The first combined Microsoft Mobile & Embedded DevCon (MEDC 2005) conference was
held from May 9-12, 2005 in Las Vegas at Mandalay Bay Hotel and Convention
Center. The attendance exceeded original organizer's expectations as
approximately 2,060 developers signed up for this event.
The conference started on Monday with two
pre-conference sessions, one providing an introduction to Mobile development and
the other to Embedded development. The main conference was then kicked off by Bill Gates who shared his vision for mobile & embedded development on
Tuesday morning and announced the launch of Windows Mobile 5.0. Bill was
assisted by the super-enthusiastic demo team of Ford Davidson, Mike Hall, Neil Enns
and Seth Demsey.
In addition to over 150 sessions on mobile and embedded topics over the next 3
days, there were a number of interesting events going on throughout each day
designed to educate and entertain the crowd. Over 60 Microsoft MVPs and 100
speakers were available at the Cabana Lounges after each session for those that
wanted some 1:1 time to discuss interesting issues or seek some advice from the
experts, and the Ask the Experts night was held on Tuesday night at the Exhibit
hall. For those developers that wanted some quiet time alone to dive
deeper into selected topics, over 20 hands-on-labs were available throughout the
conference with a number of Microsoft product team staff on hand to provide
guidance. 
The Exhibit hall was open for all three
conference days with 48 exhibitors and a large Microsoft pavilion covering the
mobile and embedded space and many attendees spent spent some time there
checking out the latest toys from hardware vendors. Among the more notable give-aways
were a tablet PC and a number of free Logo certifications testing vouchers.
There was a definite buzz on the exhibit floor with everybody scrambling to get
one more Tablet sticker attached to their body or a Sheriff's badge that was
used by Microsoft spotters to give away prizes every day during the exhibit
hours.
Mike Hall and his energetic Podcast crew could be seen on a daily basis interviewing
speakers, MVPs and attendees and making sure that all of the exciting events
were made available live to desktops or mobile devices for those that could not make it
to the event. Over 80 videos were recorded in the three days of the event with
over 70,000 downloads.
All attendees were treated to an exclusive Blue
Man group performance at the Luxor hotel on Wednesday night and the conference
was closed with the Ultimate Architect SumoBot Competition on Thursday evening.
Of the 30 teams that signed up originally, 8 teams came together to compete in
one of the four sumo rings. In the individual rounds, the Arizona State
University team was the winner with their only remote-control SumoBot and the
Fat Boys team was the winner in a group melee at the end.