Tuesday, April 19, 2011 – 8:00 a.m.
Keynote: Unlocking New Possibilities with Visual Studio
Dave Mendlen, Senior Director, Developer Platform & Tools, Microsoft
The Visual Studio 2010 wave continues to build momentum as we respond to community feedback; momentum we’re carrying through into vNext. Explore exciting scenarios relevant to today's challenges and tomorrow's opportunities with Visual Studio.
Dave Mendlen is the Senior Director of Developer Marketing. Prior to this role, he served as the speech writer for Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. In his time at Microsoft, he was the Director of Web Services strategy in the Developer Platform and Evangelism division at Microsoft responsible for driving Web Services excitement and standards across the industry. Recently he was the Director of Windows Product Management responsible for the marketing of Windows XP Home, Pro, Tablet PC and Windows XP Media Center Edition. He started at Microsoft in the Developer division and served as the lead product planner on .NET and Visual Studio .NET driving a team to bring web services and .NET to millions of developers.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011 – 8:00 a.m.
Keynote: Cloud Computing and the Microsoft Developer - A Down-to-Earth Analysis
Andrew J. Brust, Founder and CEO, Blue Badge Insights
Microsoft ecosystem developers are inundated with messaging and content on the cloud. Whether Office 365 on the application side or, more likely, Azure on the development side, it can feel like the whole Microsoft world is cloud-focused now. But the adoption rate of cloud computing in the market tells a different story. So why the disconnect? How can we get ready for something so big when in many cases it still seems quite small?
In this keynote address, Visual Studio Live! co-chair, Redmond Review columnist and Blue Badge Insights Founder, Andrew Brust will provide his analysis of the cloud market, and its particular impact on developers and consultants in the Microsoft space. Andrew will review what’s in Microsoft’s cloud and what’s not; he’ll also discuss competing cloud platforms from Amazon Web Services and others. Andrew will discuss the shifts in business models that the cloud is bringing about for Microsoft’s partners and for Microsoft itself; he’ll conclude with commentary on who should move to the cloud, why they should go there and when.
Andrew J. Brust is Founder and CEO of Blue Badge Insights, an analysis, strategy and advisory firm serving Microsoft customers and partners. Brust also serves as CTO for Tallan, a Microsoft National Systems Integrator; is a Microsoft Regional Director and MVP; an advisor to the New York Technology Council; and co-author of "Programming Microsoft SQL Server 2008" (Microsoft Press, 2008). Brust is a frequent speaker at industry events and is a contributing editor to Visual Studio Magazine. He’s been a participant in the Microsoft ecosystem for over 15 years, and has worked closely with both Microsoft's Redmond-based corporate team and its field organization for much of the last 10. Brust is a member of the Microsoft Partner Advisory Council and several "insiders" groups that supply him with insight around important technologies out of Redmond.