Microsoft Management Summit (MMS), the annual user conference focused on System Center technologies, just wrapped up. Based on the technical content, it sure seemed like 2011 all over again. I suppose that’s one of the inevitable consequences that come with the practice of marketing future versions of products in order to compete with more mature and proven solutions.
Back at MMS 2011 we heard about System Center 2012 — which was supposed to ship by the end of 2011 — and how the various products would revolutionize private clouds everywhere. The sessions in 2011 demonstrated a range of new features such as Server App-V, Service Templates, SMI-S LUN creation, etc.
What a difference a year makes. In the world of selling futures and beta software — the world Microsoft lives in — the keynote presentation in 2012 showed us amazing new demos of features such as Server App-V, Service Templates, SMI-S LUN creation, etc. Sound familiar? Perhaps just reality catching up with marketing.
To be fair, there were some new announcements as well — MCSE, the flagship certification of the 1990’s is back, this time for cloud! Oh, there was also this terrific coffee mug thing… must see. And kudos for no obviously fake technical demos this time around.
One of the unexpected disclosures during the keynote was that next year MMS would not only be in a different location but at a different time: New Orleans in June 2013. That seems awfully close to that other annual conference, Microsoft TechEd. Connecting the dots could lead one to the conclusion that these two annual conferences are going to be getting a little cozier.
Whether Las Vegas in April or New Orleans in June, one thing’s for sure — it will be a perfect place to start talking about beta software that will solve all of your private cloud dilemmas. You know, the one that’s really going to work; the one that solves all the problems with that old 2012 version.
