This is great news!  In addition to the news that Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 is now out for download for MSDN Subscribers, we also announced that we are changing the product offering line up for Visual Studio 2010. 

Team editions are gone and in their place is a single uber-SKU. MSDN Subscriptions as an add on to Visual Studio are gone – integrated instead into a SKU.  Visual Studio Standard is gone (we sold very little of this – most people opting for Visual Studio Professional instead).

So what does this mean for you if you already own Visual Studio 2008 with MSDN?

Good news!  If you have a valid MSDN Premium Subscription as at March 22, 2010, you will automatically get upgraded.

In addition to all this, all MSDN Subscribers will gain access to Team Foundation Server 2010 when it ships.

So – if you don’t have a MSDN Subscription today, go buy one and watch it blossom into a upgraded SKU when Visual Studio 2010 ships!

On Sunday September 13, Auckland will host the biggest code camp that has ever been held in New Zealand.

Normally the Auckland Code Camp just before Tech Ed hosts a single track for the whole day, but this time, the good people from the .Net User Groups have organized not one, nor two, but three tracks covering a host of sessions:

Development...

• What's Happening in .NET Languages and Why Should You Care?
• Behaviour Driven Development
• Domain Specific Languages
• C# 4.0 new features
• Silverlight with Prism
• .NET on the iPhone
• Becoming Certified
• Lightning Talks
• and more!

The latest and greatest in development topics, by the people that know!

SQL Server

• SQL Server Virtualisation Best Practices and Recommendations
• SQL Server Analysis Services and Gemini
• Query Optimization and Query Tuning
• Understanding SQL Server Indexing
• SQL Server Maintenance

Training and guidance from the best SQL trainers in the industry!

Security

• Secure Development Lifecycle and Threat Modelling workshop
• Secure Coding Practices

Its worth noting some of the speakers who hail from the US to New Zealand and Australia including (with international speakers underlined):

Alex Henderson - DevDefined

Andy Prow - Aura Software Security

Dave Dustin – Wolters Kluwer

Greg Low – SolidQ

Ivan Towlson - Mindscape

James Hippolite - Telecom

Michael Howard, Kamal Hath, Nicholas Drisas, Rob Reinauer and Mark Souza - Microsoft

Owen Evans, Kirk Jackson & Sky Sigal – Xero

There are more details over at the .Net UG website, and while you are there, you might want to check out the Events calendar and perhaps subscribe to the events RSS.

One last note – this event is free.  Pretty cool IMHO. See you there!

Its competition time.  I have a brand new shiny red Zune 8Gb here to give away for the best answer to the following question:

If you were talking to an Oracle DBA what would be the top five features of SQL Server that you’d point out to them that makes SQL Server compelling?

This competition will be open until Friday, September 4th at 2pm.  I’ll publish the results and winner here on September 4th and send out the Zune to the winner on September 7.  The best list of five features will win the Zune.

Please note: You must include your courier address in your entry.  You can enter only once.  If you want me to link to your blog, please include your blog address in your entry too.

Entries may be made by filling in the contact form here.

Fine print: Open to New Zealand Residents only (I won’t ship it overseas).  I won’t use your personal information for any other purposes, however, I reserve the right to reuse the content of your list. Judges decision is final. Not open to Microsoft employees.

Last week, we had the first CTP of SQL Server 2008 R2 become available for download.

What probably didn’t get as much air time (although I’m sure many of you know about it) is that we’ve also released a couple of related CTP’s that you might be interested in.

First up we released SQL Server 2008 project “Madison” in CTP form about a week ago.  Project Madison is the high end Data Warehouse offering that integrates the recently acquired DATAllegro product with SQL Server.  This is not a public CTP, but if you are interested in getting more information on this technology preview, please let me know and we’ll see what we can do to help you out.  Note that there are fairly hefty requirements (from a deployment perspective) that you’ll need to manage, but in exchange we can likely help with some pre-release support.

Also, from a couple of days ago there is a CTP of SQL Server StreamInsight available fro TechNet and MSDN subscribers. StreamInsight is a high performance process intelligence tool which allows you to build applications that handle streams of data as it flows through the organization (e.g. from the likes of BizTalk Server).  As the data comes through SteamInsight has the tools to help you find patterns in your data streams and then make business or process based decisions based on these patterns.  This allows businesses to make decisions about data in near real-time in scenarios where event based information is critical to the decision making process.  More information about this feature of SQL 2008 R2 is here.

Finally, if you’ve been thinking of putting your data in the cloud, the SQL Azure CTP is also now available.  The team have made some significant changes since this was announced at PDC last year, so I’m looking forward to seeing what’s in it.  If you are heading to Tech Ed, NZ make sure you head along to the very excellent Mr Jeremy Boyd’s session on SQL Azure – its sure to be a good session.  You can sign up for the SQL Azure CTP here and you can get more information on it here.

These last two announcements were made on the Data Platform Insider blog.

Hey look – another user group!

This time its focused on Silverlight and it looks like it is more technically oriented.  The blurb:

The Wellington Silverlight Usergroup is brand spanking new, with the wrapping paper still on.

It was created specifically to quickly disseminate to the Wellington area's developers and designers the knowledge necessary to build engaging web and RIA applications, in the hottest and fastest growing technology on the web today. We have the luck of having several very knowledgeable presenters willing to present over the coming months, starting with Andrew Tokeley, with many more to follow, covering front-end, backend, design, and everything in between.

The first evening will be a presentation on Silverlight accessibility.  The abstract for Andrew’s  presentation follows:

Much has been written about how to make traditional, HTML based, web sites accessible to users of all abilities. There are published guidelines, validation tools and an abundance of online resources. However, the increasing popularity of Rich Internet Applications (RIA), like Silverlight, raises interesting questions about how to achieve the same levels of accessibility.
We'll take a close look at using Silverlight under the latest version of the New Zealand e-Government Web Guidelines (www.e.govt.nz/standards/web-guidelines) and discuss strategies for maintaining compliance while still leveraging the power of Silverlight. You’ll even discover that, in some cases, Silverlight can make your sites more accessible than is possible with just HTML and CSS.
Plenty of demos - including a look at the recently launched www.buttercupreader.net application, specifically built for the blind and partially sighted

Looks like fun.  The first event is 6pm Wednesday, July 1 at Xero, Level 1, 98 Customhouse Quay, Wellington.  RSVP to skysigal (at) xact-solutions.com.

If you are interested in heading to Tech Ed this year, you can now register.

Typically tickets sell out quickly, but this year the economy might dampen enthusiasm a little.  Nonetheless we have extra tickets this year due to some capacity engineering (read more people, more rooms, more sessions).

If you are sure you will be going though – make sure you get in quick.  Last year we sold out in just over two weeks.

If you tweet, you can also follow @techedlive to keep up with the latest.  Don’t forget to tag your tweets with #tenz9.

Registration for Tech Days is now open. This is the first ever Tech Days Microsoft has run.  The event is a little like a global Tech Ed event run entirely online.  There are a huge number of sessions to choose from on a variety of topics including developing for Windows, Windows Mobile, SharePoint, Office, .Net and more.

These are not just pre-canned sessions, there will also be the opportunity to tune in with a presenter at the other end to ask questions. 

It all starts on April 1 and will be spread across timezones, so that even here in New Zealand we wont be on the outside.

Registration is here.

On Wednesday the Auckland SQL User group will be meeting again.  I’ll be there and I encourage you to come along if you are interested in getting involved in the community and sharpening your skills.

This week there will be two presentations:

- Dave Dustin – Wearing multiple hats – being a DBA and a developer

- Geoff South - Working with the rest of the IT department to diagnose and resolve issues

I’m looking forward to hearing Daves session.  SQL Server DBA’s tend to be broader in their skill set than Oracle DBA’s so it will be interesting to hear his take on how this works out.

If you are in Auckland and interested in coming along, it would be great to meet you there.

The event starts at 6pm and will be followed by drinks and pizza.  Full details and registration is available here.

Hopefully I’ll see you there!