Rejoice! Build 2017 will be held in Seattle instead of San Francisco, as has been the case for the past several years.
“We are bringing our annual Microsoft Build conference to Seattle—the ‘cloud city’—from May 10-12, 2017,” Microsoft’s Chris Caposella announced today. “Once again, developers can hear from Microsoft engineering leaders and learn about the latest tools and technologies to boost creativity and productivity.”
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This is great news: San Francisco is so expensive and very hard to fly in and out of because of fog.
And while Microsoft hasn’t disclosed the exact location for Build, I assume it will be the Seattle Convention Center, where Microsoft held several WinHEC events back in the day. Wherever it is, it should be better than the disastrous Build 2012, which Microsoft held outside in tents at its corporate campus. That event was a total washout, with tons of rain and mud, long lines, and disgruntled developers.
In related news, Microsoft is shifting its major trade show schedule so that it has just three each year, down from four. The new schedule looks like so:
May. Build 2017 will be held in Seattle, Washington.
July. The Worldwide Partner Conference is being renamed to Microsoft Inspire and will be held July 9-13 in Washington D.C.
September. As planned, Microsoft Ignite 2017 will be held in Orlando. But the firm is rolling Microsoft Envision—an event for business leaders, previously scheduled for February—into Ignite now.
This is a much more manageable schedule, and while I’m no fan of Orlando, Seattle and D.C. are great destinations.