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Convergence 2008 Miscellany

by Jason Gumpert
Editor, MSDynamicsWorld.com

Convergence 2008 was a mammoth affair, with dozens of classes, hundreds of exhibitors, and thousands of attendees. Here are a few lasting impressions, in no particular order:

--This was the largest Convergence event thus far, with some 9,700 attendees—just short of the 10,000 Microsoft was shooting for, but well over the 8,000-plus of last year’s session in San Diego, which was itself well in excess of the 6,000-plus of the prior year.

--Dynamicx AX attracted the lion’s share of the show attention, by virtue of the introduction of AX 2009 (code-named AX 5.0), and related demonstrations, in preparation for its actual shipment this spring. 

--Dynamics CRM and GP weren’t far behind. That was due to Microsoft's commitment to finally making CRM Live a reality after building it up at last year's Convergence, and many months of beta testing with 500 organizations. GP users were introduced to a new tool set to improve usage, and told to expect GP 11 next year sometime.

--Orlando, the site of this year’s event, has made a huge transition to a convention town. The Orange County Convention Center is an mammoth modern facility--last week it hosted another major convention along with Convergence, with both conventions only barely aware of the other.

--The pre-convention user-group sessions on Tuesday were extremely well attended—in some cases over-subscribed. A few sessions had to move their locations to larger rooms to accommodate all the attendees.

--One-on-one instruction sessions between users and representatives of Microsoft partners were also well attended, in ...

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About Jason Gumpert

As the editor of MSDynamicsWorld.com, Jason oversees all editorial content on the site and at our events, as well as providing site management and strategy. He can be reached at jgumpert@msdynamicsworld.com.

Prior to co-founding MSDynamicsWorld.com, Jason was a Principal Software Consultant at Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC), where he implemented solutions, trained customers, managed software development, and spent some time in the pre-sales engineering organization. He has also held consulting positions at CSC Consulting and Monitor Group.

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