The Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference is an amazing opportunity to understand what Microsoft is planning on doing for its partners over the next 12 months, what changes will be happening to our products, look Microsoft in the eye and ask your question and to build relationships with other partners and people inside Microsoft to benefit your business.

Some of the speakers include UK Small Business partners, such as Susanne Dansey, Gareth Brown and Andy Trish.  They represent two areas of the community and their own companies, Westcoast a Microsoft distributor aiming at the small business end of the partner market and thriving, now Gold Certified SBSC partners who two years ago were not on Microsoft's radar and have made being a SBSC partner a real benefit.

In terms of what is on that is just for small business partners we had the Symposium yesterday.  As to what was expected, here is the small business blog

http://blogs.msdn.com/mssmallbiz/archive/2007/07/03/3677168.aspx

Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference:
We know many of you will also be participating in the Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) beginning Tuesday, July 10. There are several special activities planned especially for small business partners that you will want to add to your Conference schedule:

· Network with your peers before you arrive by joining the Small Business Discussion Group. This group is hosted on WPC Connect and is a great way for you to stay current, share ideas, and discuss what you have seen and heard at the conference. 

· Also check out the Small Business Specialist Community Blog on WPC Connect to get an early glimpse of what to expect at both the Small Business Symposium and the Worldwide Partner Conference.

• Visit the Small Business Partner "Yellow" Lounge. This lounge is a gathering place for connecting with people who care about small business as much as you do. The Lounge is located across from Lobby F, near the 14th Street entrance to the Convention Center. Come chat with Microsoft about small business technologies and network with your peers.
• Wear your Yellow T-Shirts and join us for breakfast in the Yellow Lounge on Tuesday, July 10 from 7:00 - 8:30 AM. Grab some breakfast, meet other Partners, and then we’ll walk over to the first General Session Keynote as a group to show everyone the strength of the small business partner community!
• Join us for the Small Business Reception in the Yellow Lounge from 5:30 - 7:30 PM on Tuesday, July 10.

 

Session content from the Symposium will be available for download on-site on the afternoon of the event from computers in the Networking Lounge and the Centennial Foyer. It will also be posted to CommNet and to http://partner.microsoft.com/sbsymposium shortly following the conclusion of the event.

Please turn in your completed evaluation forms at the Cocktail Reception to receive a free gift and so that we can make the event even better the next time around.
Note: If your plans have changed and you no longer plan to attend the event, please log-in to the registration site with your credentials to cancel your registration.

 

You may have noticed that Microsoft has also been trying to help people who could not make it to the original event (and also saving that Carbon Footprint of travel) and now we have the Digital WPC available at http://members.microsoft.com/partner/digitalwpc/ where you can see much of what happens.  Susan Bradley noticed this and is only planning on being their for part of the conference and plans on viewing the rest digitally;

http://msmvps.com/blogs/bradley/archive/2007/07/06/digital-wpc.aspx

So I'll be in Denver Monday for the Small Business Symposium but for the rest I'll be logging onto the Digital WPC.  There's even a Digital WPC blogging zone.  Looks like they have a bunch of world wide new Live Spaces blogs set up and the partners will start blogging during the conference.

Expect Susan, Susanne, Vlad and others to be blogging about it.  Some have started

http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/rtrent/archive/2007/07/05/microsoft-worldwide-partner-conference-next-week-are-you-attending.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/stevecla01/archive/2007/07/07/heading-to-worldwide-partner-conference.aspx

http://dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/paul/archive/2007/07/07/259211.aspx

ttfn

David