Friday, November 25, 2005

Microsoft Ready Launch Tour 2005 Melbourne

The Ready Launch Tour 2005 was held at Melbourne’s Sofitel hotel which was a great venue for the event. Very comfortable seats and great catering.

The event was very well organized (as compared to the Security Summit 2004). This year we didn’t have to line up to register. Everyone received a barcode in an email, on arrival you scanned your barcode and your Id would be printed out.

The sessions were very informative, catering for all spectrums of the audience. Although Will and myself have attended a lot of the community launches and information sessions, a lot of the information and demonstrations were repeats for us. But that’s more because we’re pretty active in the .NET community. I’m sure most of the audience would appreciate the demos and the information presented.

As per usual the 3rd party vendors were there giving away promo stuff in exchange for your details. From this session I collected a nice Calculator and Pen in a really nice case, a small portable radio and a few pens.

Attendees received:
DVD package which includes5 DVDs:
SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005 Core Hands-on Labs
SQL Server 2005 High Availability Hands-on Labs
Visual Studio 2005 Team System Hands-on Labs
BizTalk 2006 Server Pre-Release Hands-on Labs
Microsoft Launch 2005 Resource DVD (containing: Sample code, Web casts, Training, Videos, White Papers, Microsoft partner solutions and more)

An Exam Voucher which entitles the holder to one of the following exams:
70-431 TS: Microsoft SQL Server 2005 – Implementation and Maintenance
70-536 TS: Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 – Application Development Foundation
70-551 UPGRADE: MCAD Skills to MCPD Web Developer by Using the Microsoft .NET Framework
70-552 UPGRADE: MCAD Skills to MCPD Windows Developer by Using the Microsoft .NET Framework
70-553: UPGRADE: MSCS Microsoft .NET Skills to MCPD Enterprise Application Developer by Using the Microsoft .NET Framework: Part 1
70-235: TS: Developing Business Process and Integration Solutions Using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006

The 34th Issue of “International Developer”

And other informative bits and pieces.

All in all it was a good day. My only suggestion for the next event would be to have tables and chairs for people to sit down and relax for lunch. Although this would discourage people from moving around and mingling but I find that most IT people don’t really mingle all that much in the first instance.

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