Microsoft do say that they like to receive feedback on the events that they run. Unfortunately, my feedback for last week’s IT Forum ’05 highlights (part 1) event was not good and Thomas Lee gave me a clear indicator today that people really do read it when he gently needled me about my comments on the quality of the external presenters (don’t worry Thomas – your VSAT scores will be excellent)!

Whilst it makes me a little nervous that most of the IT professional technical evangelist team at Microsoft UK (and some external speakers like Thomas) know me by name (I’m probably infamous for asking too many questions and for republishing their sessions on this blog), I figure that my musings here also help spread their message and I’ve made it my unofficial role to be a bit of a Microsoft evangelist (although I still comment when I don’t like something and I also write about other technology areas that interest me).

I’m pleased to say that today’s IT Forum ’05 highlights (part 2) event was a world apart from last week’s part 1. With good speakers for four out of the five sessions, interesting topics (and some cool technology demos), there was a whole load of information presented that I couldn’t easily get elsewhere (that’s the whole point about going to Microsoft events, I want to learn things that I can’t find on Google).

In fact, there was so much good stuff that it won’t fit into a single blog post, so expect to see more here (as soon as I get time to write it up) about Exchange 12, the Windows Server 2003 SP1 security configuration wizard, the Microsoft Scripting Host (codenamed Monad), Exchange Server 2003 SP2 mobile messaging, and maybe a bit more about Windows Vista too.