Evidence of a Microsoft Unified Commercial Event

Yesterday, Microsoft announced something. And, while that something was not exactly clear to anyone, we do know that Microsoft is combining all of its IT-related events into a single, massive tradeshow in May 2015 to be held in Chicago.

Unfortunately, Microsoft's announcement came from many different people, with many different perspectives and voices – and these were all those employed by Microsoft itself. One person totally confused the situation saying that TechEd will live on, if only in spirit it's assumed.

Even the interim name confused people. #MUTEE was turned into a Twitter hashtag after the announcement (Microsoft Unified Technology Event for Enterprises). Leave it to Microsoft to come up with the most horrid, off-putting name. This is clearly not the final name, thank God, but to confuse things further, one Microsoft spokesperson stated that the actual interim name is: Unified Microsoft Commercial Technology Event. Long-time TechEd attendees have already started suggesting they'll just continue to call it "TechEd" no matter what Microsoft comes up with. I think I will, too.

In the old days, Microsoft would've handed off communications to its v-dash employees to develop and manage a unified communication strategy, but alas, the latest round of the company's layoffs (18,000 people) also targeted those contractors. So, we're left with a mismatch of information. But, really…who cares? Who cares what it's called as long as it a) exists, and b) doesn't suck. Let's hope that the Microsoft event folks learned enough from this year's attempt at merging MMS with TechEd. After all, next year they are attempting to merge 5 at once (TechEd, SharePoint, Exchange, Lync, and Project). Was this year a success? Well, if it's any indicator, several brand new, community fashioned conferences have been created because of perceived failure.

The only clear and concrete pieces of this story is that something will happen in May 2015 in Chicago. But, even a handful of clues can lead to a promising investigation.

ChooseChicago.com now has the event listed on the schedule calendar, naming it the Microsoft Commercial Event 2015, held at the largest conference center in the U.S., and with a targeted attendance of 20,000.

With these clues in hand, many have already started putting placeholders on hotel rooms for the surrounding area. Considering there's 5 other events during the same dates that might not be a bad idea, except that if everyone does it, Microsoft won't be able to block-out rooms for conference deals.