Gearing up for TechEd U.S. 2008

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If you hadn't thought about it yet, it may be time to plan for TechEd 2008 in Orlando. I believe that early registrations are open now. A big change for this year's event is the separation of developer content from IT-Pro focused content. These now occur back-to-back, instead of being mixed up in the same show. It'll give folks a chance to focus on the topics that are most relevant to their work. (Given my dual role as Open XML guy and IT Pro guy), I'll get to travel to both J. I'm involved with the track planning for Office and SharePoint, so as we make announcements on content and events at the show, I'll share some of those details leading up to the event.

For the IT Pro event, we (Office) will have a focus on deployment and migration issues. Because there are so many Office deployments underway, we can use an opportunity like TechEd to offer strategies, best practices, experts and other resources that are helpful in the roll-out process. We'll feature stuff like the Office Security Guide, Office Migration Planning Manager and a lot of other topics. Two pre-conference events that we're planning for TechEd IT Pro event should be pretty good for helping migrate to the 2007 products:

PRC19 2007 Microsoft Office System Upgrade: Real-World Learning from Microsoft IT

This seminar discusses how Microsoft's own IT department deploys and manages an upgrade of the Office system. Topics include migration from 2003 to 2007, update management, Groove deployment, SharePoint integration, and the deployment planning process. With tens of thousands of users, across multiple geographies and time zones, Microsoft manages one of the most complex IT environments in the enterprise. From this in-depth seminar, gain a better understanding of a complex "real-world" deployment of the 2007 Office system from your peers in Microsoft IT.

PRC20 SharePoint Upgrade: Hands-on Guidance, Best Practices, and Techniques

This day-long seminar covers important topics that are critical for the successful deployment and configuration of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. For customers who are upgrading from Windows SharePoint Services or SharePoint Portal Server 2003, this pre-conference offers deep-dive tutorials and labs to illustrate best practices and techniques to migrate your SharePoint environment as efficiently as possible.

We're seeing a lot of customers who are deep into their planning and upgrade cycles, so this should be well-timed for folks looking for the crystal ball to see how things are going to go. The main tracks at TechEd will have a ton of great deployment and migration content as well, but these will have a tight focus on actual results and should be time well spent for deployment folks.

I also came across a great post today with a contest for TechEd attendees. This game is a lot of fun!

I am full-up on geek points.