Teo Lachev (a local Atlanta MVP) gave a great presentation to the Atlanta MDF group, teaching us about reporting services. He showed us RS integration into Winform apps, RS extensions, new features coming with Yukon, and more! Several copies of his new book, Microsoft Reporting Services in Action were handed out as door prizes.

Just another note - either Reporting Services is really making inroads into the enterprise, or the MDF group is exploding in size because the audience for this presentation filled the room to max capacity and sucked down something like 15 pizzas! Either way, the MDF group should be congratulated for pulling so many people together to learn about something so important.

All of my personal professional experience as a programmer has come from working with software development houses creating Point of Sale (cash register) and Back Office technology. You can have the most fantastic POS system in the world, but if you can't create timely, accurate, and easy to understand reports based on the data you collect, you've got the equivalent of the most fantastic paper weight in the world on your hands. I just can't stress how important I think technologies like SQL Server Reporting Services are. Learn all you can!

-- Matt Ranlett