I recently attended the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in Washington, DC.The WPC is an annual gathering for the Microsoft partner community to learn about Microsoft’s roadmap for the upcoming year, network and build connections, share best practices, experience the latest product innovations and learn new skills and techniques. More than 130 countries were represented at the conference this year, a record. The worldwide influence in DC made for a perfect venue for WPC, as many partners used their country's embassy for receptions and parties.

The guest keynote speaker this year was former president Bill Clinton, who was invited to the conference to emphasize another theme of the conference: giving back. WPC offered opportunities for attendees to volunteer within the DC community. Clinton continued this theme in his speech entitled "Embracing our Common Humanity," in which he discussed the increasing interconnectedness of the world, which brings with it both positive and negative impacts. One positive impact is the ability to expand our markets, but negative impacts include a restriction of markets due to inequality, injustice and the unsustainable drain on natural resources that many economies need for survival. Clinton's "call to action" for each of us is to channel energy, whether in a local, national or international manner, to make sure the positives outweigh the negatives. Finally, he talked about the importance of technology to support collaboration across the globe. Telligent is uniquely capable of providing this support, in both the commercial and non-profit sectors. 

Major topics of this year's conference included Windows Azure, Windows Mobile and Business Process Online Suite (BPOS), Microsoft's on-demand offering. The support community for BPOS is built on the Telligent platform. It was exciting to see how wide Telligent's influence extends at Microsoft. Virtually all of the major groups mentioned during the keynotes have a community running on the Telligent collaboration and community platform - Bing, Xbox, Windows, MSDN, TechNet, adCenter, Pinpoint and Port25 - just to name a few.

The WPC is always a great opportunity for Telligent. We have the opportunity to meet with our Microsoft partners and customers to discuss issues in the community software market. We look forward to continuing to nurture and grow our relationship with Microsoft.