HEROES HAPPEN {HERE} was not only about Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008 it was about celebrating the people who keep things running.

It is often easy to forget about the people that maintain the systems we expect to be running (except when the sky falls) when we are so focused on new and shiny technologies and systems.

Microsoft acknowledges that making maintenance simpler and more agile so that IT staff can focus on solving problems and add real value is what everyone wants whether you are an IT professional or the business that hires IT professionals. They call this strategy Dynamic IT.

Kevin told us a story of two heroes.

Now, let me tell you a story. I want to tell you about a couple of heroes, just to bring this theme of this launch to life. And I want to start by telling you imagine it’s November 12th, 1999, and you’re in Istanbul, Turkey. And it’s the middle of the night, and an earthquake hits, 7.2 on the Richter scale. So you get in a doorway with all your family, buildings are shaking and collapsing around you, and all of a sudden all the lights go out and it’s completely dark. After several hours, the shaking and the crumbling stops. You somehow find a way to make it outside. When you finally get outside, you look around and it’s total devastation all around you.

Now, most of us can only imagine this, but this was the reality for Omer Celik. Along with everyone else in the region, they had to live and eat in the streets for five days before help arrived.

This challenging time, that five-day period, sparked an idea, an idea that Omer said, you know what, there’s got to be something we can do with technology.

So, he wanted to create something that could help tell rescue crews what was going on in the areas that they couldn’t reach or get to, somehow create a tool that would allow them to see just what they were facing and where help was needed right away.

So, over the next 24 months he and a friend partnered, and it’s his childhood friend, Oguz they’ve been friends since they were 10 years old, they partnered and using Microsoft Robotics Studio, Visual Studio 2008, which we’re going to talk about, Virtual Earth, Windows Server 2008, with IIS 7.0 and Silverlight, they’ve created something called RoboTurk a robotic helicopter used in disaster situations to fly into areas that are so badly damaged so that you can stream video back to the rescue crews, so that rescue crews can get real time feedback on who and where they need to provide help.

Now, Omer and Oguz are two developers, but they’re also two developers who decided to make a difference, and they’re heroes, and we’re celebrating them today, because today the Turkish government and Microsoft are investing with Omer and Oguz to bring this technology mainstream.

That is so cool. I need to get more info on that soon. I have been doing a bit of research lately into how technology can help in catastrophic situations and there is some fascinating work being done. I know it sounds cheesy but if anyone has ever worked with a government agency or body you know that they can be a little slow sometimes. Work like RoboTurk and projects like JEPRS from Infusion are like very exciting because in an emergency time is of the essence.

Here are some photos of some Heroes.

There were many more exciting things announced like: built in virtualization in Windows Server 2008 and where that is going; PHP support for IIS – that will be exciting for enterprise applications and JavaScript Debugging and IntelliSense in Visual Studio 2008.

I think that one of my favourite case studies that day was one from Sorin Manta, Manager of Windows Server Infrastructure Technology and Operations at BMO.

“Just by eliminating the need for infrastructure, we save about $150,000 in capital costs for every office that we open… and we’ve opened four so far. That’s more than half a million dollars already.”

Sorin Manta, Manager, Windows Server Infrastructure, Technology and Operations, BMO Capital Markets

See him tell his story.