| Microsoft spins TechEd plans |
Nov. 06, 2008
 Microsoft announced that its annual TechEd North America conference, billed as the company's "premier worldwide conference on technical education," will revert to a one-week format for 2009. TechEd North America 2009 will be held from May 11 to May 15 in Los Angeles, the company says.
Microsoft's TechEd North America conference is the flagship in a flotilla of events that also includes TechEd EMEA -- being held this week in Spain -- plus events in Australia, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa, South East Asia, and Taiwan. For 2008, TechEd North America sprawled into two back-to-back events, one week targeting developers, and the other targeting IT professionals.
Now, according to the company, both audiences will once again be served by a single, one-week event, scheduled for May 2009 in Los Angeles. Announcing the change on a website dedicated to TechEd North America, the company said reversion to its prior format was "based on feedback from our developer and IT professional communities, and our desire to constantly look for the best, most efficient opportunity to serve your distinct needs."
While no further rationale for the change was given, the economy no doubt played a part in the decision, and sheer fatigue on the part of Microsoft employees probably did too. As John Coyne, a systems engineer in the company's OEM embedded devices group, writes on his blog, "it was a great time for the attendees, [but] for those of us who were there for the Dev and IT tracks, it made for a long two weeks."
Background
According to Microsoft, the developer portion of TechEd North America 2008 was held on Orlando from June 3 to June 6, and attracted more than 5,000 developers. The IT professional portion of TechEd, held in the same city from June 10 to June 13, attracted more than 10,000 IT professionals, the company adds.
 Among other highlights of TechEd North America 2008, Bill Gates delivered a keynote to developers (right) billed as his last before retiring from his day-to-day role at Microsoft. The event also became a forum for embedded development content, following Microsoft's January 2009 cancellation of its MEDC (Mobile and Embedded Developers Conference).
For example, at TechEd North America 2008, Microsoft formally launched Windows Embedded Standard and unveiled an online Community Technology Preview (CTP) download. It also presented its 2008 Windows Embedded Partner Excellence Awards for North and South America. In addition, a special one-day tutorial event held on Jun. 2, immediately prior to TechEd, focused on helping developers port Windows CE to new hardware.
Meanwhile, Microsoft's TechEd EMEA, currently being held in Barcelona, remains split into two weeks -- for 2008, at least. The developer portion of the event kicked off Tuesday and continues through tomorrow. The IT professional portion, meanwhile, will be held next week, Nov. 10 to Nov. 14.
Further information
For further information about Microsoft's TechEd North America 2009, see the company's website, here. For John Coyne's blog entry about the change to a one-week schedule, see here.
For further information about Microsoft's TechEd EMEA 2008, see the company's website, here. For information about TechEd events in other countries, see the Microsoft website, here.
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