I just got out of Bob Muglia's keynote speech where he formally announced Windows PowerShell (previously known as Monad). The key things he announced are:

1. Monad (MSH) has a new name: Windows PowerShell
2. Windows PowerShell will RTW (Web download) in Q4 2006
3. RC1 of Windows PowerShell is available today
4. Exchange 2007 and MOM will be built upon Windows PowerShell
5. The next wave of products will be leverage the same architecture - Admin GUI layered on Windows PowerShell

Superstar Vivek Sharma demonstrated the Exchange 2007 Admin experience. First he showed their new MMC 3.0 managed code snap-in - it totally rocks! (you'll be amazed by what you can do with MMC 3.0). He showed an example of adding a distribution list using the GUI. At the end of this wizard, it showed the results of the operation and the Command equivalent. This highlighted the fact that the Exchange GUI is layered on top of PowerShell meaning that there is parity between the GUI and the CLI and that the GUI helps teach the CLI. He then opened a PowerShell window and typed the Cmdlet name using tab-completion and hit enter, this then prompted him for all the necessary information to complete the task showing you PowerShell helps guide the user to successful complete the task. He then showned a number of features of the Exchange cmdlets highlighting the ability to safely manage a large number of objects in a single command line. He concluded by showing a command sequence which leveraged a Exchange 2007 cmdlet piped to a Monad Cmdlet piped to a Community script to generate a graphical chart report of Exchange data. It was a very cool demo and was very well received.