Microsoft Web Days

We had a fantastic time at Microsoft Web Days on 27th January, 2010 at Microsoft Innovation Center, Karachi – Pakistan organized by Microsoft Pakistan DPE Team.

The event started with WebsiteSpark overview by Naveed Bajwa, DPE Lead – Microsoft Pakistan. Naveed talked about what are the benefits this program offers and which companies are eligible for this program.

Audience also raised few concerns on WebsiteSpark program and also discussed how Microsoft is validating startup companies. The eligibility of this program was also discussed thoroughly with the audience.

Jibran Jamshed, Technology Consultant at Microsoft Innovation Center – Pakistan, demonstrated cool features of Internet Explorer 8 such as Web slices, accelerator etc.

He also talked about IE 8 performance comparison with other browsers. An interesting part was making of configurable deployment setup for enterprises for IE 8.

Zia Khan, Microsoft MVP, discussed web development on Silverlight, ASP.NET MVC and Windows Azure. He started my discussing ideal client and server side platform then moved on to ASP.NET MVC and what are its major advantages.

Zia also emphasis on the power and autonomy that Cloud computing gives to developers and encouraged developers to start their own development setup.

Wajahat Abbas gave presentation on SharePoint and www. He talked about SharePoint online services, hosting and also discussed on Cloud Computing.

The best part I liked of his presentation was not related to SharePoint but a quote of German philosopher he shared in the end. I would like to quote here as well 🙂

“A pigeon in its flight considers the air to be the only hindrance in its way; it imagines that had there been no air it would have flown faster and with greater ease. Yet without the air it would have been unable to fly in a vacuum and would fall to the ground. Hence the same element that poses resistance to the pigeon in its flight is basically that which makes flight at all possible.“ Kant – German Philosopher

Finally, Aleem Bawany, General Manager – Online Strategy and Development – Express News, talked about current trends in web development. His gave special emphasis on what experience user expect in current time from your web site. He also discussed the importance of client side programming for better user experience.

Last but not least, Jehan ara, President PASHA, gave a keynote in the end encouraging Microsoft Pakistan and developers community.

I really enjoyed the show and it was well organized. Microsoft Pakistan is really rocking these days and I hope they will bring more detail technical events in the upcoming days.