So all the delegates have been playing with the HP Mini netbook supplied as part of their attendance at Tech.Ed Australia 2009.
It’s been good to see the units getting so much use – to be honest more than I had expected. Given that everyone attending does have access to a lot of technology, I wondered whether the netbooks might not end up being used a little bit and then passed up in favour of personal equipment, but pleasingly this hasn’t been the case. Everywhere you go at Tech.Ed netbooks are out and getting a thorough workout.
Much of this has been made possible by the infrastructural work done behind the scenes. The wireless network has remained stable and there are plenty of powerpoints. Internet access did struggle somewhat today, but once the delegates who had loaded up torrent clients on their netbooks were chased down and given a Cease and Desist warning, things were back up to speed.
So what are these units like to use, and what’s the OOBE (out of box experience) like?
Firstly, these netbooks are HP Mini 2140 netbooks, and I have to say that they’re a lot nicer than my 2008-model Acer Aspire One, to the extent that I’m almost regretting having opted to hand the device back at the end of the conference (even though the HP does have a slightly lower vertical resolution). The hand-back scheme means that returned netbooks will be donated to Australian-based charities, such as the Victorian Bushfire Appeal.
The software image for media delegates is a little different, in that the user is pre-configured and there’s no standard OOBE, but based on feedback from delegates the OOBE is very similar to the sort of experience you get with an OEM prodct purchase. Office 2010 Technical Preview is installed, and the Office Product team have included a smiley and frowny app in the system tray so that users can quickly send feedback if they encounter any problems or just want to comment on something positive.
There are loads of installers ready to go, such as MDT 2010 RC, BPOS, Live Meeting and the Sysinternals suite, as well as trial software like Expression Studio 3 and Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1. Tech.Ed sponsors like HP and Polycom got some marketing material onto the image as well.
Obviously Microsoft wanted to keep the image as streamlined as possible, given that they had to deploy it out across 2500 machines, but it’s still pleasing that they managed to avoid temptation by overloading the machines with unnecessary software and marketing gumpf. The systems are ready to roll and customise, and delegates have been doing precisely that. As the image owner, congratulations to Jeff Alexander and everyone who worked on getting the systems ready.
Roll on Day 2 of Tech.Ed Australia 2009!
Disclaimer: I am currently attending Tech.Ed as a guest of Microsoft
