This past week I had the opportunity to speak at three SQL Server R2 Launch events.  I spoke in three cities in four days.  On day one I spoke in Omaha, NE, the next day we stopped in Overland Park, KS and finally St. Louis, MO.  Each event was held at a Microsoft facility.  The largest crowd was in St.  Louis, there were approximately 75 people in attendance.  I traveled with one of our Salesmen and two Microsoft Employees. 

My role in each event was to do all the demonstrations.  The topics that I covered were structured completely around Self-Service Business Intelligence.  In addition we also did a couple chalk talks on the new data warehousing methodologies and appliances that are available or will be available soon from Microsoft, Fast Track and Parallel Data Warehouse.  Overall they were all accepted by the audience with a few questions regarding the true practicality of the features in a large organization.  As expected, the Power Pivot demonstration was a big hit.  However, I was surprised that several attendees in each city was excited about the Utility Control Point and Date Tier Applications.

I will be doing a SQL Lunch on each of the demonstrations in the upcoming months.  The topics will include:  Power Pivot, Report Builder 3.0, Utility Control Point, and Data Tier Applications.  Stay tuned here and the SQL Lunch for the dates.

Talk to you soon

Patrick LeBlanc