So back home now after a reasonable journey back from LA all things considered; so I have had a bit of time to reflect, was the PDC good?

Well I think I enjoyed my previous PDC in 2005 more, your first time always sticks in your memory. I think that this might be due to the fact that at the 2005 PDC LINQ was announced and it was a real left field thing, nobody seemed to see it coming. Due to the prior announcements (leaks) there was nothing that was not expected at this years PDC.

This said, it does not mean the the announcements were not important, for the future of Microsoft probably far more important than LINQ was. You could argue that Azure is more of an IT pro announcement, on a day to day basis it will certainly effect them, due to remote hosting of core services, more than developers who will still basically be using .NET via WCF, EF etc. just altering a connection string or two. So an announcement at the Professional Developers Conference was in itself interesting, but where else would Microsoft do it?

On a more step change for developers front, will Oslo change the world? Well in my opinion not yet, but this was a PDC so we expect the new ‘real’ product to be a few years out. Next year’s PDC 2009 I think will see the Oslo and Dublin technologies productify (is that a word?). It is worth comment that a PDC two years running is rare, so Microsoft must have something up their corporate sleeve.

Since getting back I have done the conference survey and I found one question interesting ‘does the fact that the sessions were all available via www.microsoftpdc.com effect your choice to go to the conference in the future?’. I have to say yes, but on reflection it was worth the trip. A conference is more than the keynote and breakout sessions, maybe there is a future in fully online conferences but it is not there for me yet. Whether I want to travel best part of half way round the world is a interesting point; a 2 hour flight to Barcelona did seemed attractive when sitting in Heathrow Terminal 5 prior to my11 hour flight. But I was lucky I suppose, a friend was off to Hawaii for an air compressor conference the same week I was in LA (each to their own I suppose). The location for me does not warrant the travel, the inside of a conference centre is much the same in any country. I suppose a factor here is how much time you spend in the conference against the beach, for me if you are going to a conference it is to learn not have a holiday (or hunt for swag!), but I am not sure all people have the same opinion here. Some people seem to see a conference a reward for work done in the year, so at treat not a learning experience.

So will I be at PDC 2009 – I expect so. Whether Black Marble send as many to the PDC as opposed to the various TechEds I am not sure, this is a discussion we need to have post conference season. We defiantly need to cover both types of conference, as does any forward looking Microsoft partner, but the ratio is the question.

As for me next it is the Vbug conference I am speaking on VSTS; I believe there are still spaces available, maybe I will see you there.