Live from Convergence: California dreamin'

Today I flew from Chicago to San Diego for the start of Microsoft Convergence conference, and I could not be more excited! This is my third Convergence event, as I attended the 2005 one in San Diego and the 2006 conference in Dallas last year. Without speaking ill of Dallas, I am very very glad to have the event back in San Diego.

Apart from the unbelievable weather, San Diego is a a great conference venue because the convention center is located right in the trendy Gaslamp district of the city. That means we can easily walk every where we need to go without having to suffer through shuttle buses. I seriously hope that Convergence stays in San Diego every year.

This year I am looking forward to learning more and more about one thing at the conference...TITAN. Of course Titan is the internal Microsoft code-name for the next release of Microsoft CRM and it is due out later this year. I don't expect too many (any?) grandiose public announcements about Titan but I expect that there will be plenty of Titan talk at networking events, happy hours, bars, etc. Of course, our company is under strict non-disclosure agreements regarding Titan so we can't repeat what we learn on this blog until the time is right. However, I will be sure to post as much information as possible if any of CRM product teams speaks about it publically.

In addition to Titan, I am also planning to try and learn more about the following products:

• Microsoft Office Sharepoint Services 2007 (also known as MOSS 2007). We have deployed MOSS internally and in just a few weeks we are already getting great benefits from it. We used Sharepoint 2000 before, but MOSS 2007 offers quantum leaps in functionality and ease of use...not to mention it looks great.
  
• Microsoft Groove 2007- I played with Groove a few years ago just before Microsoft purchased them and the product was very appealing but not enough for me to start using it. Now with Groove 2007, I decided it was time to try it again so I installed it on my laptop. One thing that bugged me about the old version of Groove was its integration story with Sharepoint document libraries, but my tests with the new 2007 seem to indicate they got that problem licked. I'll be installing it on all my computers soon.
  
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2007-  We recently did a joint seminar with a networking services firm and they did a pretty awesome demo of the unified messaging features in Exchange 2007. Our IT guys are upgrading our internal email this weekend, so I want to learn more about all the cool new things we can use the software for.

One disappointing thing about Convergence this year is that they switched their networking tool to a new company. Philip said it was "sub-optimal" but that's all he can say because he works for Microsoft. I don't work for Microsoft so I'll be more candid. It flat out stinks. If anyone from the Convergence planning committee is reading this...swtich back to the old system!! Immediately!

Well I gotta run and hit up the opening Friday night event.