I am here at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in New Orleans. Microsoft holds the conference in a different city each year and announced last year that they would be bringing this huge event to New Orleans in 2009 to help support the city as it rebuilds from Katrina. I'm looking forward to seeing New Orleans and their lively city culture, and the conference planners are not missing any opportunities - starting off at the registration desk with this great live band.

This is an annual conference and is Microsoft's key event to showcase their new products, go-to-market strategy and generally outline their business strategy to their business partners. This year is likely to be an interesting conference as Microsoft is at a cross roads for both market and product events. Microsoft is feeling market pressure like maybe never before from Google and the move towards SaaS. Microsoft answered a couple of years ago with their Software + Services and has been selling it to their partners ever since. They have moved some of their products into the cloud, but their main money makers remain an on-premise solution - mainly Windows and Office. Which brings me to their second event - product. They are currently readying the next version of Windows and Office for general release. Add to this mobility - something they have been doing since the late 90s but have still failed capture the market dominance they have in Windows and Web. There is a lot of talk from Microsoft and the usual rumor mill about when or even if Microsoft can capture this market.

I will be watching Microsoft's key note addresses and breakout sessions to find out what their messages will be and will write about them in my blog - so check back and see what Microsoft is announcing.