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I penned (typed) an article recently for the UK Technet newsletter and decided it would make sense to cross post here. Eileen now assures me I am on the full time roster so expect to see more of the same in forthcoming newsletters. The article is in full below which talks about our plans to get on the road pre-Xmas and put Vista on a 40ft cinema screen. I should have confirmed dates and venues tomorrow but it's definitely happening and hopefully at an Odeon cinema near you!
The corridors of Microsoft in Thames Valley Park are abuzz with launch chatter. With something in the region of $20bn of R&D investment coming to the market in the shape of Exchange Server 2007, Office System 2007 and Windows Vista, there is plenty going on, not least of which is planning for the multiple launches we'll have over the comings months. We're often asked why we have so many launches and it really boils down to the many different audiences we talk to - from consumers and developers to the press and small, medium and large businesses. Add to that the mix of IT professionals (you!), sales staff, marketing and more and you start to get an idea of the many different types of conversations and launches we have.
This is my first TechNet article so I guess I should let you know who I am. I've worked at Microsoft for nine years in a variety of technical roles and helped launched our first ever Smartphone - the Orange SPV. For the past two years I have worked in our Small and Medium Business and Partner Group where we focus on the technical adoption of the Exchange, Vista and Office technologies by Microsoft partners. There are more than 30,000 partners in the UK, so this is quite some task, and the team is making much greater use of blogs and ideas like PTS-TV to communicate with our audience. For those of you reading this who work for partners - hello! We've got lots more to tell you, and our partner microsite is a great start. One thing I wanted to highlight is that we're hitting the road with our TechNet colleagues. Starting on 25 October at the ICC, we're bringing the Partner Roadshow to life and will follow up in December when we visit five cities in five days with 90 shows at Odeon cinemas. If you want to see Vista with Aero Glass on a 40-foot screen, we'll be announcing dates and locations soon on my blog and elsewhere.
I'm hoping to be invited back to tell you more over the coming months and report on how our launches and tours go. Meanwhile I wanted to leave you with a couple of things:
If you are able to install Windows Vista, please, please do. RC1 is a huge leap forward from beta 2 and it blew me away with its speed, stability and driver support. It's what I've been waiting for and it's a dream to use. We're getting very close to ship date. [note RC2 was announced 2 days after I wrote this!]
If you do install Vista I'll leave you with my favourite tip to date: hold the Windows key and press 1 to access the first item in your quick launch toolbar, press 2 for the second item and so on. Hope you like it!