Hi Guys, meet Jeff Alexander. Jeff is bloke who has the [enviable] task of getting Windows 7 out onto all our Netbooks!! Jeff was kind enough to take a few moments after his Windows 7 Deployment livemeeting yesterday to stop and answer a couple of questions for me.
For those who don’t know Jeff, he is Microsoft Australia’s, IT Pro Evangelist. He’s been working with Windows, since before it was cool — Anyone out there remember "Interface Manager" =)
(For more about Jeff, have a squizz at Long’s post “Jeff’s 20th Anniversary” or Jeff’s Blog)
Anyway, following in the spirit of Windows 7, I asked Jeff 7x questions on “How do you do Win7 to 2200+ netbook?” His Answers are below the fold.
- Hey Jeff, you’ve been with Microsoft for over 25 years now; have you *ever* seen anything like this attempted before?
- Can you share with us, any feedback you’ve received [or envious comments] from Microsoft Globally about such a deployment?
- It’s also your role, to get (everything that is awesome about) Windows 7, on to over 2,200 laptops. Where on earth do you start with a job like that?
- Nick mentioned, you’ve been putting the HP Netbooks through the testing labs. Can you comment how they’ve been performing?
- As you’ve been planning and exploring, what are some of the coolest features you’ve come across?
- Where to from here? What can we expect over the next little while? … and can we check back on the progress with you?
- But What if we want to know more now?
Jeff Says:
More »
It appears, that 
hosting geek Jorke, has already started getting the wireless plumbing reading for TechED Australia this year.
According to his twitter feed, there was a [secret?] visit to the Gold Coast Convention Center back in May to check things out.
Anyway Jorke has just recently posted some more info on his blog. It looks like the lads have been busy, and already started a Wireless Survey of the up and coming TechED site.
You can read more in his post “Tech.Ed 2009 Windows 7 Experience – Netbooks for you!”, and a snippet is below:
Now we go into the fun part of getting them on the network and doing some awesome things. We’ve already started planning this, with a wireless survey of the Gold Coast Convention Centre – as you can see, there’s a lot of air to cover!
Nice touch. I’ll see what else I can find out.
I had a chance this morning to spend a few moments with Microsoft Australia’s, Nick Hodge. Nick is “the man” who is organising the logistical challenge of getting 2,000+ netbooks into the hands of all us Tech•Ed attendees. …to put that in perspective that’s roughly 58x forklift palettes =)
Anyway, In the spirit of Windows 7, I asked Nick 7x questions on who/why/where etc, and his answers are below the fold.
- The burning question: Why? Why do us Aussies get to something as cool as this, when our [jealous] counterparts in the USA didn’t?
- And why the Why the HP 2140?
- Some uber-keen attendees have pointed out some issues with Wireless and battery. Do you think it will be a show stopper?
- What about attendees who can’t accept the “gratuity” clause?
- What can we do with our Netbook and win7? Will there be places to download MSDN/Technet/etc/etc?
- Ok, the clown clause. In the spirit of embracing interoperability, what is the prize/penalty for the first person to install Ububtu? =)
- Which version of Windows 7 is being loaded?
Nick Says:
More »
Super Blogger Long Zheng broke the news in his post "TechEd Australia attendees to receive free HP Mini Notebook with Win7 ", and shortly after twitter went crazy (check the hashtag auteched), a snippet from Long’s Post is below:
If any Aussies out there wasn’t entirely sure of going to the Microsoft TechEd Australia conference on the Gold Coast this year or not, then here’s an offer to nitro-boost your thought process a little. Microsoft Australia is going to be hosting the largest hands-on Windows 7 evaluation in the world by offering each paying attendee with one of 2,300 HP Mini netbook preloaded with Windows 7 for free
Microsoft Australia’s Jeff Alexander posted a heads up on some of the technical planning the TechED team have been working on to deploy Windows 7 on over 2,000 netbooks. Whilst Nick Hodge (the man with the logistics) has posted some gems as well.
That was all yesterday — Today Microsoft’s OCS powerhouse, Johann Kruse posted that the story has been picked up by IT Newswire.
I’ve also stumbled across some more info about the decision behind the HP Mini netbook, I’ll post it later this afternoon.
Hi There Guys, thanks for dropping by.
Well as you may have heard, Microsoft TechED Australia is giving each delegate a complimentary HP Mini 2140 Notebook PC pre-loaded with Windows 7.
Here is a informal (and unofficial) blog by a couple of guys, to keep the TechED community abreast of information as we find it.
Keep you posted as we find out more!