Sitecore International at Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2009

Next week WPC is taking place in New Orleans. Although I myself am not going to be participating this year, my 2 colleagues Morten Ljungberg and Søren Bak Jepsen will be present.

Please be gentle with them as it is their first WPC experience. I remember from my trip last year that it is a lot of hard work, followed up by lots of networking and very little sleep. I also remember the Microsoft UK party - but that is a different story.

As one could expect, this years conference will be all about Sitecore's new release: Online Marketing Suite. If you have even the slightest interest in seeing this ground-breaking integrated marketing tool in action, do not hesitate to visit our booth. Sitecore is a Gold Sponsor, so it should not be hard to locate us.

Post WPC 2008 and what lies ahead

This summer featured this years biggest Microsoft partner event as I have previously mentioned. Sitecore had a nice big stand, which I have to say looked really great and given our red color, was easy to spot from far away in the huge convention centre.

In short, we had a really good week in Houston. Many new partners were eager to sign with us, some even after just seeing a 2-minute demo.

 

Obviously WPC 2008 ended about a month ago, but since then I have been away on 2 weeks of holiday, and as a result, simply been so busy following up on WPC related stuff, that I had to down-prioritize writing here. A few issues however, justifies this late post.

 

First of all, I have to mention the new demo site (running on version 6.0 of course) that premiered on WPC 2008. The site in itself is actually quite cool (the best demo concept so far in Sitecore IMO) and most spectators find it easy to relate to.

The "Nicam" demo-site, as it is called, does a great job at showing off features which prove the many advantages in having a content-based CMS (as compared to page-based ditto).
More importantly people tend to like our open API very much, since this will help them save precious time as they can reuse existing controls or easily integrate with 3rd party systems.

 

Secondly, I'd like to make another thing clear. Whenever Sitecore International signs a new partner they (the partner) will at some point require a visit from a Sitecore representative. In other words, I might be going to visit new partners in such places as South Africa, Hong Kong, Cairo, France, Belgium, Israel and Mexico in the coming year, just to name a few of the leads we got from WPC 2008.

I can't wait to blog about experiences from such exotic locations, but until then, I plan on going into much more detail about our latest and greatest release and the new features.

 

So what else happened during WPC week? Well, I was right about the no-sleep-on-the-agenda thing. Everyday, after spending many hours at the booth, featured various networking events/dinners/parties which I attended a couple of.
I have to say the UK party was the most amusing, but then again, who ever doubted the Brits can go a bit nuts when their away from home?

I also have to mention my hotel. In particular my room. The dreadful American architecture somehow made it possible for my room to be placed exactly behind the only 2 elevators in the entire building. There was literally only a paper-thin wall between my bed, and the elevator shafts. Nice huh? 
Ironically my jetlag ensured that I actually managed to sleep anyway.

 

Next weeks schedule features a 3-day roadshow in Belgium, and the week after that has Helsingfors and Stockholm on the agenda. Till then please check out the many blogposts about Sitecore and the new .Net 3.5 Service Pack.

Countdown to Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference

Next Monday (July 7th) the 2008 WPC event kicks off in Houston, Texas.
This is not my first trip to the US, but will be my first time participating in this giant Microsoft event.

I have been to a couple of IT tradeshows/conferences already this year. However, I don't really know what to expect from WPC at this point, apart from meeting a lot of fellow IT professionals, and that sleep is not really on the agenda.

I am very much looking forward to participate, as this is probably one of the most important Microsoft events of the year.

Sitecore is a Gold Sponsor for WPC, so beside being on display at the various WPC marketing material, we also have a huge booth at the conference. To back that up, we will be present with around 30 people from our various offices.

 

Checklist of stuff to bring for my trip to the US:

• Valid passport. Check
• Laptop with no private or confidential information. Check
• A copy of the new Sitecore v6 demo site. Check
• Deck of business cards. Check
• Book to read during 2 x 9-hour flight. Check
• Statement noting that I do not intent to joke about Texas state laws. TBA

 

See you there..?