Tech-Ed 2007 day 1

Its the end of day 1 of Tech-Ed 2007 South Africa and I must say it is what I expected it to be. Apparently there are almost 2000 delegates here this year which is an impressive improvement over the 1600 delegates last year and the most delegates at any Tech-Ed event in Africa ever. Are there any other Tech-Ed events held elsewhere in Africa, I’m not sure. Strangely the male to female ratio is still sitting at 10:1 which doesn’t surprise me at all considering women are generally illogical. (I’m going to suffer for that comment, I just know it, but its true.)

This is my first Tech-Ed event as I finally decided to take leave from work and cough up the cash to see what its all about. I haven’t bumped into too many people that I know as of yet although the first person that Willie and I happened to stumble upon was Angus Logan. Angus is an Australian now living in Redmond and on the Windows Live team. The great thing is that Angus will be giving a talk for SA Developer .NET in Bryanston just after Tech-Ed and you are all invited to come and hear about the cool stuff happening in the Windows Live realm. Take a moment and RSVP over here.

I must say that the keynote speech was a bit too long; two hours and my butt was asleep and I was surprised that I wasn’t as well. Thankfully it was followed by a Lost themed opening party at the Valley of the Waves. The food was ample, hot and delicious. The pudding afterward was even more delicious with the bread and butter pudding disappearing moments after new trays were put out. Naturally the free beer flowed happily and there was an awesome fireworks and laser presentation. Some random band named Voodoo Child or something to that effect was on the stage for most of the evening thumping out popular covers that really set the mood for a chilled out evening under the stars on the fake beach. All in all, a great start to what hopes to be an awesome 3 day event.

[tags]Tech-Ed 2007,South Africa,SA Developer .NET[/tags]