Microsoft will return to San Francisco in April to reprise its BUILD developers conference, the company announced today.
BUILD 2014 will run April 2-4, and again take place in the Moscone
Center, the facility Microsoft used last June and the same one Apple has
planted its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) for 11 years
running.
Registration for BUILD 2014 will begin on Tuesday, Jan. 14, at 9 a.m. PT on the conference's website.
Microsoft has not posted an agenda, but in a blog post
Friday, Steve Guggenheimer, Microsoft's chief evangelist in the
company's developer and platform group, said: "We'll talk about what's
next for Windows, Windows Phone, Windows Azure, Windows Server, Visual
Studio and much more."
Speculation has swirled that Microsoft will launch an update for
Windows Phone 8 and push out tweaks to Windows 8.1 around the timetable
for BUILD. Microsoft is also expected to introduce a smaller-screen
Surface tablet in 2014, perhaps at the conference.
Assuming analysts have scoped out the company's CEO selection timing
correctly, BUILD could also be the first forum for a new chief executive
to step on stage, address developers and provide his or her take on the
company's strategies.
The scheduling move from June, when Microsoft held BUILD this year,
gets the conference out of the shadow of WWDC, the annual Apple event
that garners massive attention from bloggers and grabs mainstream media
headlines because the Cupertino, Calif. company usually introduces new
operating systems and some hardware on WWDC's first day.
In 2013, WWDC took place at the Moscone Center two weeks before BUILD.
Prices for BUILD remained flat at $2,095, the same as for 2013's
conference. Microsoft did not say, however, whether it would offer a
$500 discount for the first 500 who register, as it has done in the
past.
Developers should expect that BUILD will sell out -- this year's
version did in about 24 hours -- and plan to register when Microsoft
opens its virtual ticket office early on Jan. 14.
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