type of customer. It was disclosed that Express was aimed primarily at “hobbyists and enthusiasts” but not really any specific information about what that meant.

Box Lunch
After the keynote it went right to lunch which was well timed. Microsoft and the sponsors provided lunch which was box lunch. I had the roast beef and a coke. It was good. My friend attended the same launch event in Green Bay, Wisconsin and he said lunch was not provided there.

Managing the Software Lifecycle with Visual Studio 2005 Team System
I debated going to the “Building highly Available Systems with SQL Server 2005” instead of this one, but turns out I learned about some interesting team-based features should I work with others on projects. I’m wondering how well these programs would work on a project that is set across the internet and telecommuted, say like one developer in Australia, another in the US, another in the UK all working on the same project and checking in and out applications. The presenter did a pretty good job of pulling together the compelling features.

Particular interesting features were the various stress test modules that could be run. In one example the presenter walked through a series of steps the website visitor would take to register for a website and then showed how to stress test for many simultaneous logins. Neat feature that unfortunately only works with .NET 2.0 applications. Running on an intranet will be the primary place for these type applications until more web hosts start offering .NET 2.0 support.

Web Application Development
This presentation showed how to build a simple login area for a rock star fan site. Most of it was using drag and drop and filling out properties.

Didn’t attend 4th track
I decided to pass on the 4th track which was Managing and Monitoring SQL Server 2005, Smart Client Application Development and Deployment and Building a business Process Automation Solution with BizTalk Server, SQL Server and Visual Studio. Instead I used this time to type up some of these notes, collect my free copy of Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition, SQL Server 2005 and a coupon for BizTalk Server 2005, recharge my tablet battery, and talk to a consultant at a booth in the commons area who had a convertible tablet.

He used his convertible to develop r34 and Building a business Process Automation Solution with BizTalk Server, SQL Server and Visual Studio. He explained to me how he used his tablet for development: he ran both .NET 1.1 VS 2003 and .NET 2.0 / VS 2005 on the same machine and coded entirely in keyboard mode. I asked him about inking notes in his code? Nope, never used. What about ink otherwise? All he really used ink for was taking notes at meeting. I asked if there were more reasons to use ink on the web and in other applications would he use it more? Yes, he answered.

Drawing at 5:45pm
The crowd had thinned out considerably from the keynote. I imagine most people figured they would have no chance winning from the drawing so they just took off. I have won a full pro version of VS 2003 in a drawing at a prior Microsoft event so I hung around, working on typing these notes for a few minutes. Nope, didn’t win.

• Visual Studio and SQL Server 2005 Ready to Launch event in Seattle today
• Visual Studio 2005 Express free for first year
• Chris said that my RTL post offered “extremely little information of value to anyone”
• As part of Sun settlement, Microsoft to retire 25 products
• Microsoft delays release of SQL Server and Visual Studio ‘Whidbey’
• Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1