TechEd Day 1

Day one was started with sessions directly in the morning, people everywhere. There is 7500 at site here in Berlin. In the last two weeks of registration 3500 participants registered for the event. Some logistical issues with that ofcause. Yesterday was a very special day. It was twenty years since the berlin wall fell and germany, and berlin was joined as one again. This history lay as a cover of expecations during the whole day. Even if it was a light rain during the evening the spirit was high. Great day to be here, a great day to experience. Fantastic stuff.

I thew myself in with Windows 2008 R2 Foundations, which is a udpated version of the Windows 2008 Foundations (was limited to Emerging Markets). It’s a server, requiring no cal-licenses for windows, for up to fifteen simultaneus users. Its a product for small businesses but it does not replace the Windows 2008 solutions that are out there such as the Small Business Server. Foundations is just a bare installation, just like a standard server but with some limitations. You are limited to one socket, 8gb of ram and you cannot run Hyper-V on it, also you cannot have any cross forrest trust or be the child domain root. This product is mostly for Emerging Markets but have a general availiablity over the whole world.

After that I went down to the Community area and recorded some TechTalk sessions. After which it was “Key-note time”. They unveiled that Exchange 2010 is generally available, which was of no news to most of us and thats it. Personaly I think this was one of the worst key-notes in the TechEd history, people by the hundreds walked out during the session. To bad. It could have been much better. But nevertheless Exchange 2010 was released and I think that brings time of upgrade for many of you out there..