Microsoft Pakistan hosted “Bloggers Day” in Karachi

Saturday, January, 23rd 2010

Microsoft Innovation Center (MIC) – FAST University, Karachi

The Developer and Platform Evangelism Group (DPE) of Microsoft Pakistan hosted a “Bloggers Day” event at Microsoft Innovation Center (MIC) at FAST University in Karachi on Saturday, January, 23rd, 2010.

The event started at around 12:00 noon with a welcome note from Mr. Naveed Bajwa, DPE Lead at Microsoft Pakistan. Naveed thanked the audience for sparing time for the event and shared the agenda for the day.

The first session was conducted by Mr. Zafar Ul-Islam, Enterprise Technology Strategist at Microsoft Pakistan who briefed the audience on various capabilities of Windows 7 both from consumer as well Enterprise customer perspective. He explained three key themes of Windows 7 launch i.e. “Works the way you want”, “Everyday Tasks Faster and Easier” and “New Things Possible”. He explained how the new operating system provides enhanced performance and much improved battery life compared to its predecessors which makes it a perfect OS not only for traditional desktops & laptops but also for the low cost PCs – the netbooks!

Zafar also talked about the new “Device Stage” feature which offers much easier and seamless device installation process in Windows 7. He also talked about Simpler Home Networking in Windows 7 using “Home Group” which enables easy sharing of Files, Pictures, Videos, Documents, Music and Printers across various systems on a home network.

Last part of the presentation was about Enterprise focused features of Windows 7 and Zafar briefed the audience on DirectAccess, BranchCache, Federated Search, and Bit Locker-to-Go features.

Demos were next during which Zafar demonstrated “Intuitive UI”, “Federated Search”, and “DirectAccess” functionality but the most exciting of the demos was where he captured few snap shots of the audience using his “HTC Touch Diamond 2 Windows Phone”, these photos were then synced over the air almost instantly to his laptop and home PC (using Microsoft Live Mesh beta), he then used Windows Live Movie Maker to convert the pictures into an animated movie with music, and right from Live Movie Maker he uploaded the movie to his Facebook – all in couple of minutes through integrated tools. Audience liked the integrated experience and the ease which was enabled by Windows 7, Windows Live Mesh and Windows Live Movie Maker. He also showed “Windows Live Writer” which is a nice free tool for bloggers to create their posts faster and publish directly to multiple blogs.

Microsoft Pakistan Bloggers Day Demo [HQ]

Last demonstration was of “Microsoft Office Communication Server (OCS) 2007 R2”. Using Office Communicator client from his laptop, Zafar initiated a call on mobile number of his colleague Naveed Bajwa who received the call on his mobile phone right away. Then Naveed called from his mobile on Zafar’s land line number and instead of land line, this call was received by Zafar on his laptop on Office Communicator, Zafar then transferred this call while talking with Naveed to another colleague. Audience loved this demo and it received a huge round of applause! He also demonstrated the Voice Mail capability of OCS by calling the Voice mail and interacting with auto attendant using Voice instructions to read email, check calendar and call contacts.

Next speaker was Mr. Jibran Jamshed, Technology Consultant at Microsoft Innovation Center. Jibran briefed the audience on several new IE 8 features including Accelerators, Search Suggestions, Visual Suggestions, Smart Screen, and In-Private browsing. IE8 demo was also conducted to showcase these features and audience appreciated that.

Mr. Naveed Bajwa, DPE Lead, Microsoft Pakistan than shared with the audience about various initiatives from Microsoft in Academia and Developer Community. This included overview of Microsoft Imagine Cup, Faculty Meet, Innovation for All, etc.

Finally, attendees were invited to ask Questions from Speakers and it was a very lively session in which several questions were asked about Windows 7, IE8 and Microsoft’s initiatives in Pakistan.

In the end all attendees were given a nice Polo Shirt with Windows 7 and IE8 branding on shoulders and “Blogger” tag at the back. IE8 CDs were also distributed to the audience after which Lunch was served.