Microsoft Shuffles their 2017 Conference Lineup; Merges and Date Changes for Envision & Build

We now know why Microsoft had not yet announced the dates for their 2017 edition of the Build develoepers conference - it is moving dates - and other Microsoft conferences are shifting as well.

Yesterday Microsoft's Executive VP and Chief Marketing Officer Chris Capossela revealed the shuffle for the companies big annual events in a post on the Official Microsoft company blog.

First - Microsoft Build is moving from San Francisco to Seattle and instead of happening in late March/early April as it has in the past the event will be held from 10 to 12 May 2017. An interesting side note on this date is that the Creators Update to Windows 10 will be out since sometime in March so instead of previewing the developer highlights of that update seems there will be more of a follow up post release.

I also pondered on Twitter about this with the news from WinHEC that Microsoft will partner with Qualcomm to put full Windows 10 on ARM based devices. Maybe Build 2017 will see the return of hardware giveaways that will seed these devices with developers so they can start working on the new hardware platform.

Second - the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference is being rebranded as Microsoft Inspire. The 2017 version of the event will happen from 09 to 13 July 2017 in Washington, D.C. - right in the middle of the summer so be ready to sweat it out.

The last big change involves Microsoft Ignite which was already announced for 25 to 29 September 2017 in Orlando, Florida. The large mega-conference, which had nearly 23,000 attendees this year in Atlanta, will now incorporate Microsoft's Envision conference and grow by about 6,000 attendees based on 2016 attendance numbers.

It will be interesting to see Microsoft's continued online/virtual event endeavors like Connect() and see if that ultimately impacts conference attendance.

What are your thoughts on these shifts with Microsoft events? Any impact on your plans for attendance?

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