The day in between...

Well because I travelled on Friday I have today to myself, not strictly myself in the way I spend my time for reasons that I’ll come on to but by myself in New Orleans.

This morning I woke after a fairly unsatisfactory sleep which is not surprising after the day’s travel and time difference. I feel ok though and I have a very important task before me which is the shopping lists emailed to me while in transit by my wife, son and daughter. So I’m off to Lakeside shopping mall and I’m going to use New Orleans finest public transport, wish me luck...

OK I’m back, only took 4 hours L 4 busses, lots of waiting at bus stops and 2 litres of water. So for those who may be mad enough to follow in my footsteps and are staying on one of the many hotels on Canal Street here goes; so you need to take the Canal Street streetcar to Cemetery and this is the first problem, since Katrina the Canal Street streetcars have been out of service, not that the hotel concierge who gave me the directions pointed that important fact out to me!

So here’s the first waiting bit... thankfully it doesn’t take long to work out that there doesn’t seem to be any streetcars or other people waiting for them. Off to the bus stop then, already drunk half a litre of water and don’t have a bus time table. Wait! Talking to some of the locals at the bus stop including a very nice lady who hails from Cuba and has a daughter who has just been to Bible school and is now doing pre med, who tells me that there are only two busses in this circular route and they seem to turn up whenever.

Second wait...here is the bus 10 minutes late, thinking that I must buy another bottle of water.
Second crucial bit of information, you need the exact change for the bus, the driver does not take money and you need dollar bills and change for the ticket machine.

Any single journey on this route $1.10. The next bit of the journey is changing at Cemetery to the Veterans bus service, called that because it follows a route that mainly covers Veterans Blvd! A wait for about 10 mins another $1.10 and I’m there. The mall looks very new and apparently comprises many stores that relocated from a mall near the Louisiana Super dome. I’m not surprised as there were many very sorry looking building on the way.

The trip back apart from more waiting and talking to more very friendly locals was good especially as the bus took a different route back into town past many very pretty traditional wooden houses all of which looked great and looked to be benefitting from some post Katrina renovation.

Now I’m back at the hotel I can freshen up then it’s off to the Mississippi, Riverside Walks Centre, Aquarium, the French Quarter, jazz, gumbo, Cajun chicken and some liquid refreshment. I'm tired now and will spare you the details least to say I managed to fit in all the above!

On my way to Microsoft WPC 2009 New Orleans

So here we go 7global attending WPC 2009, yes the date does say the 10th and the conference only really starts on the 13th. Well it takes all day to get to New Orleans and I want to hit the sites and shops on Saturday.

Plus to be fair I do have quite a busy day Sunday with meetings from midday and a meet and greet with the UK Microsoft guy’s and gal’s early evening.

I would also say from previous experiences attending the MS WW Hosting summit in Seattle a few times getting in late the day before the start makes the first couple of days a bit of a blur. And as this is my first WPC I want to make the most of it.

Right now I’m in Philadelphia waiting for my connection and I might add already feeling a bit tired. I got up @5:50 to catch a train to Manchester @07:22 flew out of Manchester on US Air 735 @ 11:30 on a 7 hour flight and arrived here @ 13:30 US East coast time. So as I type this blog battling with the unusable Wi-Fi provided by ATT in terminal B Philly International my transfer to New Orleans leave at 19:30 local time and its only 14:45! Oh yes an hour to clear customs, the computers were slow today, apparently!

Anyway the bonus of the day so far was Gran Torino on the in flight movies, I missed this at the flicks and was very pleased to catch it today, Clint at his absolute best. Going to move and look for a better Wi-Fi connection now...

Oh and mobile calls cost 125ppm, 99ppm to receive, SMS 49p, 14.99 per day for 25Mb data on both NTT and T-Mobile. Daylight robbery!

16:30 had a look at the shops and food halls, quite a good choice, you can fill up on traditional Americana fair or sample any amount of pizza, pasta, Chinese and salads as you like all ranging from $8-15. Will try later...

Sat in the main shopping area on a wooden rocking chair in the middle of the walkway (there are others doing the same) next to a pillar that has a power socket. Ah yes power for my laptop, this means that I can watch a DVD of something I’ve downloaded from BBC iPlayer. I think I’ll go for Glastonbury highlights.

Flight to New Orleans left on time @19:30 just a 2:20 flight, managed to get a bit of sleep and felt quite good when we arrived. This was of course short lived when we had to hang around for what seem like ages at baggage claim.

22:10 Arrived at the Crown Plaza Hotel, the weather is hot and sticky, a jazz band is playing on the corner and the streets are packed with people. The temptation is to get out there and sample the atmosphere the reality is I’m off to bed..zzzzZ

Going down to New Orleans

So, the Worldwide Microsoft Partner Conference has come around and 7global will be represented by my colleague Mike Williams. As Worldwide Partner of the Year Finalists I have to admit we're looking forward more than usual to the Conference.


At the 2009 EMEA Hosting Roundtable. From left to right: Pascal Walschots (Microsoft), Mike Williams (7global), Paul Doherty i.e. me (7global).

Mike's no stranger to Microsoft events and he will be contributing to The Cloud's Silver Lining with updates on what's hot, what's not, who he's met and any titbits of news which you'll find useful. Whatever happens Mike will be ferreting out info which will benefit our customers and partners over the following week. We'll be paying particular attention to Hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Azure, BPOS as well as the Software + Services marketplace and hosting in general

No doubt they'll be descriptions of Bourbon Street, jambalaya and red wine as well.

So- watch this space!

Microsoft Worldwide Partner Award Finalists Again.

Now the press embargo, to which I have slavishly adhered, has been lifted I can now say 'whooohoo' without fear of being hunted down by the Microsoft PR leopards.

To be honest, it's really good to have got this one again, as after last year's success I thought it would be difficult to repeat.

I had some great help from partners and clients in putting the entry together which always helps and, focusing as I did on our Hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM Platform I had a great story to tell.

Interesting Managed Hosting Report

An interesting report on managed hosting from the analyst Quocirca. Describes 7global, as well as the competition (whom I would steer well clear of if I were you) and our different approaches to managed hosting. Definitely worth a read.

A graphic illustration of the graft that goes into the EMEA Hosting Club. Takes me a week to recover.

Microsoft EMEA Hosting Club Feedback

Got back (eventually- I won't bore you with delayed flight stories) from Nice and the 10th EMEA Hosting Club Executive Roundtable. It was, as always, an extremely useful trip. My colleague, Mike Williams, and I managed to hook up with a number of old friends and industry peers and had a good catch up. Highlights were:

• Intelecom. Nice Unified Comms solution. Shame the mike (microphone, rather than my colleague) kept falling off during the session
• Genesis. Our competitors, but a good presentation which was pleasantly frank
• Martha Béjar, Corporate Vice President, Communications Sector. Good to have some senior people telling us like it is
• Workshops. I was in David Ednie's session. He's a clever guy, very knowledgeable and a great facilitator. Swears like a true aussie ;-)
• Serge's attention to detail. Serge Khayat is the Senior Marketing Manager for the hosting team and has superb attention to detail
• The violinists. Enough said.

A great event, nicely put together.