Back in October 2005, four like-minded web developers from around The Midlands met for a Saturday afternoon drink in a Walsall pub to discuss all things Web. Who’d've thunk four years on that small group of people would have become a growing friendly community who meet every month and hold regular events to discuss hot topics with industry leaders?

I could never have expected such a great outcome from that email I sent back in 2005, when I discovered I wasn’t the only enthusiastic web developer in Walsall and invited Paul and Jon for a beer to see what they do and whether they wanted to make the social event a regular occurrence. After throwing around a few ideas, we came up with the name Multipack, partly a cheeky play on the already established BritPack as well as suggesting the diversity of the group’s skills in multimedia.

(Hat tip to Paul for remembering the suggestive M to indicate the link with the Midlands).

What better way to celebrate the fourth birthday than to coincide it with the 4th Multipack Presents event, this time focussing on “Rich Internet Appliations” (RIA).

It’s sure to be a clash of the titans as heavyweight HTML5 “doctor” Bruce Lawson opens the proceedings with his recent research and development in HTML5 while Silverlight evangelist Nick Harewood takes us through his latest work with the Microsoft plugin and how it can compete in a competitive market against a heavily-biassed audience.

We’ll be meeting, as ever, in  The Old Crown in Digbeth from 2pm for some lunch and drinks before moving on to One Black Bear’s offices in Fazeley Studios at 4pm for the main event.

I (foolishly) promised to bring birthday cake to the event so be sure to join us for a few drinks, good conversation and a slice of Si Pie.