Yesterday was the second and final day of PDC10. There were a lot less people at the event yesterday, I guess some people got their free Windows Phone 7 and left. I started off waiting for the commons to open, the area where the various product teams were with things to show off. I got side-tracked with playing with an up coming release of MetroTwit which you can download here. Despite not being a Microsoft product it certainly conforms to much of the company’s Metro Guidelines.
I was having issues with the official Twitter app on my Windows Phone 7 so tweeted both Charlie Kindel and Brandon Watson asking if they knew what was up with my device, we’ll return to this story later.
Next I met with Jean-Luc David as he came to chat with Long Zheng and Paul Thurrott, who I was sitting with. After a while we decided we all had time to go to the Company Store and spend our limit of $120 on hardware and software. There is a lot of choice in the store but I didn’t really need anything. A friend had asked for a copy of Office 2010 and I wanted a wireless mouse. But there there was the vast choice of branded merchandise. I bought 4 t shirts.
After having a short tour of the Microsoft campus by Paul Thurrott it was pretty much lunch time on our return to Building 33. I met with Phil Winstanly for lunch who is a fellow Brit who is best described as a consultant but does a lot more than just consultancy. We had a few good chats over lunch interspersed with chats from Microsoft employees. We were sitting on an Internet Explorer table and I ended having a long chat with a guy who does some of the “F12” work in IE9.
Some things I learnt over lunch are that loads, and I mean loads, of Microsoft employees have not yet seen Windows Phone 7 let alone played with it. I was asked several times to show them my developer device which seemed odd to me. Another thing is that there is a lot grumblings about the discussion of Silverlight’s future, as far as I can tell Silverlight wont be going anywhere soon and it was the message that went across during the keynote.
After lunch it was back to Building 33 and to the commons. I had a quick chance to have another look around some of the stalls of both product teams and Microsoft research, the Microsoft Translator team had a interesting poster up.
I also grabbed a shot of a big Channel 9 guy and of Laura Foy and Paul Mestemaker recording and episode of Ping, I guess, for Channel 9 using my Windows Phone 7.
After grabbing a few pics and having a chat with some people like Scott Hanselman (again!) Brandon Waston came into the room and he had read my tweet. He had a quick play with the device, trying to sign in himself to no avail. He found that the build I had on my phone was wrong, I don’t know if it was a past or future build but within about 15 minutes the device had been flashed with the correct version and I was able to sign into Twitter.
Straight after this the other MSPs came into the room as we were going to be interviewed by Laura Foy. I went was first and was asked about MML and the Windows Phone 7 apps that the other MSPs had made. Following my piece each MSP was then interviewed and they demoed their apps. I’m not sure when the video will be uploaded but I will be sure to share it…unless its embarrassing that is.
Whilst still in the commons I also checked on IE’s Twitter profile as I knew they were holding a competition to win some “IE gear”. The tweet read “The first 2 #PDC10 attendees to come to the #IE9 Demo Lounge & tell us what new CSS support we demoed yesterday will win some IE9 gear”. After a quick search on Bing on my Windows Phone I had found the answer, it was 2D Transforms. I went to the IE team and said this and was then presented with a rather nice looking laptop case.
This pretty much concluded the day at Building 33. But earlier in the day I had managed to join a group of press going out for a meal so last night I was out with quite a few British press, Ed Bott and Long Zheng. It was a great evening and great way to finish PDC10. I have had a great time here and now I am looking forward to looking around Seattle today.
I think this will conclude my PDC10 coverage but if I can think of enough “stuff” to put in a summary post then I will. I hope you have enjoyed my coverage of PDC10, I know I have immensely enjoyed being here and I, once again, thank Microsoft for this great opportunity.
