With Only 54 Shopping Days Until WPC11, Here’s the Scoop on Exchange

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With just about eight weeks left until WPC, we hope you are as excited about our time in Los Angeles as we are!

Okay, technically, there are 4,665,600 seconds between today and Sunday, July 10th (the official kickoff of our yearly partner confab).

BTW, aren’t those date calculators a ton of fun?

On to the good stuff: with four full days of keynotes, 26 tracks spanning up to 600 sessions, side meetings and evening parties (yes, lots of parties!), your schedule can fill up fast. And, it’s easy to feel like Lucy in the chocolate factory, with too many chocolates to wrap (or sessions to attend). [NOTE: This reference was suggested by the Millennial on my team, and I really dug it and it proves that classic T.V. is truly timeless!]

To help navigate the bevy of sessions available to you, what follows is your “I’m an Exchange Partner” cheat sheet for the most important stuff to attend.

Here are the “make sure to attend” keynotes and sessions slotted for the afternoon of Tuesday, July 12th:

  • 12:00 – 1:00PM

The Future of Productivity,  a value keynote with Kirk Koenigsbauer, Corporate Vice President of the MODPMG [also known as the head honcho of the IW marketing world and known already the hollowed halls of Redmond as “KirkK”]. We strongly suggest you attend the first delivery so you can make the following sessions.

  • 1:30 – 2:30PM

Dollars, Euros, or Yen: How Exchange brings you growth opportunities from on-premises to the cloud, a breakout session with Julia White, Senior Director of the Exchange PMG (also known as my boss, so please do attend! And, as an extra bonus, you’ll get an opportunity to meet me and my team, including Kristin who’s leading our Exchange presence at and efforts for WPC11.)

  • 3:00 – 4:00PM

Exchange vs. Google and Zimbra – How to beat the competition, An interactive session with subject matter experts, Alym Rayani and Gary Danoys. You might remember me from partnering with Gary at WPC10 to deliver a similar session.  Well, this time, we’ve brought in a heavy hitter, as Alym is THE compete expert from the Exchange PMG. He’s also a huge Vancouver Canucks fan, and is anxiously awaiting the conclusion of their series with the Sharks, so his lads can make it to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since 1994 (and maybe win it all this time!).

  • 4:30 – 5:30PM

So You Want To Host Exchange? an Interactive session with subject matter expert, Michael van Dijken.  You’ve already met Michael in an earlier blog posting, so I’ll let that one stand on its own. Nevertheless, VanD (as we call him around here) will help those partners looking to deliver private cloud versions of our industry leading productivity stack, and much more about the opportunity for hosters in the new world of Office 365.

You can use the Session Scheduler to create your own customer WPC 2011 itinerary as well as read the full abstracts for the sessions above. Be sure to include these sessions in your Tuesday afternoon schedule; with details like really cool stuff we’re doing around the UC competency, how to win against VMware Zimbra and hosting Exchange, you won’t want to miss the opportunity to get the scoop directly from senior leaders and subject matter experts.

And, if that doesn’t sell you, we will be rolling even out more details about our Exchange activities at WPC over the next several weeks. So, stay tuned for weekly updates on expo activities, parties, and taco trucks! (yes, I said taco trucks).

Ian Hameroff
Group Product Manager
Exchange Partner Marketing