Nymz's Journal: Microsoft Influence at Democrat and Republican Conventions

Microsoft is making sizable technological contributions to the upcoming Democrat and Republican National Conventions. (August 25-28 and September 1-4 respectively) Both parties will take advantage of Microsoft software and services for online collaboration, document management, instant messaging, email, scheduling, and web conferencing, as well as Microsoft Surface Computing to deliver local information about transportation, restaurants, and hotels, as well as media of the current and past conventions.

For virtual attendees, the Democrat convention site is providing a progressive web experience (high definition Silverlight video , Digital Rights Management), while the Republican convention site is providing a more conservative web experience (low definition Flash video , downloadable MP3 audio). It would be going too far to say that Microsoft has a monopoly on the election process, but one could confidently say that the next President will have made judicious use of Microsoft technology.