The reason is simple: Microsoft is in the midst of a historic and extensive wave of upgrades for its enterprise products, and Vander Kooi wants to ensure his company rides the upgrade wave successfully.

"I want to go in there and sit and learn and absorb things because there are so many new product releases and I want to understand how they all fit together," said Vander Kooi, Microsoft Systems Administrator at Explorer Pipeline in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Microsoft is working on new versions of Windows, Internet Explorer, Office, Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, Dynamics ERP applications, Visual Studio and Windows Server, and recently shipped new versions of SQL Server and System Center.

So when he walks into the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, where the conference will take place from June 11 to June 14, Vander Kooi plans to immerse himself in the proceedings, with a particular focus on Windows Server 2012, which is in beta and due out later this year.

Ross Eberle, technical support supervisor at Rockford Public Schools in Rockford, Illinois, is headed to his first TechEd, also motivated in large part by the upgrade wave, and is particularly interested in Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012.