Heroes Are Happening Right {Here} Right {Now} in L.A.

After what seems like years of planning (oh wait, hang on, it has been years of planning), the Heroes Happen Here launch is underway at the Nokia Theater here in Los Angeles.

We have been saying that this is the biggest event for IT professionals and developers that Microsoft has ever hosted, and it certainly seems that way. There is a huge crowd here and this morning the lines snaked all around the LA Convention Center and our registration booths were inundated with customers and partners trying to be part of this historic day. Of course, today is the day we launch Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, and Visual Studio 2008, but more importantly, today is the day we celebrate all the individuals around the world who go the extra mile and put in the extra efffort in their daily lives to make I.T. work for the masses. You know them. In fact, you’re one yourself – Heroes.

We’ve just been treated to a wonderful opening speech by Tom Brokaw, of NBC Nightly News, and now Steve Ballmer is describing the move towards Dynamic IT, and how these new products can help customers to really take best advantage of their IT resources and make their infrastructure and solutions more agile and more impactful. These products have been developed with more customer involvement and input than any other release we’ve ever had, and it shows. For example, Windows Server 2008 is our most tested server release ever, with over 3,000,000 copies downloaded and distributed throughout the world since our first public release at Beta 3. We’ve had customers in Technology Adoption Programs, Technical Beta programs, Rapid Deployment Programs, Go Live programs, and of course, IT professionals and developers have been treated to Community Technology Preview releases through MSDN and TechNet over the course of the development cycle. All of this input has helped us to polish highly-regarded and well-reviewed features such as Server Core, IIS 7.0, Network Access Protection, Terminal Services RemoteApp, Hyper-V, Windows PowerShell, Failover Clustering, Server Manager and more.

Even if you couldn’t make it to LA. yourself, or if you haven’t been able to register for one of the other 200+ launch events around the world, check out the Virtual Launch Experience online for an incredibly rich and interactive experience that is almost as good as being here. I’ll post further updates later today on some of the launch announcements and cool things that are happening here.

In the meantime, you can read our full launch press release on the Server and Tools Business News Bytes blog, and you can read more detail on these announcements on the following blogs:

• http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/
• http://blogs.msdn.com/applicationplatform/
• http://blogs.msdn.com/stevemar/default.aspx

UPDATE:

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announces the launch of Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008 with 4,000 customers and partners in Los Angeles.

Couple more videos for you:

Watch: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer talks with Al Gillen, system software research VP at IDC, about what the launch means for business customers and industry partners.

David Lowe.