Microsoft Devdays 2007

I attended Devdays in 2005 and it was a really cool experience. It was hosted a couple of months before the launch of Visual Studio 2005, so there was a lot of discussion on where .Net, C#, ASP.net and the rest of Microsoft’s development products were heading.

So this year’s Devdays is upon us. For all those open source developers, why not come along and see what the Microsoft guys are up to? You will be surprised at the community that has formed around .Net, Microsoft and all its products. Just visit SA Developer .Net and you’ll see that the MS community aren’t a bunch of stuck up corporates trying to make a quick buck.

I’m not a fully blown Microsoft developer, but I do develop primarily for the Microsoft platform, so attending Devdays gives me the opportunity to see whats happening in the Microsoft world of development. Oh ja, theres free lunch too.

Dev Days is the premium annual event for Developers, Software Architects, Software Engineers. The event offers you the opportunity to experience innovation and leading technologies and also network with industry experts and fellow developers, through deep technical content, demonstrations an interaction delivered by developers for developers.

There are 2 tracks this year. Track 1 is primarily desktop based, while Track 2 is more focused on the web.

Track 1 – Desktop

• Windows SharePoint Services for Developers
• Client-side Development with Office
• Selecting the appropriate Data Storage
• What’s new in “Orcas: Part 1
• What’s new in “Orcas: Part 2

Track 2 – Web

• Building ASP.NET AJAX enabled Applications
• Developer ASP.NET AJAX Security
• “WPFE” applications: Rich Interactive web applications
• Building Mobile Applications with Visual Studio 2005
• IIS 7 End-to-end Developer Overview

I’ll probably attend the first 3 sessions of the web track and then head on over to see “what’s new in Orcas”. (Orcas is the next version of Visual Studio)

Devdays Venue

As most years, there are 3 venues around the country. Durban, Joburg and Cape Town.

Durban @ Sun Coast Casino – 24 May 2007

Johannesburg @ Vodaworld – 29 May 2007

Cape Town @ The Lord Charles – 05 June 2007

So register over at Microsoft Devdays 2007. It’s free to register and attend!