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Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference used to be a series of conferences held in various places around the world that showcased the work its global divisions did on behalf of the US-based tech giant. It has since unified its conference into just one large event, held in one area Microsoft serves and operates in, on a yearly basis in the middle of the summer. It was held in Toronto in 2004, and will be again next year. And perhaps that's Microsoft's way of apologizing to the city for fleeing its early-decade SARS outbreak -- or thanking it for uniting many conferences into just one event.