Keynote: everyone will probably have heard about Azure by now. Although this something that's a big deal for Microsoft from a business perspective, it seemed to lack the 'wow'-factor for developers. It will be interesting to see how the pricing will be. That'll be the biggest hurdle to get mainstream-adoption.

BB11 Identity Roadmap for Software + Services: open up the Active Directory-identities to the web using Geneva. AD-identities are translated to claims which can be used by anyone because it's all standards based.

BB09 Microsoft Office Communications Server and Exchange: Platform Futures: I actually did the HOL before this session. Using the managed provider there's very little left to do to build solutions like Automated Call Distribution.

PC21 ASP.NET MVC: A New Framework for Building Web Applications: control the html and separate concerns using MVC. Stackoverflow is using ASP.NET MVC.

TL17 WF 4.0: A First Look: the next version of WF boasts a 10-100x improvement in performance. Seems to be much improved in usability for the developer.

"Show off" is about to start ...

The preconference session on WCF by Juwal Lowy was very interesting. Most WCF-talks focus on the mechanics: how to edit the config-file, what to do to use a specific protocol. Juwal instead demonstrated the productivity gains WCF brings to the platform.

Interesting quotes / take aways:

   "The first law of Xml: if you see xml, you're doing something wrong"

   Nobody cares about you doing plumbing ... so don't do plumbing.

I just arrived in Los Angeles. The view from the hotel is a lot better than the previous visits to LA. I've registered for the pre-conference on WCF on Sunday, so I have tomorrow to adjust to the timezone and weather.