Last night we attended the ceremony for the Best of TechEd
Developer Awards. We were finalists in two categories:
Database Development, for eXpressApp Framework (XAF), and
Software Components and Middleware, for DXperience.
Earlier on in the week, one of the judges had come round to
our booth and Oliver had demoed XAF and I demoed DXperience --
well, at least some small part of it, since it is rather a
large comprehensive package after all. Both of us seemed to
get on well with the judge and so we reasoned that we would
win at least one of these awards.
At the ceremony, after a drink and some food, Windows IT Pro
started the announcements of the winners. There were six
awards to present, of which two were selected by the attendees
and not by the judges.
The first one up was the award from Database Development. We
didn't win.
We weren't a finalist in the next award, but the one after
that was our second category. A couple of bitten nails later
and we learnt that we hadn't won that either. I must admit we
were a little glum, and the next award passed by.
Then it was the presentation of the Breakthrough Product of
the Year award. The winner was CodeRush. We went up to collect
the glass plaque, and went back to where we were sitting as
the judges started the announcement of the Attendees Pick
Overall Award.
We didn't make it back to sit down because we had to
immediately turn around and go back to the judges' table: the
winner was DXperience.
This was an absolutely awesome result, almost unbelievable. We
had won two of the six Best of TechEd Developer awards.
(Archetypal bad cell phone photo.)
Needless to say, we partied into the night to celebrate.
Thank you to all of our customer who voted for our products,
to all of our customers who have bought licenses and believe
in them, to all those who evangelize them within their
organization and at user groups and conferences. We are very
grateful indeed. It shows that we are developing the right
kinds of controls and frameworks and tools, software that
people need and want to buy.
We fully intend to continue creating the products you want --
we are certainly not going to rest upon our laurels (or glass
plaques).
Thank you again.