Friday, November 11, 2005

SQL Server 2005 Launch!

Well, I'm sure most of you in the IT business know that last Monday, November 7th marked the launch of SQL Server 2005.

It was actually a joint launch featuring SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005, and Biztalk server 2006. The biggest tools launch even in the history of Microsoft at that too.

And while the main worldwide event was in San Fransisco we got a bit of action going on here too. And yours truly was making sure to catch a glimpse of it, as well as the preparations preceding it with my trusty camera.

As for the employees, we had celebrations going on in all campus cafeterias, with some nice freebies. Cups, stress balls, T-shirts, and breakfast were there. And we had a big screen broadcasting the live show from San Fransisco.

As part of the SQL Server team myself we get some more cool stuff. We got a special hilarious T-shirt that almost all of us wore to work on the launch day. You'll see me wearing it in one of the pictures. On the front the writing goes like: Select Joy, Relief & Exhaustion FROM "SQL Server 2005" WHERE Status = 'Complete'. On the back the writing is: Join Me I'm a *. Pretty clever I think, should sound funny if you know SQL. I was told they had an entire email thread picking up the lines to go on the T-shirt :) We're also gonna be going on a skiing trip to Whistler BC, Canada for the shipping party December 2nd to 4th. Excellent timing for me to join the team I guess :)

So well, there goes the pictures, inside MS on SQL Server launch day.


People lining up to receive the freebies.


Helal, Fernando, and I. Fernando is also a new hire at Microsoft. He's spanish and has become a friend of ours. He's also the one taking care of most of the squash teaching for me now :)




After the event all of the sql team were asked to sign a life size SQL Server box. And that they did :)


Helal signing the box.


Can you figure out where my signature is? Come on, click for the large version and look for it ;)


Ok, you probably couldn't find it in there. Now should be obvious :)


Have a nice week everybody!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey:) it's great to know u're having fun! and i agree with u, yes you sure joined the team in a perfect timing! keep posting cuz beside that i enjoy reading your blogs, i always also wanna know akhbarak:)
about akhbary ana i'll write you an e-mail, actually things are getting better for me so i'll tell you all about it:)
Take care

Mohamed Moshrif said...

I've nothing to do now except for asking God every day to finish the problem in my visa :D

Do you know that the starting date in my candidate portal has changed to be July-04 2006 ?!!!

I should wait another year it seems :S

Anonymous said...

Wala obvious wala 7aga. Still can see your signature :))

Christian said...

lol @ Walid
Come on, you can't see it even when you view the full size photo? :'(

Anonymous said...

Nice t-shirts :) I really love 'em...and about that signature...it's too tiny ya chris..I found it, "Chrsitian" in blue...isn't that it? Leih keda ?! :P
Also it's soo cool ur going on that skiing trip...enjoy ya man isA ;) tc

Christian said...

hehe, yeah that's the one :)
Just being considerate, hundreds of people wanted to sign that.
And anyway, I never really worked on that version (a)