Ho, ho, ho! I’ve got an early Christmas gift for those of you who are .NET developers near the Milwaukee area.
Microsoft and the WI .NET Users Group are teaming up to throw a little holiday party this year. Many of the details are still in the works, but plan on having a lot of fun. We’re trying to arrange some extra prizes and perhaps some better food than we have at our normal meetings — not that there’s anything wrong with pizza, though. We’re also checking the possibility of having an XBox setup for some gaming that night.
Also, and this is pretty exciting, in addition to the fun and food, bring your computer and you will have a chance to install the RTM bits of Visual Studio 2008.
Yes, Microsoft will be providing licensed versions of Visual Studio 2008 for those who bring their computers and install right then and there. Once they’ve installed VS2008, we will take their contact info and Microsoft will ship them a licensed version in the coming weeks.
The date has been set for December 11, and we will probably be meeting at the Waukesha Microsoft office. Please register now if you plan to attend. Microsoft would like to get a good head count to make sure we are prepared with everything.
So, tell all your friends, your co-workers, your boss, your family members, your neighbors and the waiter at your favorite lunch establishment about it. And blog about it. You can link back here or to the "official page" at http://www.wi-ineta.org/holiday. Who knows, maybe we’ll have another Evangelist blogging contest?
Keep watching my blog and the event page for updates as more info is available.
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Funny that at 2pm Microsoft has already closed the registration for this event.
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I just got the e-mail, today 21-Nov-07 at 11:30 am and MSFT said registration was closed.
Scott
Andrew –
Unfortunately, the event filled up already. Microsoft had a particular number of licenses available for us at this event, and we have already reached the limit. My contact there is working to see if there is anything that can be done to add more, but I’m not sure yet what will be available.
The Chicago .NET Users Group is also having a similar event, and theirs “sold out” in 2 hours. Ours took about 3.5 hours.
If anything else comes up and more space is made available I will definitely make an update.
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My bad, I see posted this on Nov 17, but I just got the info by email today, Nov 21. And the registration is already closed.
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So, TapMyMind, what you’re implying is that MSFT is running the event and that the e-mails from WI .NET were just a formality but MSFT had all the people it wanted.
So much for Balmer’s “Developers, developers, developers!” eh ?
Scott
Steve –
No, what I’m saying is that Microsoft is sponsoring this holiday party for the WI .NET Users Group, and they had expected, and budgeted for, a certain number of attendees — more than we’ve ever had at any of our meetings before (aside from Deeper in .NET).
Unfortunately, their expectations, and ours, were quickly exceeded. Very quickly.
While it certainly sucks to possibly miss out on this opportunity, I don’t think it’s fair to say that someone missed out because Microsoft “had all the people it wanted”. Both I and our contacts at Microsoft wish that there were more licenses to give away, and that is something that is being looked in to.
All that said, here’s a summary of what happened. Registration has been open on the UG website (wi-ineta.org) for this event for a few days now, with an announcement on the home page. It was announced verbally at our last meeting on 11/13, and as you can see from this blog post, I mentioned it a few days ago, as did a few other local bloggers. So between the first mention and this morning, about 15 people had found the announcements and registered. Then this morning I sent out the newsletter to all members of the UG, and it was almost scary how fast the other 100+ spaces filled up. Every time I refreshed the page, there was a different count.
Again, I am sorry for any inconvenience. If more licenses do not become available for this event, we will work every angle we can to see what other events we can let you know about so that you can get a license as well. I’m sure this isn’t the only time Microsoft will be giving away licenses to VS08 in the next few months.
By the way, you can call me by my first name, which is Scott. Only my mother calls me “TapMyMind”. 🙂
Scott
Also, I should add that Microsoft’s expectations were based on a number that I gave them. Basically they took that number I gave them and added a bunch to it. Unfortunately, that was still too low.