Ready Launch Tour 2005 - Mumbai 13/12/2005

My Experience at the LAUNCH...

Reached Grand Hyatt at 10:20... At the entrance a person greeted me .. it was by mistake, he thought that am someone else ..

*Inside the Lobby*

Went inside (downstairs) and registered for the event... i had the printout of the confirmation that made my registration quicker ) .. after the registration, they asked me the seminar i wished to attend, i said SQL Server 2005 ..

Had a cup of coffee (didnt have the cake and biscuits .. was preparing myself for the bigger event *haha u guessed it rt* )

After having the coffee, visited the AMD, INTEL, HP etc stalls (got bored and then proceeded to see whats happening at the AAC - Asian Aerosol Conference, which was being conducted in a nearby adjacent hall .. stared at some chinese girls and came back to MS event )

*At the Hands-on LAB*

Then a lady came and asked me to attend the "Hands On" Lab session till the seminar begins (she might have seen me wandering around ) .. went to hands on lab and seated myself in front of a pc( intel 3.something Ghz, 2 GB Ram)..b4 i could do anything, a lady came in and announced that the seminar has begun and requested everyone to attend it

*Inside the Seminar Hall*

->11:10 - 11:20

Seated myself in the front rows, and saw some opening videos (Theme: Get Ready To Rock)…

->11:20 - 12:15

Sanjay Parthasarthy (IDC head) walked in to deliver "keynote by microsoft", he started with the Cricket Score

Then there was a demo by Ashutosh and Gaurav Khanna which was *ditto* to demo shown in the webcast..

->12:15 - 13:30

There were some more keynotes and conversations, which was not interesting for me ;) so didnt pay attention :)

->13:30 - 13:35

Host announced the respective boardrooms for the further tracks (SQL Server(DBA Track) & VS2005 (Developer Track) and requested everyone to proceed for lunch.

*Lunch & Dessert*

->13:35 - 14:40

Wow it was fantastic!! Ate till my eyes bulged out

*SQL Seminar* - DBA Track

->14:40 - 16:00

Ramkumar K walked in to speak on "Building Mission Critical databases with SQL server 2005" … was interesting and learned some new techniques and enhancements... one thing that annoyed me in this session was the use of shortcut keys..

->16:00 - 17:40

It was Govind Khansi's turn to speak on "Delivering Business insights(BI)" .. Govind Introduced Shivakumar H, who was amongst the audience as an expert in BI (currently writing 2 books on the same).. Couldnt listen to much of the seminar, was in deep sleep from 16:15 to 17:30 .. woke up at 17:30 and hurriedly filled in the Feedback form. Govind Khansi finished and announced a QA session with Shivakumar…

*The QA - a wonderful experience*

The QA session started with very few having the queries.. Those who asked good (relevant) questions were given a T-Shirt (Rockstar, MVP T-shirt).. i too wanted a T-Shirt , but didnt have any queries regarding SQL Server. Eventually when only 2 Shirts were left, i stood up, walked near shiva and said "Shiva , i am being frank with you, can i have one of those T-Shirts??"... he laughed and handed me over one , "Mission Accomplished" *that was the most happiest moment of the day* ... talked with him a bit more about his new book.. and came back a happy man :)

Thats all folks...