Willy-Peter Schaub's Cave of Chamomile Simplicity

MVP Interoperability Workshop ... the sponsors behind the scenes

We often forget the sponsors behind the scenes of events such as the MVP Interoperability Workshop and I am therefore dedicating this blog to the sponsors:

• Most importantly to the community leads and MVPs actively preparing content for the event, mostly in their own personal time, out of sheer passion for technology and in this case interoperability! Zlatan, Ryan, Henk, Zayd, Almero and Garret ... you guys really rock!
• Our community leads and MVPs supporting us in the background and at the event ... you guys rock!
• Our Microsoft MEA MVP Program Manager, for listening to us and making this event happen. Ruari, you rock!
• Microsoft Interoperability, OOXML and open-anything evangelist. Paulo your efforts are appreciated and you too rock!
• Microsoft for sponsoring the venue, the refreshments, handouts, prizes and event management, supported by people such as Sandra and Lillian. You ladies rock!
• Microsoft technologists for accepting the late challenge to present a view on the web and interoperability. Eben, you rock!
• Barone, Budge & Dominick for supporting the initiative, giving us bandwidth to investigate and evangelise interoperability, for event prizes such as external drives, packed with goodies, stress balls, tons of books, stress balls, t-shirts and sponsoring the flight and rental car to bring a MVP up from Cape Town to participate at the event.
• SA Architect, for driving this event, interoperability in general, for narrowing the no-man's land between technologies and for sponsoring another flight to bring a MVP up from Cape Town.
• Teamprise, for assisting us with the debugging of our interoperability session and for sponsoring a Teamprise Client Suite license as another great prize. Martin, you are not only a great pilot, but a great community evangelist ... you rock!
• ITI, for always supporting the communities and this event. Roy, you and your team rock!
• SA Developer, for advertising and supporting our initiative.
• Lastly to the various product teams, especially the VSTS/TFS product team which is supporting their MVPs relentlessly, allowing us to deliver better service, better information and more passion to the communities. Everyone in the VSTS/TFS product team and the VSTS Rangers rocks 24x7!

A huge THANK YOU to all the sponsors!

PS: If I have forgotten anyone, then please let me know! We triple checked the list, but I would not be surprised if the aging brain gremlins are active again.

In short, there is a lot of rocking going on and we are looking forward to an exciting, invaluable and revolutionary event. It is not often that different technologies and vendors are represented in one event ... we will hopefully prove that interoperability is no longer a technology, but instead a mindset challenge!

Bring an open mind and join us for an exciting event! See http://dotnet.org.za/willy/archive/2008/05/28/mvp-interoperability-workshop.aspx or www.saarchitect.net for details.