I’m here at the Visual Studio 2005 / SQL Server 2005 Launch.

I would have blogged this “live” but there is no WiFi.

The keynote started out with a big bang: Cheap Trick played a song introducing the theme: “are you ready to rock“. Then Steve Ballmer came out and gave the keynote. This launch is certainly a big deal for Microsoft. Steve Ballmer et al are really pushing the scalability of this new platform and suitability for mission critical apps. Intel CEO / President Paul Otellini came on stage to talk about how the Intel compilers are now a part of the VS product launch (critical for the success of the Itanium, I think). After that, it got kind of flat.

I had to fight the feeling that this launch is all old news. I am excited about Vista (and the related Windows Workflow Foundation, Windows Communications Foundation, and Windows Presentation Foundation technologies), Web 2.0, and more. And of course this is a launch event, not an announcement event (like the Windows Live announcement last week).

Don’t get me wrong — I am very happy to be using the new tools announced today and do think this is something big worth celebrating. And of course, I’ve adopted the new Microsoft tools, but Microsoft has to convert / convince a lot of other people.

I suppose this feeling of “old news” is a necessary result of Microsoft’s increased transparency. Product launch used to be the first time a large number of people really started using the new tools — but the first VS beta some time ago now. Of course, this transparency is a good thing.

So I enjoyed this for what it was: a chance to celebrate the latest release of the most productive development platform in the (known) universe. And better: a chance to meet prospective customers and partners.

Plus Cheap Trick really rocks. No kidding, they sounded great. Here are a couple pictures:

Congratulations to Microsoft and thanks for a great launch party!