mts06: part 1

today is the start of the first day of the second microsoft technology summit (mts06).

what is mts?  well it’s an opportunity we (msft) take to invite the more broader audiences outside of microsoft (read: generally the ‘anything but microsoft’ crowd) to redmond to have a 2–day conversation with key technologists within microsoft.

is the goal to convert the attendees?  no.  although admittedly that would be a great byproduct for us…but NOT the goal at all.  the goal is to help change perception of what we are doing, and to mainly listen.  we are listening to the feedback from this crowd.  will it immediately impact change in the short term for products that are in the path of completion?  probably not to be honest…but it *will* influence.

the hosts for this event are the technologist elite: don box, chris anderson, anders hejlsberg, rick rashid, jim gray, scott guthrie, bill hilf, etc, etc. — these are the people that are at the right levels in the right areas to hear the feedback.

i’ll try to report as much as i can from the event — it should be interesting.  to protect the privacy of the attendees, i won’t iterate through them, but know that the java, linux, php elite are here.  the influencers in apache are here.  community leaders in open source movements are here.  if they aren’t…they were likely invited and had some conflicts.  a very small crowd (52 from around the world).

tags: mts06