The "
Microsoft Connection Cantina," held at Jillian's sports bar in San Francisco's Metreon, used free drinks and food such as "CE dip" and "embedded nachos" to lure Penguinistas from the convention center across the street. And it worked: Hall blogged before the event that "there's already a crowd waiting outside the bar."
Standing room only at Jillian's
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Mike Hall makes a point
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Mike Hall (right) attempting to convert LinuxDevices.com's Henry Kingman (left)
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|  Doug Boling
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The crowd, estimated by a spokesperson to be more than 250 over the course of the evening, proved that LinuxWorld 2007 wasn't entirely sleepy after all. Hall's previous shindigs,
in 2005 and
again in 2006, respectively attracted "only" about 60 and 150 attendees.
Those who could even move around the room were treated to product demos and conversation with Hall and product manager Dan Javnozon. They were also able to schmooze with independent consultants who have gained "embedded MVP" (eMVP) status, such as Doug Boling of
Boling Consulting.
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Tux had fun, too!
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In addition to giving away blue "Windows Embedded" T-shirts, Microsoft gave interested attendees CDs with the .NET Micro Framework and a 180-day evaluation kit for Windows Embedded CE 6.0.
As for Hall, at the end of the evening he was still tirelessly demonstrating the .NET Micro Framework and the new
CEDebugX tool to anyone who could keep up. Thusly the question became not "Could Mike Hall survive LinuxWorld?" but rather, "Could Linux World survive Mike Hall?"
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