At 3am my time Microsoft held a partner briefing and went through the basics of Virtual Earth, mentioned the new features of V6 and demoed some sites. My highlights were:
- Talk of https version of VE very soon
- Walkthrough of the new token tracking system to monitor your usage, which when used commercially gets you a 99.9% SLA
- Talk of a mobile API in the 12 months timeframe
- Information Worker Competancy for Partners. Essential you need 2 staff to sit the VE exam (and pass) plus 3 client testimonials.
The video isn’t up yet but this is the original link, I’ll update it if the video location changes.
http://www.msreadiness.com/attendevent.aspx?eventid=14689
I was a little disapointed http://www.viawindowslive.com wasn’t mentioned, I brought it up in the Q&A, we have so many VE articles and resources, aggregated blog etc. I think I need to let more of the people at MSFT know what we are doing there and the state of VVE.