Microsoft to take user interaction platform online

Microsoft plans to launching the online version of TechEd, a platform for which acquaints users with the company's latest and upcoming technologies. The portal will be called www. teched.com.

In its tenth year in the country, TechEd covers six cities, has 7,000 registered developers, architects and IT professionals.

With the launch of the website, TechEd expects an additional 75,000 online visitors. The event, which is said to be the biggest in Asia, will also have TV and radio version launched by mid-June.

"Later this week we will launch our online portal www.techindia.com with blogs, RSS feeds and live broadcast of various tracks covered at TechEd," said Sheila Gulati, director, developer and platform evangelism, Microsoft. She said that blogging is a huge opportunity globally as well as in India for the company.

With 36 user group's across the country and 36,000 members, the TechEd portal "is expected to register 75,000 hits".

Aimed at providing insights on how to build, deploy, secure and manage solutions using the full range of current and upcoming Microsoft products and technologies, the event will showcase Windows Vista, Office 12 and Windows CE 6.0 - Yamazaki.

It will be followed by the launch of 2007 Office System and Microsoft Expression later this year, followed by Windows Vista in the first half of 2007 and Longhorn Server in the second half of 2007.

Speaking on the upcoming releases, Gulati said, "This year will be marked by improving upon the user (developer) experience. We are very excited about our upcoming software development life cycle tools and graphical tool "� Microsoft Expression."

The event in Pune received 700 registrations and is expected to get over 7,000 registrations across six cities "� Delhi, Pune, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore.

"TechEd is associated with covering technology indepth and providing knowledge about the latest platforms to the technologist. As such, we usually get a good response."