A very useful post by Troy on how to get The Alpine Ski House sample application up and running.
One thing I'd add is don't try and do this through Remote Desktop - it can get in a right pickle with profiles
Steve Ballmer's speech was something of a disappointment. We got seats early so Sutha could sit close to the front and get a taste of what life will be like when he takes over as CEO from Steve in a few years. There was no dancing around the stage, no whooping and hollering and just a load more standard blah. No exciting announcements as we were all expecting and a load of weak questions in the "Ask Steve B" section. Rubbish really
Kirk Hasselden's MDM session was also very disappointing - the audience was expecting to gain a bit of insight on where Microsoft are going with MDM (or "who are they going to buy") but Kirk wasn't sharing anything and lost most people early on with generic blah. We managed to corner him afterwards and he was almost apologetic and admitted that there was loads going down and annoucements would be made within a few months. My guess is stratature may have some new owners in the not too distant future
So highs: Michael Treacy's keynote on Day 1 was outstanding, he is without doubt the best public speaker I have ever seen. From a personal point of view made some excellent contact which may help Adatis move to the next step.
Lows: Content of the sessons has been a bit average, definite lack of freebies being given out. An organised UK session one evening would have been useful
So now I'm all BI'd out and on the way up to Whistler for the weekend for a break that has been a long time coming.
It was confirmed that Katmai will definitely be released in 2008 - Also found out that yesterdays announcement that MS had bought SoftArtisan wasn't entirely true - they have only licensed the technology. It "could" be included in the Katmai release. The rumours are that Reporting Services will be the most radically revamped part of the release.
Couple of good sessions in the afternoon from TK Anand and
The evening's entertainment was at the Experience Music Project for the Conference gala dinner. We spent the evening chatting with <namedrop>Nigel Pendse<\namedrop> who was actually a really down to earth guy and very approachable. He has his opinions on things but he tells it like it is. Got some valuable insights into the BI world and who's going to be acquired next. He was tight lipped but did let on that Cognos Objects might be the next consolidation of our ever shrinking market