Comments on: Keeping Portland weird: Microsoft signs on as premier sponsor of WordCamp Portland

By: Rick Turoczy

Rick Turoczy — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 20:28:33 +0000

Jason Mauer, another Portland-based Microsoft guy, offered these two tweets:

http://twitter.com/jasonmauer/statuses/3908589413
http://twitter.com/jasonmauer/statuses/3908611490

By: jmartens

jmartens — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 18:26:00 +0000

I wonder if Portland based Scott Hanselman, who works for Microsoft, can give us some insight?

By: Rick Turoczy

Rick Turoczy — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 05:14:19 +0000

The plot, as they say, thickens. http://bit.ly/11FrR1

By: Dale Chumbley

Dale Chumbley — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 05:11:07 +0000

Rick, thanks for sharing your thoughts and opinions on this cool happening. I’m very excited that more people will be able to enjoy the fruits of all the effort and hard work Aaron Hockley and the gang have put into this. Unless someone has put together an event like this, they really can’t comprehend the work involved. I’m looking forward to next weekend and all the learning that will happen. I’m also thankful that Microsoft has stepped up in a big way to help make this awesome event even better!

By: RobertWagner

RobertWagner — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:16:51 +0000

I’m far from a fan of Microsoft. That said, there’s something a little different in the air in Redmond, Washington these days and I’m hopeful that the support that they’re showing for WordCamp is the beginning of a more open and supportive Microsoft. Two years ago I would have thought that statement was completely ludicrous, anymore I think it’s a sign that the folks up north have seen the writing on the wall and are becoming more and more open to the efforts of the “little guy” – again, I’m hopeful that this is the case. Kudos to them for their support. More importantly, kudos to the organizers of WordCamp Portland for creating an event worthwhile enough to attract that kind of attention and sponsorship in the first place.

By: Viper007Bond

Viper007Bond — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 02:11:14 +0000

Actually, they're trying to get more people to use their Windows Live Writer tool I'd imagine.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:36:02 +0000

I’m thinking that this might be part of their initiative to support php as a scripting language for Windows / IIS … What they don’t get is that most php devs also use stuff like: Linux, Apache, and MySQL… It’s not the language we love and use, it’s the environment. PHP on IIS is painful for most WAMP devs, and that’s without getting into the scaling issues. The one big thing for me is IIS’s lack of a url rewriting engine [like mod_rewrite] — unless you want to pay for it, and it’s not cheap. And not nearly as powerful [from what I've seen].

But, it’s very nice to see them supporting this :-)

By: jmartens

jmartens — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:18:45 +0000

Wow, this is surprising but great news! I didn’t get a ticket to WordCamp so I am excited to have the live stream.

Great work to the organizing team.

By: JoannaK

JoannaK — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:02:36 +0000

That is great news! I’m so happy for organizers & attendees for all the benefits the sponsorship will bring – and I will definitely be tuning into the live stream. Congratulations WordCamp Portland!