WPC Day Three Keynote

First things first: in keeping with tradition, at the conclusion of the Day 3 keynote, Microsoft announced the location of the next Worldwide Partner Conference.  We were thrilled to hear that next year's WPC will take place in the city of Bamboo's own home base, beautiful Washington, D.C., from July 12-15, 2010!

Another big announcement was the global availability of Windows Marketplace on July 27, 2009.

Let's rewind now to the kickoff of the Day 3 Keynote: We were entertained once again with the fabulous music of Playing for Change.  Following their peformance, Allison Watson officially kicked off the day with the "A" List of innovation, which included this year's Imagine Cup Award winners and the Microsoft Students to Business Program (a portal for partners where we can enter job and internship listings and get connected with students who have registered within the portal). Other innovation included Microsoft Surface, Microsoft Health Vault, Microsoft Office Communications Server - and it was all wrapped up in a video highlighting what technology will be like in the future. Bill Buxton, a principal researcher at Microsoft, walked us through the continuum of innovation. The things we are seeing today are the fruits of the inventions and innovation that began about 20 years ago. The technology used to demonstrate the future is in motion now; all the technology is there today. It was a fascinating presentation, presenting thin organic LCD, plastic-like walls embedded with technology to display information.  The devices will be irrelevant and will continue to get thinner and thinner. Bill ended his presentation with a quote from Marcel Proust: "The only true voyage of discovery is not to go to new places, but to have other eyes".

Next up was Kevin Turner, Microsoft COO with an energetic presence similar to Steve Ballmer's. Kevin is passionate about competition.  Passionate about winning!

During this time of economic reset, Kevin's message internally has been, "a crisis is a terrible thing to waste". He confirmed Steve Ballmer's remarks yesterday that R&D investment of $9.5B will remain flat in the coming year, but added that Microsoft's investment in their partners of $2.9B this year will be increasing to $3.3B in the coming year. They continue to bet on their partners, and view the partner ecosystem as the key asset to Microsoft. He spoke of the Bing! release and how he can't wait until it becomes a verb. There's momentum, they have a brand, they are committed to 2 releases per year - he is clearly excited about Bing. Kevin continued to demonstrate his passion of competition while discussing VM Ware, observing that since launching the HyperV product line last October, they have captured 24 points in market share, and they are just getting started. He talked about IBM Lotus Notes, and how there are now countries in which they have won every single engagement to replace Lotus Notes.  These countries have all been migrated to Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint.

One of the highlights of Kevin Turner's presentation was how he is using his past experience at Wal-Mart to go head-to-head with Apple. He has hired a team and has committed to opening a Microsoft retail store next to every retail Apple store.

Kevin concluded the keynote with a call to action for all partners:

1. Launch/evangelize/use internally the newest, latest and greatest technology.  The partners that don't launch and sell the innovation story will be left behind.
2. Earn the right to be the trusted advisor with your customers.
3. Grow market share by competing to win, and have fun doing it!

Personally, I felt the most energy coming out of the keynotes today.  I will echo my favorite quote, one which Kevin Turner provided today: "The biggest room at Microsoft is our room for improvement."