This post is a shout-out to our NJ SharePoint User Group, I got to meet Mike Fitzmaurice last week at CTC, he is the Technical Product Manager at Microsoft for SharePoint Products and Technologies.
At a CTC morning applications track session Mike didn't get much time to speak about SharePoint, but I caught up with him in the hallway. First I asked him about the next version of SharePoint and he said Bill Gates himself said that all the Microsoft Office System Products will get a new rev next year. I told him how just last week I saw a demo of Microsoft Business Solutions and discovered they will be using SharePoint as their main UI. “Yea, everybody is using SharePoint” was his answer, then I mentioned that I was a member of the NJ SharePoint UG and his face lite-up, “I've been following you guys since the start, you're the largest group we have. Keep-up the good work”. Cool!
Microsoft had almost no impact at CTC and I would like to understand why. Anoop Gupta was listed as a Keynoter, but he didn't get much time in the Presence: The Battle for the Desktop discussion. The moderator bombarded us with her PowerPoint presentation as he and Gordon Quinn sat on their stools.
Mike Fitzmaurice was crammed on a panel with five others, but he could have stayed around and chatted with everyone at the conference. Ramin Vosough and Ed Simnett were there too, but also cut-out like boys leaving school early. Microsoft did have two booths in the Vendor area, but most of the time they were unattended. CTC was a great opportunity to win friends and influence people, the venue was perfect, the food fabulous and the attendees were very eager to learn. So why wasn't Microsoft collaborating?