JBossWorld recap

It's been a couple of weeks since I got back from JBossWorld Orlando. Enough time to blog, but not enough spare time to blog! So while waiting for the family to get ready so we can go to a three year old's birthday party (Hmmm, screaming kids ... fun!) I decided to grab some time and give a recap.

I've been to every JBossWorld bar the first one and I have to say that this one was the best (with the exception of the JBoss party, which was not a JBossWorld party at all - maybe a Red Hat party in disguise?) There were more people at the event and this was obvious in the sessions: every one I went to was packed, some with people sitting on the floors in the aisles! The quality of the sessions was also really good too.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact we missed a JBW last year and people were relieved to see that they are back, or maybe it was the fact we've made a lot of improvements to the technologies and processes over the past year or so. I don't have the answer, but I do know that the whole event was buzzing. When I go to conferences or workshops I usually find time to do some work (e.g., catching up on things I haven't had time to do over the previous weeks or months). Not this time: if I wasn't presenting or listening to presentations, I was talking to users, customers or friends/colleagues.

I think one of the highlights for me was my presentation on JBoss Transactions. I've done presentations on JBossTS for so long (going back decades if you count Arjuna), that I can usually predict the audience: a select number of die-hard transaction users who already "get it" and want to talk shop. Not this time. The room was packed (with people standing and sitting on the floor). Even more so than the presentation on JBossESB! So much so I had to ask the audience if they were all in the right room! Everyone stayed until the end (always a good sign) and there were lots of good questions and in depth discussions.

We made a lot of interesting announcements during the event and I got pulled into a few press and analyst meetings. I know that all of the JBoss/Red Hat folks were happy the event took place, but so were the people from outside the company. That definitely is the highlight for me. And of course it was good to see Marc there too. It wouldn't really be a JBossWorld without him.