The first week of March is a big week for Microsoft. Thanks to Todd Bishop at Seattle P-I for summarizing the events on his blog;

• Bill Gates speaks Monday morning at Microsoft's SharePoint conference in Seattle. As part of the event, the company announced plans to expand its online offerings with subscription-based versions of Exchange Server and SharePoint Server for corporations.
• Chris Liddell, Microsoft's chief financial officer, speaks Monday morning at the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference in California. Microsoft's pending Yahoo acquisition bid will no doubt be among the subjects on the minds of the attending investors, whether or not Liddell has any news to share. Webcast available here.
• Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, gives one of the keynote addresses Monday evening at the big CeBIT technology conference in Hannover, Germany.
• Microsoft Research holds its TechFest event in Redmond on Tuesday. This is the annual science fair where Microsoft's researchers show some of their latest projects to the company's product groups and managers. Watch for coverage here.
• Microsoft's Mix08 online-technology conference begins Wednesday in Las Vegas. Among other things, the conference is expected to bring news about Internet Explorer 8, the next version of the company's Web browser. Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's chief software architect, headlines the Wednesday morning agenda. Ballmer speaks Thursday. I'll be attending Mix and posting from the event.

MIX08 in Las Vegas

Many members of the Emerging Business Team, including me, will be at MIX08 in Las Vegas. Tough duty :-)   I am moderating a panel at MIX on Thursday with Robert Scoble, Ryan McIntyre, Kimbal Musk, and Dave McClure.

There will be some interesting product announcements at MIX. Watch this blog and TechMeme for the news on Wednesday.

TechFest

I have attended TechFest in the past and always enjoy seeing all the new technology coming out of the Microsoft Research Labs. TechFest is MSR's science fair, showing many of the most advanced research projects at Microsoft. Of course it is mostly all secret so I can't write about it. Unfortunately, I will be at MIX08 this year and unable to attend TechFest.

Last year Microsoft invited several press people to the event and showed them some of the projects that were OK to write about. I will watch the news feeds to see what comes out...and summarize it here.

SharePoint Conference

There is a lot of speculation around where Microsoft is going with online services. Some things will be announced at the SharePoint conference and other things will be announced at MIX. There is a lot going on...much more than will be announced this week. Here is a quote from Bill Gates about where Microsoft is headed;

“The combination of software plus services gives customers advanced choice and flexibility in how they access and manage software,” Gates said. “With Microsoft Online Services, businesses can deploy software as a subscription service, from servers they manage on-site, or a combination of the two, depending on their specific needs. In the future, customers and partners should expect to see this kind of choice and flexibility for all of Microsoft’s software and server products.”