After six years, Microsoft is relaunching the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, with the first of the new conference scheduled to take place in Shenzen, China on March 18 and 19, 2015.
The event also marks the first time the conference has ever been held outside of the U.S.
"WinHEC will bring the hardware engineering community together in one place, providing a unique opportunity to interact with technical and business experts from Microsoft, other partners, and customers, facilitating exchange of ideas, best practices, and opportunities," said Matt Perry from Microsoft in a blog post.
The location of the conference is significant for more reasons than its new locale. Microsoft has been under heavy scrutiny from the Chinese government over antitrust issue. The scrutiny involves Windows, Office and really any tech Microsoft has attempted to bring into the country.
Microsoft leaders recently made a trip to China to try and smooth things over with the government and to ensure that Chinese leaders know Microsoft is willing to cooperate on any issues.
The big thing is, however, is thatChina is currently developing its own operating system in an attempt to replace Windows as the defacto OS for computer users.
The conference is also seen as a way to ensure that Chinese hardware developers stick with Microsoft. The company will be altering the name of the conference, according to reports. While the acronym will still be WinHEC, instead of conference, the c will stand for community.
"Mark your calendar and be part of the Windows Hardware Engineering Community Summit in Shenzhen, March 18th and 19th, 2015," reads the WinHEC 2015 countdown site. "Learn about the latest Microsoft products. Get hands-on engineering training to develop the best possible Windows based hardware products. Meet partners and customers within the Microsoft hardware community. Participate in technical community events that help to drive device innovations in the Windows hardware platform."
Microsoft is reportedly prepping to reveal greater details about its next operating system, Windows 9, at an event next week. Windows 9 will be particularly important for as Windows 8 was not very well received by a number of users. While Windows 8.1 fixed many issues people had with Windows 8, many thought that it did not go far enough.
