There’s lots of new stuff to talk about at the Fall 2011 Exchange Connections conference in Las Vegas (Oct 31-Nov 3). Since the last conference we’ve seen the launch of Office 365 and a steady growth in interest from companies who have either started to use Microsoft’s cloud platform or are planning a migration from on-premises Exchange. Microsoft is also busy preparing Service Pack 2 for Exchange 2010 and have hinted at some of the new features included in this release. So there’s quite a bit for the Exchange community to review, discuss, ponder, and basically get sorted.
My contribution to the conference is a keynote on November 2 when my topic is “Why Microsoft’s Head is in the Cloud and what this means to you”. My goal is to explain my view on the engineering and competitive pressures that Microsoft is under as it develops new versions of Exchange that are capable of delivering equally well for both on-premises and cloud customers. I also want to discuss factors that I think every company needs to consider before they make the decision to move to a cloud email platform and some of the practical aspects of migrations such as making support work in a cloud environment. Finally, I want to talk about the choices that face an administrator whose job has been to manage an on-premises Exchange deployment if their company decides to move towards Office 365. I believe that this discussion is timely and hope that it will be useful to attendees.
Exchange Connections is being held at the Mandalay Bay Hotel. I rather like this venue as I think they do conferences well. Of course, I hate the loudness of the casino, the fact that people can still smoke indoors, and the general level of hype that surrounds anything in Vegas. Escaping to a technology conference comes as a blessed relief, especially when the content and presenters are both top-class.
So come along and debate the issues of the day with fellow members of the Exchange community – and take the time to hang out with all the experts who’ll be attending such as Paul Robichaux, Mike Crowley, Michael B. Smith, Jim McBee, Tim McMichael,Siegfried Jagott, Anthony Vitell, and Lee Mackey. Although we can’t guarantee how much fun you’ll have in Vegas, this group can guarantee real-life advice and guidance to solving some of the hardest Exchange conundrums that we all have to face. See you at Connections!
