Two weeks ago, Microsoft surprised us with the announcement that it would hold its 2013 BUILD developer conference June 26-28 in San Francisco, right in the heart of "enemy territory" where Apple, Google and other Silicon Valley-based companies call home. Microsoft will likely reveal a lot more about its plans to update Windows 8, which is looking like it will officially be called Windows 8.1.
Microsoft may also reveal the first details for the next major update for Windows Phone at BUILD 2013, along with panels and other events designed to help developers with other Microsoft products such as Internet Explorer, Windows Azure, Xbox 360 and more. It"s also likely that Microsoft will give attendees some free hardware to take home (of course, attendance is not free), Microsoft gave out a Windows RT tablet and Nokia Lumia 920 smartphones to all the paid attendees last year.
As with the BUILD 2012 conference in October, the price for attending BUILD 2013 will be $1,595 for the first 500 people who register and $2,095 for everyone else. Registration for the event is happening right now at the buildwindows.com website. However, it"s likely that the conference will sell out very quickly, perhaps within minutes, so if you or your company want to attend you had better be ready to register right now.
Update: As expected, BUILD 2013 is now sold out, but you can still put your name on the official wait list in case some folks decide not to make it.
Update 2: Hmm...it looks like the site is taking registrations for the conference again after previously indicating it had sold out of tickets. We will keep an eye out if it sells out again.