If you didn’t make it to Wembley you missed a good day – this was the Microsoft UK Technical Launch – Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft Exchange 2010 held at the very impressive Wembley National Stadium (I am not a football fan but even I was blown away by the venue). It was a rainy day on the outside but the buzz on the inside more than made up for things. On show were Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Microsoft Exchange 2010. It was a long yet interesting day made a little extra special as every attendee got to take home Windows 7 Ultimate. Windows 7 seems to have been through quite a thorough beta test period with millions of beta testers (700K from the UK alone).

Efficiency and “Cost Avoidance” were at the heart of the launch and this was borne out in the presentations with simple tips like dragging a window to the left or right snaps it into position allowing for easy tiling (ever had to line up to Excel documents to compare them?). Time was spent clarifying the XP mode – in particular the point that it does not lead to two visible desktops – virtual applications under XP mode appear to run somewhat seamlessly with native applications. Direct Access was another efficient innovation which should help those who often face VPN issues. I would love to attend an event where the day was filled with handy time saving hints and tips from the people who make the software.

We learned that more and more people have better technology at home than they have available at work, particularly the increasing number of “Digital Natives” (led largely by the increase in technology consumerisation), and many of these workers are wanting to bring their home technology to the office (I have experienced this from our user base). At the same time technology budgets seem to be falling which leads to the need for increased efficiency – and appropriateness in my view – I have never been a fan of technology for technology sake – it should always have a purpose.

The Microsoft Desktop Optimisation Pack (MDOP) is something I will be looking into further together with Direct Access, Branch Cache, Search Federation and BitLocker. From an Enterprise perspective the Asset Inventory Service (AIS) is also likely to be a destination for further research. I spent some time in the deployment sessions which talked about the Deployment Image Services and Management (DISM) tool which involved a detailed but handy walkthrough of how to build an image and prepare it for mass distribution.

Some interesting insights were included as part of the keynote from Ward Ralston keynote with particular input from Colin Fitzsimons from Lancashire Constabulary and Phillip Morris of Chester Zoo. After the event I got to have a chat with a number of the speakers from the show which added an interesting dimension to the day – to me this shows that the big software company is really reaching out to its audience and guess what … they seem to be listening too.

Now, where did I put that Windows 7 disk.

Windows 7 officially launches on October 22, 2009.

Learn more about the new efficiency at Microsoft.

Image Credit: Microsoft

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