Technical Worker

Great article in Fortune:

http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/16/news/economy/annie/fortune_annie0317/index.htm?cnn=yes

It's the 30th year for the Federal Office Systems Exhibition. Gosh, I could have easily attended the first one! Well, they were better, then--not that this one is not worth attending. It's just that vendors have figured out how to streamline the show so much that it is rare that you'll gain a lot of technical detail. You're talking to marketing folks, not engineers, too often.

The bigger the company, the more this is so. That is why I often gain the most by wandering the back-aisles. This time, I found Apple hiding out in such a place in the Intel partners area with Chesapeake Systems, showing off their new systems along with Chesapeake's video processing products. Apple has figured out that the $400,000 they spent on the last show probably didn't have a positive ROI.

Microsoft changed their approach, also. They had a cool RV that was pulled entirely into the convention center and parked along one wall. It was a "toy mover" similar to the one I had with a garage in the back that could be used for toting all their show stuff. What would have normally been a living area was set up as an exhibit. That said, there were no developers at the show whatsoever. Not that this was be a bad idea. When I raised a question about something I was working on, somebody had the e-mail address of someone to shoot it to in "developer marketing."

The back booths also introduced me to folks who have been building third-party network storage for many years, and had multi-terabyte products you could hook up to a network and new high-speed ways of accessing the data. This was their first year talking to the Federal Government. I'm surprised that I came away with no literature or cards with their names, but I'll know who they are when I get e-mail from them, I'm sure.

It's been a while since I've had business cards to hand out, myself. They just don't feel prestigious anymore.

VMWare's booth was packed until about 4:30 and then folks were thinking only of getting out. "What's this CD for?" No answer. "I guess I'll find out if I take it home?" No answer.

Red Hat wasn't to be found, but what booths I saw that did advertise open source, about two, were packed.

Two men were surviving the day at the Disabled Veteran Office Supplies booth. They were letting folks sign in and provide an e-mail address. No need of fancy scanners for them. No, they weren't disabled, but they had a good business hiring disabled veterans to build office supplies.

Microsoft had a vendors area where they must have sub-let booth-space. Not a bad idea. Buy a big area in the prime spot, carve it up, mark it up a little, and bring in your partners under your banner.

Verizon did the same thing, and Riva Networks had a Treo modified with a data reader for CAC cards that would allow for authentication, encryption, and digital signing of date., and Palm was there. That is where I also found Palm. It had puzzled me, lately, that Palm's logo had appeared on the Treo 700 that runs the Microsoft PDA operating system. A representative explained that Blackberry taught them some lessons. Better to sell a device that can run multiple operating systems. Aha! The Treo was a Palm device, not somebody else's device running the Palm O.S.. Cool. I like my Treo and have no desire for a Blackberry. What caught my attention, first, at that booth had been his Treo sitting on top of an Altec Lansing speaker and desktop phone console.

"Is it stereo?"

"Yes," he replied, and went on to explain that they would be out soon at Verizon stores.

Cool! I might not need an IPOD! I do listen to MP3 music stored on my Treo's memory card but do not have a way of playing stereo from it.

Then on the way home, a lady in big shades with a Nikita designer military jacket and baggy pants stood opposite me on the metro, leaving the Convention Center stop. The white ear pieces were a give away despite the cord running under her shirt and disappearing into a pants pocket where the outline of t thin IPOD was barely discernible.

"I got to get me an IPOD."

She laughed. "They're cool. You don't have to listen to what you don't want to hear." ...And we talked until her stop. How often does that happen on the metro?

UPCOMING EVENTS:

RSA Conference 2006
February 13-17, 2006, San Jose, CA

Microsoft Exchange Connections and Windows Connections 2006
April 9-12, 2006, Orlando, FL

Interop
April 30-May 5, 2006, Las Vegas, NV

Microsoft TechEd 2006
June 11-16, 2006, Boston, MA

Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2006
July 11-13, 2006, Boston, MA

Interop
September 18-22, 2006, New York, NY

CSI 33rd Annual Computer Security Conference & Exhibition
November 6-8, 2006, Orlando, FL

Microsoft Exchange Connections and Windows Connections 2006
November 6-10, 2006, Las Vegas, NV

Not long ago I was able to attend ITIL training with some of the crew who I work with at Zen Technology. Soon after, I was assigned to the Problem Management service area and in reading up on it discovered that ITIL is much of the basis for MSF: Microsoft Solutions Framework.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itsolutions/cits/mo/smf/smfprbmg.mspx

Smart Tags are a powerful feature of Microsoft Office. To learn more about them:

http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=458

http://www.microsoft.com/office/previous/xp/columns/itcolumn08.asp

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/EY010504821033.aspx

http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/assistance/HP030833041033.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/hk/office/xp/smarttag/default.asp

http://www.officezealot.com/smarttags.aspx

http://redmondmag.com/news/article.asp?EditorialsID=5161

http://msdn.microsoft.com/office/understanding/smarttags/default.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/odc_wd2003_ta/html/odc_smartdocovw.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/sdsdk/html/sdconMOSTLSample_HV01083371.asp

...downloads from Microsoft:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/EY010504821033.aspx?HelpLCID=1033

...a product that helps you create your own:

http://avery.nereosoft.com/ms/dataportal.asp

...some fun:

http://myst-technology.com/mysmartchannels/public/item/33036

...and the controversy:

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/smarttags/

http://www.webpronews.com/news/ebusinessnews/wpn-45-20050220SmartTagCreatorBehindGooglesNewAutolinkFeature.html