Microsoft Office Conference Draws Strong Interest

Microsoft kicked off their first Office Developer conference today at the Microsoft Conference Centre in Redmond, US.

The conference, aimed at system developers for Office, drew more than 800 developers from over 40 countries world wide. Those attending the three-day conference include professional developers and software architects from systems integrator, independent software vendor and enterprise customer companies.

Microsoft Office vice president, Richard McAniff delivered the opening keynote presentation this morning and Bill Gates is expected to provide a special keynote this coming Friday at 10AM PST.

In the past 15 months, more than 70,000 partners have been trained to build, customise and use Microsoft Office System-based solutions. These partners specialise in helping developers and ISVs deploy Microsoft Office applications.

Microsoft claims that more than 1 million developers are building solutions tailored to Microsoft Office 2003. One third of these developers are building solutions that utilise XML and nearly 200 thousand are using Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office System 2003.

Video: Watch Bill Gates Keynote - Friday, 10AM PST