Another TechWave has come and gone and it's time to look back at this latest one and see how it compares to the previous ones.

Location
TechWave was back in Orlando this year, but this time the location was not the Disney World convention center. Instead it was the Gaylord Palms, one of a number of conference centers that have sprung up on the perimeter of Disney World. One big advantage of this location is that you don't have to travel outside to go from one session to another, as we often had to at Disney World. August in Orlando can be like a sauna, if it isn't raining, which it did just about every afternoon. If you were staying in the hotel as well, you never had to go outside the entire week. The hotel and convention center are connected, and the hotel has an atrium containing a number of restaurants, gift shops, etc. The downside was that if you wanted a bit more variety, there was nothing else within walking distance. San Diego's convention center was nicer in that regard, since you could simply walk out of the convention center into downtown San Diego. Disney World was also slightly better as well, simply because there were so many more options within that convention center. Recommendation to Sybase: if TechWave is in Orlando again, the Gaylord Palms would be great, but see if there are other totally enclosed conference centers that have a little more variety.

Registration
Registration was open up to 10 or 11 hours a day, not only during the conference but during the preconference courses the two days prior to the conference. As a result, I never saw the lines that have been an issue with some previous conferences.

Meals
The lunches were excellent, service was speedy, and I haven't heard of any issues with the special meals that were such a problem at prior conferences, particularly in LA. However, the continental breakfast was almost pure carbohydrates (including doughnuts one morning!). We've had a bit more variety in the past and it would have been greatly appreciated here. I also couldn't recommend the coffee they were serving with it. I made it a habit to go to the PlanetJava in the atrium of the hotel in the morning instead. Snacks during the session breaks seem to be a thing of the past as well. That's unfortunate, as I think most of the folks trying to keep up with the accelerated morning sessions could use something during the break to charge them up again. For me it meant yet another trip to the PlanetJava at the hotel. Recommendation to Sybase: Can we have a bit more variety for breakfast and the break snacks back? Even if we have to pay for them.

Internet Accessibility
For folks staying in the hotel, one of the perks they offered was an optional in-room Internet connection. They provided both an Ethernet connection for those folks with their own computer, and a network PC for those without. Unfortunately, some construction in the area took out two of their three T3 lines, so actual availability was spotty for the first couple of days. One of the big hits this year, as with last year, was the e-mail kiosks within the conference center provided by HP. Fortunately, the conference center is on their own lines, so those worked well throughout the conference.

A new and also popular item this year was several Wi-Fi spots within the conference center provided by Intel. Folks with their own laptops and Wi-Fi capability could use that rather than wait for a kiosk to open. Fortunately for those of us with hotel rooms facing the conference center, we were able to hit the Wi-Fi spot from the hotel rooms during most of the conference as well. Recommendation to Sybase: keep the kiosks, but increase the number of Wi-Fi spots covering the hotel.

Special Event
Food was served in Downtown Disney and the evening was capped off by "La Nuba," a Cirque du Soleil show. I didn't go, but the folks who did were raving about it.

Exhibit Hall
The hall was pretty much the same as prior years, though there were a number of new faces (vendors) there. One thing they did this year that I don't recall from previous years is they hosted one of the lunches in the exhibit hall. That was a great idea as it gave attendees more time on the exhibit hall floor.

One thing noticeably absent this year was the Sybase store. Instead, there was Sybase's eShop plus a couple of TechWave shirts for sale in one of the hotel's stores (and later, one of the third-party PowerBuilder 9 books). The only issue here is that I'm not sure if all the conference participants knew to go there. Using the hotel store was a pretty good idea though. Okay, now to the conference itself.

Keynotes
Tuesday's opening keynote was given by Sybase's CEO, John Chen, who was joined toward the end by the CEOs of TIBCO and Bearing Point, two of Sybase's partners. I had the feeling that this particular keynote was given more for the stock analysts in the audience than the technical folks. There was a question/answer session toward the end as well, but time only allowed for three questions (and one was from a disgruntled former Sybase employee...). Recommendation to Sybase: keep those other CEOs coming; it shows that Sybase has partners that are committed to them. However, show a flashy technical demo during the keynotes for the techies, even in the opening session. And if you're going to do a Q & A session, allow some reasonable time for it.

Wednesday's keynote was give by Irfan Khan and Marty Mallick. Irfan's demonstration of Enterprise Portal was the first I've seen that's gotten me really excited about the capabilities of the product, particularly for PowerBuilder developers. He demonstrated how an unnamed European bank is doing a proof of concept using the tool to provide a number of different applications with a seamless Web interface. It's well worth checking the Sybase Web sites for an archived recording of this. Recommendation to Sybase: keep on showing this kind of stuff.

Thursday keynotes (one database, one development tools) were both given by Raj Nathan back to back. The content was quite good, particularly the technical demonstration of PowerBuilder and PowerDesigner. However, having the keynotes together also made the whole thing rather long. I believe the morning sessions started almost an hour late this day. I wouldn't have suggested cutting anything out, but I would suggest separating the keynotes. I struggled to stay attentive during the database section, while the DBA sitting next to me was spellbound. However, he started making disparaging remarks during the tools section while I was transfixed. For the most part, these are entirely different audiences. Recommendation to Sybase: if the schedule doesn't allow for separate keynotes, perhaps running them concurrently in two different locations would work (although they would need to find two different speakers in that case).

Sessions
One big difference this year is that the documents for the morning sessions were handed out at one of the booths in the registration area. That meant you could pick up the materials for your a.m. classes when you registered for TechWave to ensure you got them. There were some issues in prior years with people picking up materials for classes they weren't attending, which resulted in a shortage of materials for the people who did attend. The bad news is that the booth was around the corner from the other registration desks, which might have contributed to folks waiting until Monday morning just prior to the sessions to pick up their materials. As a result, a large number of Monday morning session participants were late because they had to wait in line for materials. Recommendation to Sybase: good idea, but the execution needs to be improved.

There were some problems during the first couple of days finding the session locations as some of them were a bit more difficult to locate (Sun B and D in particular were not well marked). This year there weren't placards outside the session rooms indicating which session it was. A number of us showed up in one meeting room for an afternoon session only to discover after a few minutes that we were all there for at least three different sessions, depending on how old of a session agenda we had. Suggestion for Sybase: have someone unfamiliar with the layout try to locate all of the meeting rooms before the conference begins. It might show you where additional signage is needed. It would also be good to bring back the placards that indicate the session topics for outside the rooms.

All the sessions I attended were quite good. The Sybase folks seem excited about the new developments they are working on and don't mind sharing what's coming - provided there are no strong commitments to delivery dates. It was hard to tell what's "hot" though. The EJB-related classes I took were rather sparsely attended, while the Pocket PowerBuilder classes seemed packed. There seemed to be a good - but still lower than I expected - turnout for the next-generation DataWindow and next-generation PowerScript sessions I attended. Given that the DataWindow and PowerScript are the heart and blood of PowerBuilder, I would have expected more people to be interested in what's coming. On the other hand, sessions like Roy Kiesler's on PBNI were well attended. Perhaps this year people are more interested in learning how to use what they already have (PB9 is still fairly new and Pocket PowerBuilder is brand new) than with what is upcoming in future releases.

ISUG Events
I was a bit disappointed that the ISUG events suffered from a lack of publicity. With the exception of the ISUG enhancement sessions, I don't think any of the ISUG events were included in the agenda - though they were mentioned in the "NewsWave" (the daily conference flyer). For example, there were over 100 people at the ISUG meeting, which would normally be considered a good turnout. But considering that the first 500 people that registered for TechWave got free ISUG memberships, it seemed a bit low. Recommendation to Sybase: make the ISUG events a more formal part of the agenda for the conference.

And now, saving the best for last.

Eating Your Own Dog Food
For those of you unfamiliar with the term, it refers to using your own products internally. What I'm referring to here is some rather significant ways in which Sybase technology was used within TechWave. The e-mail kiosks I mentioned earlier included a link into a TechWave version of Enterprise Portal that everyone who registered for the conference had an account in. By logging into the portal you could review not only the session database, but your own registration information as well, particularly your own session agenda. Very nice, helpful for the participants, and an opportunity to showcase EP.

That's not all though. Sybase also added a TechWave channel to AvantGo and made it available from the TechWave Web site for download into your Palm or Pocket PC. Great stuff for the folks who want to consult the agenda between sessions without finding a kiosk. Even better, though, the Pocket PC version was written in Pocket PowerBuilder. Whereas the AvantGo service only allowed you to browse session information, the Pocket PowerBuilder version allowed you to select sessions to be added to your personal agenda. Two things were missing, however:
1. When sessions were added/removed from our personal agendas, it would be good to have an option to add/delete them from the calendar on the Pocket PC as well. That should become much simpler once Pocket PowerBuilder gains OLE capability (in the works).

2. I had to reenter my session information from my registration into the Pocket PowerBuilder app. Imagine if they had used MobiLink to download my registration information, and then allowed me to update it from the Pocket PC!

All said though, Ian Thain of Sybase did a great job writing this helpful application in very little time! I'd like to see it again next year with some enhancements.

Wrap Up
One of the messages Sybase customers have been sending to Sybase over the last couple of TechWaves is that they need to advertise more. There seems to be a feeling among technical people that they have problems convincing the management types to invest in Sybase products because a lot of management don't know Sybase is still around. Sybase customers are still sending that message this year, both in focus groups and in enhancement sections.

To address this, John Chen showed some samples of an $8.5 million ad campaign that will be introduced shortly in the New York area promoting the AvantGo product. I think most folks liked the ads (fortunately, there were no bowler hats in these). However, I believe the general consensus is that the ads are too focused on a single product (AvantGo) and too limited in geographic scope (just New York).

Another response I heard during one of the enhancement sessions is that we (the developers) should be "Sybase's best salespeople." The problem with this response is that the days when an IT shop would invest in a technology just because one of their staff thought it was cool are long gone. IT budgets are much leaner and a number of IT shops got burned by investing in technology solutions from companies that are no longer around. In a modern version of "nobody gets fired for buying IBM," I believe a lot of companies are moving toward .NET and Java simply because it gives them the assurance that they won't get burned that same way again. Nobody expects Microsoft to declare bankruptcy anytime soon. And one of the advantages of Java is that it is nonproprietary, so it doesn't matter if one particular vendor goes under.

Sybase needs to get the message out that it's on the .NET and Java bandwagons with some technology that makes it stand out from the rest of the companies on the bandwagon. Let's hope we hear the answer to how they're going to do that by the next TechWave.