1350 people attended the Dutch launch party. One of the best things was the location
The old Van Nelle factory was designed in 1923 but still looks quite modern these days. The most remarkable thing are its glass walls. This idea of transparency was a recurring theme in the keynote. Microsoft exposing its new technologies in CTP's.
Beside the usual presentations on team system and the like we had a database quiz. With a quizmaster who didn't have a clue what the questions were about but managed to give that a funny twist. Quite amusing.
The keynote itself was not too bad. They had dragged in a socio-biologist to comment on the nature of the (presumed) slightly autistic developer. Steve Balmer made a labeling target for ADHD. Parts of his keynote were presented on a video screen
Somehow the talk could not keep everybody's attention. After all these years of public beta's and CTP's the goods are no real news. We've all seen it and worked with it. And now we can finally start officially using it. No more explaining to do on the status of the product. Time to party. Which we did.
