A huge platform...

This year's Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference takes place in Washington D.C. over five days from 11th - 15th July. Our TotalMobile team will be there, soaking up the latest in the world of Microsoft development - and, with a bit of luck, a few rays of sun in between busy conference sessions.

Every year the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) provides a forum for everyone involved with developing for Microsoft platforms to get together, see what they've all achieved in the last year and see where they're going over the next five. Crucially, it also allows developers get the inside track from Microsoft staff, with information on the latest programmes, strategies, future technology and developmental roadmaps. This year it's being hosted by Microsoft's US Public Sector division, so we expect to see a lot that will be of great interest to Consilium. And, with around 15,000 attendees, it's a huge event.

Keynote speakers this year will include a host of key Microsoft executives including CEO Steve Ballmer and one of this year's highlights will undoubdetdly be the appearance of official WPC 2010 guest speaker President Bill Clinton.

This year's event will cover a lot of ground and no doubt there'll be plenty on new updates like Sharepoint 2010 and Exchange Server 2010, as well as focus on the much-anticipated release of Windows Phone 7. However, we predict this year's biggest theme will, unsurprisingly, be cloud computing - there are 25 Cloud Services sessions planned for the event alone. It's a huge growth area and one in which Microsoft has made huge strides with its Azure cloud platform. It's also an increasingly busy growth space already inhabited by the Google App Engine, Amazon Web Services and newer Ruby-based challengers such as Engine Yard and Heroku.

Cloud computing is also an area where Microsoft have been working extensively with the public sector in the US, with the smart money predicting that 'the cloud' will completely change the face of public sector IT around the world. With over 600 public sector delegates already registered for WPC 2010, it's the kind of event that gives us unparalleled access to the sharpest minds in the sector and gives us a glimpse into the future - just the kind of thing, in fact, that helps keep us at the forefront of what we do.

Besides discussion of the new technological vistas that cloud computing opens up, there will also be plenty of debate about the new issues that will arise when you physically move all your data somewhere else outside of your organisation and - of particular relevance to the public sector - issues of data security, patient confidentiality and even national security.

We're really excited by the opportunities and learnings that we expect from this year's WPC conference - watch this space and we'll give you a full update when we get back from D.C.