So the SharePoint Conference 2012 is in the record books for the
biggest and most surprising SharePoint conference in the history. So from the Keynote to the closing bell of Lunch all 10000 plus attendees weathered the long days and long parties
SharePoint Keynote
So if you are a SharePoint person you were either in the sea of folks attending the event (10000 sitting, plus folks standing) or on the web and estimate 43000 web viewers of the event live or since it was published on the web….WOW.
There were a few interesting takeaways in the keynote for me. First message is, be prepared for change. For me as a developer it means first and foremost a new software development lifecycle. I already heard things like rapid app lifecycle, or flexible lifecycle.
In essence it means, you deploy your solution updates on the fly, without effecting IT operations or the end user.
Also many comments about how Microsoft and Apple are working together….no comments on Google. They were uncomfortably missing from repeated topics.
This is enabled automatically buy using the cloud as primary target for your work. I think, this could provide us a benefit Google had from day one. With cloud solutions you can deliver beta versions of your applications very easy and cost efficient so users can test/use your work product very early. Having the end user on board very early is key to success, I think.
Back to the keynote. Jeff Teper showed us several new things in SharePoint 2013, like, for example the drag and drop functionality, which at last, just works, without ActiveX. One of the benefits SharePoint now has thanks to HTML5. We also saw the new social capabilities of SP2013 and several other topics. I don’t want to go into to much detail here. Interestingly, the whole demo ran on a farm instance in the Azure datacenter in Amsterdam. I cannot say they had performance issues.
They also co-presenting Yammer. Their was some interesting moments, and some awkward moments regarding Gorilla, and Chicken costumes. The SP2013 social Features seem good enough for me right now. Maybe this will change in the future, as I dig deeper into this topic. As social grows in the enterprise Yammer might be a bigger news, but as of now it is just a future social pain in the butt trying to get adoption moving.
What should not be missing when talking about SharePoint 2013 is search. The differences between the normal SharePoint search in SP2010 and SP2013 is like comparing the sixties to the present. Things like visual refiners, query rules, recommendations, deep links in the hover card, and the query builder come to mind. A lot of new stuff for all the guys not knowing FAST, at least.
Scott Guthrie gave us an overview about what to come with regard to cloud development. If you are more interested in that, you should view this session from Scott on the Build 2012. Maybe not exactly the same, but it goes in the same direction.
Twitter-sphere Revelations
So twitter was a buzz, and officially the #SPC13 tag broke the record for the day of the event. The power of the nerds, every event we do breaks some new record.
Other than the record, no real news was found to be had on Twitter. Just lots of information about the talks, sessions, event info and others. The conference really was not ground breaking.
Rumors and Comments
With the step down of the President of Windows Steven Sinofsky some rumors flowed around the conference.
Comments like: “Not Surprised”, “Yeah Windows 8 launch was so quiet”, “look no Surfaces for sale at the conference, missed 10,000 sales here”
I am not going to comment myself on this change, but if you want to read a good article on this here. On another note around here were the revelations from the keynote and what was visibly apparent by the presenters. Android is on the “Do Not Love” list, being intentionally left out of the keynote Android is not going to be officially supported via App Store, along with Office365.
…
Runaway Elvis
So thru each day of the event we had some many examples of costumed horrors from the blue blob, the green men, to well booth bunnies. What was missing…ELVIS BABY, yes it was an amazing week, but the only star we say was Pete Rose signing baseballs for 100$ each….ouch. Next conference common sponsors have a Elvis look alike…we would all respect, and that is thinking creative.
Parties had Bon-Jovi and Pamela Anderson…
So the Conference entertainment, had a theme we will not all prepared for….
Hello the 80’s are calling…and apparently SharePoint was the topic!The entertainment is always a great at these events…this year no exception. Bon-Jovi. Biggest event that Mandalay Bay had ever done, and it showed, massive lines, 30 minute wait on drinks, and some challenges with sounds….but overall very impressive.
So this was sponsored by Neudesic…boy I bet that was a very painful bill at the end of the night…based on the general rule was $12.00 per person for drinks X 8000 attendees….Bazinga…on top that Bon Jovi costs, and other things… Sad thing, no one will remember how hosted it…so money wasted….well we will see.
Bet you can’t calculate the ROI on that party…LOL
Conclusion
So the Conference was a blur of good information, social fun, and general NerdVana, we will have to see if folks adopt it as fast as we all hope. I will be posting on some of juicy info I found, but generally we off and talking about SharePoint 2013, and the evolution again of another SharePoint platform.
So I came away from the SPC12 event feeling more positive that the Microsoft 8 – Office 365 – SharePoint ecosystem is a real direction that will be a long term investment in both our clients, but also in my career direction.
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