The India IT Pro Evangelism team is holding a webcast series for the IT Managers. A 6 part series, these 90 minute a day webcast will be held from Jan 20th through Jan 29th. If you are an IT Manager, I encorage you to attend these sessions. Register for the IT Manager Webcast here.

Also, if you have suggestions for future topics, I encourage you to e-mail me, or leave me a post. Cheers!

The Sep'09 Virtual TechDays (VTD) concluded last week. We received a great response to the 2nd edition of VTD. From an IT Pro perspective, we were overwhelmed with the response we got for the Virtualization track. You can definitely look forward to hearing more on Virtualization from us in the months ahead. The recorded sessions & the presentations will be made available in the coming weeks on the site.

So what is ahead.....if you are reading this, you are getting to hear it first. Straight from the source!! Following the great response to our recent VTD, we will be hosting our 3rd edition of VTD….tentatively planned for 25th & 26th of Nov. Now that the dates are locked (almost), we need to put the agenda together & pick a host. Taking of hosts, how did you like our past hosts- Mandira Bedi, and Nikhil Chinapa? We haven’t zeroed in our host for the 3^rd edition of VTD, but if you have a suggestion on the host, leave me a note. Maybe we will try & rope him/her. J

We are also planning to hit the road with our TechNet Roadshow. Maybe across 5 cities. With a focus on Virtualization. Obviously! We are still in planning stage…need to align budgets, speakers & venues. Stay tuned for more on this.

Cheers for now!

Virtual TechDays is back again. The event is scheduled on 17th through 19th September. With over 40 in-depth sessions for Developers & IT Pros, this event with have speakers from Microsoft & experts from the industry speaking on a wide range of topics. For IT Pros, the focus will be on Virtualization, Windows Vista, and SQL Server 2008. The IT Pro tracks will be held on Sep 18th & 19th (please note).

For more information on VTD, check out http://www.connectwithlife.co.in/vtd/default.aspx 

We have organized a 2 day live meeting session on optimizing & deploying windows Vista. We have had a great response to this event so far. I do hope that Sys admins & IT support folks find it useful as well. More on this at http://www.vistalive.timeus.net/

As we plan for FY'09 (Microsoft's financial year starts in July), we are very keen to do more of these online engagements. There are a few areas that we need to fix, specifically with the audio & user experience. We are working on that. Should you have any suggestions on improvements, please feel free to leave a comment.

Now you get to view Space from your own very computer. Yes, that is what the World Wide Telescope is. It is a resource of high resolution pictures & images that have been captured by high resolution telescopes across the world & those in space. You can now zoom in & zoom out into the night sky, check out the various planets & satellites in our solar system & much more. This is just fabulous.  Check out more on this at http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/ 

It will be great if in the coming years, we can get live pictures as well. Wouldn't it be fun to zoom in & zoom out onto objects flying through space, including space shuttles! Here hoping for more. "Keep an eye on this Space". Pun intended!

The Big Launch is almost here. On March 4th, we kick off a 3 city Launch of the 3 new products-Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, & SQL Server 2008. We have had a great response to this event. We are looking forward to meet the System Admins & IT Pros who have planned to attend this event. In case you are at this event, and have any inputs on how we can improve our IT Pro outreach efforts, please do not hesitate to ask for me & let me know in person. We do what we do for you!

If you have still not registered for the event, here is your last chance. Visit http://www.heroeshappenhere.co.in/ to register 

Ratan Tata launched the Rs. 1 Lakh car today. The Nano. What a great day for India, what a great day for the India automotive industry. Ratan Tata has put India right on the top of the world with his vision & perseverance. I am sure he had a great team backing him to pull off such a great feat. His team of engineers deserve a lot of credit as well. Hats off to these unsung heroes.

A perfect point to introduce my theme for this blog- Heroes Happen Here.

Heroes Happen here seeks to put the spotlight on you- the IT Pros & Developers You are the ones who do a great job of keeping the servers up & running, and building world class software. You truly are a great army of engineers & we at Microsoft would like to recognize the hero in each of you.

Please go ahead and take a dheko at our website- Heroes Happen Here.Post your stories, and share your experiences with us. You may get lucky winning the grand prize of a trip to our headquarters at Redmond. This contest is open for Indian residents only!

If you haven't seen the Mircrosoft Surface yet, you surely are missing out on the coolest thing in town. The Surface computer will be the WOWest product when it gets launched.

So what is Microsoft Surface?

Surface is the first commercially available surface computing platform from Microsoft Corporation. It turns an ordinary tabletop into a vibrant, interactive surface. The product provides effortless interaction with digital content through natural gestures, touch and physical objects. In essence, it’s a surface that comes to life for exploring, learning, sharing, creating, buying and much more. Soon to be available in restaurants, hotels, retail and public entertainment venues, this experience will transform the way people shop, dine, entertain and live. 

Click the image below to view the Microsoft Surface video.

For more details on Microsoft Surface, visit the official site http://www.microsoft.com/surface/ 

Post a message & let me know what you think of the Microsoft Surface.

We will, we will, Rock You! And that we did, at TechMela 2007!!

TechMela kicked off on the afternoon of 13th June, with the Business Track. We had a packed hall. The highlight of the evening was the inspiring speech, followed by the no-nonsense Q&A session with Sam Pitroda, Chairman, National Knowledge Commission of India. He described how we ought to focus on the bottom of the pyramid, to leverage IT & empower the masses. He expressed his unhappiness on the pace of reforms in India, especially in e-governance!

The next 3 days (14th through 16th) were devoted to Technology sessions. There were about 150 technical sessions across Web, Unified communications, Infrastructure & other topics. I am sure the attendees soaked up as much in these sessions, as did the plains of Mumbai in the first shower of the monsoon which arrived mid week.

Now we await the attendee feedback report. I hope our customers enjoyed being at TechMela, as much as we did putting it together!!

TechMela? You may not have heard of this Microsoft event anytime prior to this monsoon, but this is THE big event of the year. You may have in the past attended any of these events- TechEd, MEDC, ITPC or Indimix. TechMela is all of these under one roof. With a packed agenda spanning across 3 days, 7 different tacks & 150 sessions, it is the event that one ought to attend. Whether you are an IT Professional, a Developer, a Hobbyist or an Enthusiast; TechMela has something for everyone.

Hope to see you there!