I don’t think I made the business case. Rather, I think my uber-focused CTO wants to see visible proof of Silverlight 2 being a valid platform to build comparable front-ends for video & media players like we already do with Flash Player. So, we’re both hitting Las Vegas in March to attend MIX 2008.
Anyway, this’ll be the first conference I’ve attended where I didn’t speak. Yeah I know… my poor ego, right? Regardless, like most conferences, I probably will only sparsely attend most sessions, choosing to hit the back-channel instead. I’ll find some Microsoft employee(s) and start draining them of intel, and then proceed to debate Blend‘s current incarnation (again).
Next, I’ll hopefully get to mingle with some smart .NET’terz, hopefully the uber-loyal to Microsoft everyone-else-can-diaf kind, and see what I can learn about their perceived development plan. Really curious how those types of companies (big and small) intend to utilize Silverlight in their businesses, and why. They are the ones guarenteed to use Silverlight even if AJAX, Flex, or Flash were more appropriate. There are actually a lot of positives to this. You can clearly learn the expectations of these people as well as their perceptions toward technology which shows their decision making process. With context to the business they are in and markets they target, one can really glean a lot of great info.
Adobe‘s definitely going to be there. They had a great counter-brain-washing-sabotage-mission back in 2006. I haven’t seen a lot of that crew (Flash and AIR side vs. the Flex side) since March of 2007 at WebDU so hopefully we can hang too. Be nice to challenge some assumptions with them.
If you’re going to be there, hellz yeah, let’s hook up. I’ll buy you and your crew a beer and we can hang & talk tech. Easiest way to find me is to follow my Twitter.