The date on the title of this post is history. But the memories of this day, the concluding day of CEC 2007, are still vivid.
The cab driver started a friendly conversation with me. Foolish me; I don’t recollect his name any more. That’s the problem if you postpone scribbling diary entries. The destination was the Best Buy. I wanted to pick up a few electronic gadgets for my people back home. Amongst several things that the cab driver asked me, here’s one that invoked curiosity in me:
Cab Driver: So you must be a business man, to come to a place like Las Vegas?
Myself: No, I work with Sun Microsystems and I am here for a conference. Have you heard of Sun?
Cab Driver: Oh yeah, they are the rival of Microsoft. Aren’t they?
I don’t quite remember how that topic ended and how our conversation drifted to various other topics before I found myself at my destination. But I do remember having so many flashy thoughts right after my cab driver made the aforesaid comment.
Is Sun really a rival of Microsoft? Not really. A healthy competitor? May be. The whole conversation about the relationship between Sun and Microsoft appeared relevant to me that afternoon, because in the first half of the day – the concluding day of CEC 2007 – I saw this personality seated among a few other distinguished gentlemen on the CEC stage, discussing about the Next Generation Data Center. Jim was the moderator for the event and the following were the other gentlemen who were participating in the event:
*Eric Billingsley
*Charles Bess
*Jeff Routledge
The discussion on the Next Generation Data Center was followed by Don Grantham addressing the crowd gathered for the CEC 2007. His energy, enthusiasm and charm is commendable.
Earlier that day,I attended the All Hands Meeting for Sun Learning Services, hosted by Dr. Karie Willyerd. She decided against using presentations and gave us all a chance to discuss about various aspects: both in context of CEC 2007 and some outside it. The discussion on the CEC 2007 mainly revolved around thanking all the crews, who worked to make the event successful and also discuss pros and cons of all the breakout sessions that happened at CEC 2007 and the steps that needs to be taken to improve the quality of the programs in the coming year. Dr. Karie Willyerd and the SLS leadership team took some time to thank Kate & Co. for all the hard work that they did for the CEC 2007. That was a nice gesture and it was great to see the SLS crews for CEC 2007 lined up together in a platform. Sun Learning Services, had a major presence in this years Customer Engineering Conference, clearly indicated by the stunning statistics of well over 450 CEC attendees appearing for various Sun Certification Exams in a span of 96 hours or so.
All in all, it was a remarkable event. CEC 2007, its last day and other related events may be a history now, but it shall remain in the basket of my memories, bearing a label, “High priority.”
suncec2007