Yesterday I was at the UK technical launch of Windows Server 2012, built from the cloud up! It was a great event to be part of. We MVPs had a big presence; I was on stage with Andrew Fryer (DPE aka @DeepFat) talking “beyond virtualisation”, Damian Flynn (Cloud and System Center aka @damian_flynn) talked private/public/hybrid cloud with System Center and Azure, and Thomas Lee (PowerShell) presented on PowerShell and administration.
I’m guessing that there was something like 800 people in the full room. The stage was really nicely built, looking like something from a TechEd. You can see it below, with Jeff Woolsey (Principal PM Lead for Windows Server at Microsoft) presenting during the keynote.
During lunch and in the afternoon I was at the MVP desk out in the exhibitors hall. 18 companies had stands there, including servers, storage, software, and services. I worked a whiteboard, and as usual, Storage Pools, SOFS, and Hyper-V Replica were the hot topics. In fact, we were forcibly removed from the hall when it was time to shut down!
It was a fun day and I got to meet lots of people. The feedback was positive which always makes the work feel worthwhile. It was amazing how many of them said something like “We have VMware but we’re moving to Hyper-V”. Best laugh of the day for me went to the guy who booed when his friend won a HP Microserver!
Thanks to Microsoft UK and Claire (the UK/IE MVP lead) for allowing me to participate! It’s always fun to share what information I have with people who are eager to learn.
I flew back in from London this morning (03:50 wakeup) and went straight to the office. I’ve got a web meeting to attend tonight, and a podcast recording tomorrow night, and about 10 hours of sleep to catch up on … so I’m going to be quiet 
Watch out for the video interview that I did with the nice folks at PC Pro and I’ll leave you with some tweets from attendees yesterday:
@ShadowfaxTech: #Microsoft #ws2012 most excited by Hyper-V replicas and Livemigration. Basically better uptime and resilience for our clients.
@priteshgir: #WS2012 The best part at the launch has been discovering How much more capable HyperV is than some of the other virtual solutions available.
@wpsolltd: So long and thanks for all the fish. Bye bye vSphere hello Windows Server 2012. Thought SC 2012 was amazing W2K12 rocks #ws2012
@BlandJon: #WS2012 Love it! Cost savings, flexibility and scalability features are awesome not to mention Azure. Time to switch from VMware!
@coreinfra: “I was always for VMware, not anymore..#ws2012 is the #VMware killer…and its freeeee!” LOVE it @joe_elway 🙂
@MAKH83: I was always for VMware, not anymore..#ws2012 is the #VMware killer…and its freeeee!