Miscellaneous

Apart from the SymantecAltirisWise (huh?) training sessions I don't seem to recall any recent events .. from experience sometimes there are sessions on deployment and packaging as part of bigger shows but these fail to provide a high enough technical level for me to be interested.

Hmm then again I seem to remember there was some kind of conference announced here about two years ago, in Switzerland was it? Sadly, I didn't make it there.

The most fun part of knowing this problem space used to be when you by chance met someone that didn't like InstallShield. Chances were you had something in common ;-)

I'm after exactly the same thing [:D] I'm sure there used to be "packaging tailored" events a few years ago, but as mentioned they've dried up!

I noticed your based in Canada, but there is such an event (1 day only) coming up in Holland here is the link..

http://packagingevent.nl/

If you Google packagingevent and translate the page from Dutch, you can register for it. you have most of the big players there and a Packager colleague of mine went last year and said it was very informative.

For info, MOST of the big players (Microsoft, Wise, Installshield) are in English, but from what he told me, some of the breakout sessions are in Dutch but apparently there will be more English breakout session this year, which is scheduled for 20th November at the moment. They are just finalising the sponsorship lineup before shipping out some more details I believe.

The only other potential sources are http://www.microsoft.com/emea/teched2008/itpro/default.aspx (for Europe) and there is also a North American version http://www.microsoft.com/events/teched2008/itpro/default.mspx . Obviously these are IT wide, however, you do get the big players (Acresso formerly Macrovision and Sysmantec) doing there pitch.

If you wanted to do a (as Microsoft put it) "technology deep dive", then I'm sure the Microsoft events would cover at least Windows Installer in one of its tracks and or breakout sessions.

Other than the above its as dry as the Gobe desert! At least from my side of the pond [;)]

This site is one of the sponsors for the Dutch event (according to the website) - which is sometime in early November.
It's not far from Amsterdam centre and flights from the UK are pretty cheap at the moment.

I'm considering it - but couldn't find an English section of the site - which is pretty poor as I suspect that most of the speakers will be divulging information in the English language.

I've emailed them asking for details in English and asking why an English version of the site isn't available (there was for previous years!) - I'm still waiting for a reply.

Bob - Can you comment on this? Or request that the organisers provide English information? - Thanks!

Maybe I'll see you all there - or maybe not.

Also don't forget Microsoft Management Summit and Briforum if you are looking for some packaging / virtualization content. I would like to see more traditional packaging content at both but that's just because there is a general lack of support for the packaging profession.