Exchange Demo Day

I can't wait for Exchange 14 to hit the streets. The Exchange team recently held a demo day where we all got together to see all the new features being packed into the next release of Exchange. That weekend I got Exchange 14 up and running on my home network handling my personal email.

Demo days are events we hold every few months in Exchange where people from each of the teams get up in front of close to 500 of their peers and demo their features. It's a mass migration from building 34 to Kodiak in building 33 driven mainly by the general anticipation of seeing what everyone else has been working on for months. And free food and lattes. New features are great but when we're in there for four hours - we combined the demo day with an all hands meeting - free stuff rocks. I really like these days because it's pretty rare that the entire team gets into one room and the management gives a really good overview of the state of the business. I get to see people I haven't been able to talk to in a while too...and I get free food.

As you can imagine, demo day is pretty interesting. For presenters, imagine walking up to the front of a huge, packed, auditorium, two massive screens on either side of the podium, projecting your demo machine's screen - running code that was checked into the product a few hours ago. And asking it to work perfectly :) Oh, and the VP is watching it all. No pressure. For the audience, it's a combination of getting to see amazing new features mixed with a nervous anticipation. Will it work or will it go down in flames? :)  

I wish I could tell you everything we saw. The team has done an amazing job and I personally think that what we have in store for you in Exchange 14 is on par with what we gave you in Exchange 2007. Although if you can't wait until we release, why not take a look over at the exCHANGE your Career web site and come work with us? :)