December Orlando IT Pro news

Wow we had a great event at the Microsoft SQL/Visual Studio/Biztalk launch yesterday. The table for the meeting was graciously given to us by Culminis and I sincerely hope Microsoft watched. We were easilly the most popular table at the event and have collected hundreds of business cards, distributed over 1,500 pieces of candy, 1,500 flyers for Orlando IT Pro and connected IT professionals with groups from Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, Pensacola, Tampa as well as our home here in Orlando. We distributed 10 copies of 180-day SBS trial and the event was overall a huge success in my humble opinion. What I hope the Microsoft representatives noticed was the power of having IT Pros connecting with other IT Pro's. Yes, ask the experts is a very nice one-off idea which is about as useful as showing Microsoft Dynamics to a bunch of programmers and system administrators (read: catastropic lack of judgement, demonstration of business-centric content to engineers and architects) – it might get some interest and start the ball rolling but user groups not only contribute to the education, nurturing and growth of professionals that deploy and design the software that interfaces with Microsoft technologies – they become an extension of Microsoft's support staff. Orlando IT Pro has hosted 6 Microsoft speakers over its one year existance. Total cost to Microsoft for venue, food, marketing and event coordination – $0. Now, do entertain me, how much does a single Microsoft Dynamics event cost Microsoft? 🙂