WPC Impressions

So here are my impressions of Worldwide Partner Conference.  They are in no particular order and basically this is a free-form brain dump:

• Houston is hot and muggy — very hot and muggy, I pity the people who live there and have to wear suits for a living
• The George R. Brown Convention Center seems better than most but it’s capacity was definately maxed out by the number of attendees this year
• The free bag I received may very well be the ugliest thing I have ever received
• Shiner Bock is a very good beer
• Houston has done a great job of having green space downtown with lots of trees, plants and grass
• The Hotel Indigo is great but way too far from the convention center and I hate taking the shuttle buses back and forth
• I was presented with the worst lunch I have ever been given at a convention on the Tuesday
• The opening keynotes were hit or miss but I think that Stephen Elop did a great job and was much better than when he spoke at Convergence in March
• Microsoft is heavily pushing the Software + Services philosophy and this is going to stress out tons of partners but will also be a great opportunity for those who can get their heads around it
• Worldwide Telescope is cooler than cool and you should check it out especially if you have kids
• I was surprised at the total number of Unified Communications/VOIP vendors were at the Expo — it seemed like every third booth was UC related
• I saw my first live demo of Microsoft Roundtable — totally cool but the odds of me convincing the powers that be here of shelling out the cash for it are about the same as me hitting the lottery
• Per a recommendation in a comment in another post I went for BBQ at Luling City BBQ — it was fantastic
• As usual there were some great break-out sessions and some sessions that made me want to poke an icepick through my ear into my brain

That is about it.