On the floor at PDC

Posting from Los Angeles ... The Phillies have the Phanatic, the Mariners have the Moose -- and Microsoft, apparently, has the Channel 9 guy. That's him, at right, walking around Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles today. He's the mascot for the company's video weblog and community site for software developers, although I had previously never seen him in this larger-than-life incarnation.

The company's last PDC, two years ago, coincided with the big Los Angeles fires. (I have some vivid memories of driving overnight to the conference from Las Vegas after my connecting flight was cancelled.) Monday, during some pre-conference sessions, there was a major blackout in the city. See this story by CNet News.com's Ina Fried for details on what happened at the conference when the electricity went out. Is someone trying to send Microsoft some sort of message?

I arrived at the conference Monday afternoon, and everything seemed to be pretty much back on track after the blackout, except for some delays in the schedule. As you can see from this picture, Robert Scoble was hard at work on the PDC floor, breaking some news about a cool new (non-Microsoft) Web service, so all was right with the world, or at least with the blogosphere.

Meanwhile, some of the buzz leading into the conference has centered on Paul Thurrott's report that Microsoft is contemplating seven different varieties of Windows Vista, running the gamut from Windows Vista Home Basic Edition to Windows Vista Ultimate Edition. At least one online post has questioned whether that reflects the company's final plans, and it isn't yet clear whether Microsoft will address the issue of the potential versions during this week's conference.

Bill Gates and Windows chief Jim Allchin are slated to kick things off Tuesday morning with keynote addresses expected to focus on subjects including the next versions of Office and Windows.

Posted by Todd Bishop at September 12, 2005 10:11 PM