Sierra Nevada in the high tech world

When Microsoft rolled out is long-awaited Vista software at a large gathering in San Francisco, Sierra Nevada Brewing shared the spotlight. No, Microsft wasn’t handing out free beer. Sierra Nevada representatives were there because the brewery partcipated in early training for Vista.

Sierra Nevada was one of about 60 mid-size companies that were part of early training. A story in the Chico Enterprise offers an idea of the technology involved in running a brewery the size of Sierra Nevada (the second largest craft brewery in America).

Microsoft’s Diana Beckman said Sierra Nevada was chosen because “their experience illustrates the strength and benefits of the desktop searching abilities featured in Vista.

“As part of their quality control and manufacture process, Sierra Nevada Brewery runs nearly 100 tests on each batch of beer — dozens of batches of beer per week. It generates and constantly references an enormous amount of data points during their quality control and manufacture processes.”

Greg Koch’s vBlog offers another look, this time the amazing pilot brewery. You’ll have to scroll down to June 8 to see it.