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I saw this and thought it further highlighted that partners are seeing huge opportunity with SharePoint - both portal and services. You can load WSS v3 onto a SBS box or use WSS v2. The opportunity is still huge. Microsoft Partners Stake Claims In Sharepoint Goldmine It's getting tough to find a Microsoft partner who isn't either reaping the financial benefits of deploying Office Sharepoint Server 2007 or eagerly planning to add it to their portfolio. Released last November, Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007, also known as MOSS, is a workflow and collaboration engine that integrates with the Office platform and features Web content management, enterprise content services, enterprise search, and business process and business intelligence tools. Although it initially attracted interest primarily from medium and large enterprises, Sharepoint is now penetrating the SMB space, says Stephen Moss, COO of NSPI, a security solution provider in Roswell, Ga. that hosts Sharepoint sites for other companies....

I can't reveal all the details, although I am sure others will, however we are working on special event for SBSC members. This event design incorporates your feedback and suggestions as to what you want to hear about, share as a community as well as information Microsoft needs to share with you. Expect useful information, the opportunity to network with your peers, Microsoft and partners and the ability to socialise too J The timeframe for this event is February 2007, in Reading, Manchester (or Leeds) and Edinburgh, although more sessions will happen in the afternoon in Reading due to availability of speakers and rooms. The ROUGH agenda looks like this Morning: UK Exec who actually cares about Small Business (such as Natalie Ayres - Director of SMS&P*) talking about: What's the view from the top? Why does everything you've heard matter? What's the opportunity for partners? Aileen Hannah – responsible for SBSC programme in the UK, talking about: Highlights & lowlights of the program so far Latest resources...

This is again taken from the latest TechNet ( http://www.microsoft.com/Technet ) newsletter here in the UK. VoIP Is On Its Way I've been playing with Office Communicator 2007 for a while now and have been impressed by all of the extra functionality that the new instant messaging client brings. We talk a lot about extra productivity in our new products, but I've really noticed a difference this time. It now provides the ability to create a set of contacts that can see different levels of information: personal contacts who can see all published contact information including home and mobile numbers, team settings which allow members of my team to see my free / busy status, and who can also interrupt me whilst my status is busy. Moving down the list, there are company contacts who can see my limited availability and information, and public contacts, connecting through 'Public Internet Connectivity (PIC)' who see my name and email address and limited availability. I think this is much better than the...

I saw this go around on a thread at work and I have seen it requested for those security conscious partners, so here is the answer (courtesy of Eric Ellis): 1) Via the Office Customisation Tool (OCT) and a custom MSP: — or — 2) Via Group Policy: The difference between the two is that using the OCT will preset the desired configuration during the initial installation (or in a maintenance mode change), but users can change the settings if they desire. Group policy enforces the desired configuration, and if a user makes a change to the setting, they will revert back to the settings defined in the policy during the next application session. ttfn David Technorati Tags: Office 2007 , Security , Internet , Group Policy , Office Customisation Tool , OCT

This is a quick one - hope along to http://uk.msn.com and today you will be greeted with the Office 2007 ribbon bar. You can change the formatting of the picture or the MSN section at the top using the live preview function of Office 2007. This will be 24 hours only I am told, so about 14 3/4 hours left! Image changes as you hover over the formats - available in Office 2007 and now MSN UK for the day!! We also have style changes on the headers. ttfn David Technorati Tags: MSN , Office 2007

This has been banded about a lot inside Microsoft, but it is just too good to ignore. Enjoy!! Foxit PDF Preview Handler in my daily work i spend a majority of my 'computing' time in outlook. communicating with peers, team members, customers, etc. is mostly done via communication (sad, i know). a lot of that time it involves sending information attachments back and forth, using office documents, etc. i've said a lot about how much i love the preview functionality within vista and office 2007. i even wrote a code preview handler for .cs, .vb, .sql, .js files. one of the samples in the msdn article was for pdf files...of which i receive a lot. i don't use adobe reader because i think it is overkill for reading pdf's personally. the sample, however, relies on having adobe reader installed...which i didn't like. i started working with the foxit activex sdk , because i love their reader product. after some communication with the team at foxit, we started collaborating. as a result of that collaboration, foxit software...

TechNet Roadshow Following the 2008 Launch event in Birmingham on 19th March, TechNet will be going out on the road. The roadshow will be heavy on demos and light on PowerPoint. We'll look at various scenarios, such as managing Windows Server 2008 and how Windows Server 2008 works alongside Windows Vista. There will be the opportunity to meet the Microsoft Community, user groups and Most Valued Professionals, as well as experts with top technical information and real-world scenarios. Places really are limited so register now: 22 April 2008, Cardiff 24 April 2008, London 30 April 2008, Manchester 12 May 2008, Glasgow 15 May 2008, Newcastle ttfn David Technorati Tags: Events , Technet , Microsoft , Windows Server 2008 , Longhorn

I was reading the CNet news article at http://news.com.com/100+years+of+Grace+Hopper/2100-1007_3-6142101.html and it reminded me of having to learn COBOL at University. While it can be a pig to do graphics and other things in, it is a great language to write business applications. COBOL for .Net exists, as do many, many libraries to make file, graphics and web services a reality. There are even some small buziness apps written in COBOL as its ability to manage business rules and maintain integrity is still good. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a .Net developer, but many of the good practices in development today have their heritage in COBOL (or Pascal ;-) ) So this is just a raised glass to the language that will never die (a bit like Mainframes). ttfn David

I've read the two articles - Computer-Chip Makers Pick Up Pace in Multicore Race - WSJ.com and BetaNews | AMD: Will More CPU Cores Always Mean Better Performance? and realised they were both harping on about the same thing - the need for better use of mutli-core / multi-processor technology. In a former life I helped people make their software take advantage of many cpus and the scheduling of tasks, sharing of information and understand how many processes can put load onto the memory, disk and internal buses is a huge area of learning. Whether it is a 8-core or a SMP 8-processor box, the problems are the same. If 8 cpus all demand a disk read from different regions of the disk, then you have 8 disk seeks, which could mean 1-8 x 8ms wait for the processes. In computer terms, waiting for 64ms for a disk read (as the 8th cpu would do) is almost an eternity for a cpu. What is more, if the disk regions are on 8 separate disks to stop I/O bottlenecks then the i/o bus and front-side-bus might not be able to take...

I saw this and thought it was another reason why you need to be prepared for Vista and Office 2007. Among small and mid-sized enterprises 47 percent of them plan to upgrade to Microsoft’s Vista operating system in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to a Cowen & Co. survey. The survey, which is done in conjunction with CRN magazine , also found that 78 percent of small and mid-sized businesses will adopt Vista by the second quarter of 2008. Simply put, the small fry will lead the charge when it comes to the Vista upgrade cycle. Cowen analyst Walter Pritchard said in a research note that his firm’s most recent survey is above the adoption rates predicted in February. In February, 43 percent of small businesses indicated they would adopt Vista by the end of 2007. » Survey: SMBs more aggressive with Vista upgrade plans | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com ttfn David Technorati Tags: Vista , Small Business

I saw this and thought I had to share. While not as funny as some, still worth watching. For the record, no-one has ever thrown money at me! Look for the Jedi master mind tricks (failing) at about 4 mins. Life At Microsoft - The Truth Revealed Life At Microsoft - The Truth Revealed People often stop me in the streets to ask "Hey Tina, what's life "really" like at Microsoft? Sometimes I can't even walk outside my house without somebody standing there with a giant neon sign that blinks "What is life "really" like at Microsoft"? Instead of answering every individual separately and so you can save your money on those neon signs. I decided to create a video that would answer that simple yet complex question. I want to throw out a special high-five to the following because without them and a lot of beer this video never would have happened. ttfn David Technorati Tags: Microsoft , humour , fun , Star Wars

Hi, So the previous blog entry talked about the IDC information for all those at the Harry B event - Lets explain how they can help you change your business if you were not there. Have you ever wanted to know what people are doing to be successful in a particular area of business that you might want to expand into? I know that I always like to be early into a new segment, but not the 1 st . The IDC whitepapers give you this information on the following technologies and areas – have a look and tell me what you think: Delivering Server Solutions with SBS 2003 From 2005 through 2009, more than one million servers are expected to be installed in small businesses worldwide.* This market opportunity is unmatched by any other segment and is a key opportunity for Microsoft partners. Read this article to get specific guidelines, best practices, and tools for building a business around first-server deployments, entry-level installations, enhanced deployments, and migration projects. *Source: IDC Delivering Maintenance and...