Brettjo :: Office 365 and Everything UC

Office 365 CDF Partner Material

Brettjo — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 10:42:08 GMT

If your an Office 365 Partner you can now download the Office 365 Technical Briefing and Solution Alignment Workshop material from the link below. CDF by the way is Customer Decision Framework.

https://www.quickstartonlineservices.com/Partners/LibraryDocuments/O365%20Technical%20Briefings%20and%20Solution%20Alignment%20Workshop.zip

Exchange Client Network Bandwidth Calculator Beta

Brettjo — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:08:28 GMT

This is also valid for Exchange Online (Office 365)

http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2012/02/10/announcing-the-exchange-client-network-bandwidth-calculator-beta.aspx

I am extremely pleased to announce that the all new Exchange Client Bandwidth Calculator Beta is available for download!!

Over the past 12 months we have been working on a new calculator to help with Exchange client network bandwidth approximation. This new calculator is based on all new prediction data and is designed to work with both Exchange on-premises and Office 365 deployments! (Yes, we know it’s long overdue!)

BPOS to Office 365 Transition Guide

Brettjo — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 09:50:11 GMT

The BPOS to Office 365 Transition Guide for enterprises is now available for customers and partners.

Nokia Lumia

Brettjo — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:50:41 GMT

I pick one of these up on Monday

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1668907/no-joke-with-lumia-nokia-crushes-the-iphone

PST Capture for Exchange and Office 365

Brettjo — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:57:54 GMT

PST Capture helps you search your network to discover and then import .pst files across your environment - all from a straightforward admin-driven tool. PST Capture will help reduce risk while increasing productivity for your users by importing .pst files into Exchange Online or Exchange Server 2010 - directly into users' primary mailboxes or archives.

More detail here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2012/01/30/pst-time-to-walk-the-plank.aspx

RIM Launches BlackBerry Business Cloud Services for Microsoft Office 365

Brettjo — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:05:42 GMT

Let the transitions to 365 really start to begin..!

http://press.rim.com/release.jsp?id=5359

Waterloo, ON - Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today announced general availability of BlackBerry® Business Cloud Services for Microsoft Office 365 – a new service for business and government organizations that extends Microsoft Exchange Online to BlackBerry® smartphones and allows customers to manage their BlackBerry deployments in the cloud. The service is available at no additional charge to current medium-sized or enterprise subscribers of the Office 365 suite or standalone Exchange Online and works with BlackBerry smartphones on business or consumer data plans.

Update to Office 365 Exchange Kiosk SKU

Brettjo — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 08:11:01 GMT

The full blog is here:

“The latest productivity tools are not reserved for workers with a desk or an office. Businesses need to connect their shift and retail workers to the rest of the enterprise. As such, we are adding new capabilities to our kiosk worker plans. These plans enable improved communication and collaboration for ‘deskless’ workers, shift workers or retail store employees who use shared PCs.

These new capabilities include:

Adding Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) for mobile devices to the Exchange Online Kiosk plan and Office 365 Kiosk Plan. Virtually all smartphones support EAS including Windows Phone, iPhone, Android, and Nokia. A full list of EAS supported phones is available here.
Doubling email storage from 500 MB to 1 GB in both the Exchange Online Kiosk plan and the Office 365 Kiosk plan.
Offering Exchange Online Archiving (EOA), including legal hold and unlimited storage, as an add-on to any Exchange Online plan, including Kiosk and ”E” plans.

The pricing for the Exchange Online Kiosk plan ($2 per user/per month) and Office 365 Kiosk plan ($4 per user/per month) will remain unchanged. EOA will now be offered as an add-on to any Exchange Online plan, including Kiosk and Exchange Plan. Pricing for Exchange Online Archiving add-on is $3.50/user/month. For example:

An Exchange Online Kiosk user can add Exchange Online Archiving to get legal hold functionality where the costs would be $2 + $3.50 for a total cost of $5.50/user/month

We will provide updates about the general availability of these new capabilities as they become available. For more information on how the various Office 365 plans can be tailored to meet your online productivity needs, please visit here. Or learn more here about the additional services that can be added to an Office 365 plan.”

New Office 365 Trust Centre

Brettjo — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 09:36:39 GMT

Updated Trust Center
Based on customer feedback, we have simplified the language of the Trust Center to make it easier to find in-depth information about our privacy and security practices and understand our practices for handling and securing data on Microsoft Online Services.

Further details on what was released are here

Lync Online Web Scheduler

Brettjo — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:50:48 GMT

The Lync Online Web Scheduler has been released, therefore if you don’t have Outlook available you can still schedule meetings that will appear in OWA.

https://sched.lync.com

Office 365 Advisor tool

Brettjo — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 10:10:19 GMT

Find the right Office 365 plan for you.

FINDING AND POINTING TO THE ADVISOR TOOL

1) Visit Office365.com and click on the Plan advisor link. We also merchandise the tool as a ‘Help me Choose’ link on the Trial signup page.

2) You can access the tool in two different ways:

a. A direct link into the tool’s first question

b. Splash screen pointing to both the advisor tool and cost estimator tool

Office 365 – Sign-In Assistant Update

Brettjo — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 11:50:20 GMT

Great news if your a rich client user:

http://jorgerdiaz.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/office-365-%e2%80%93-sign-in-assistant-update/

Office 365 DIY Troubleshooting Tool released

Brettjo — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 21:37:49 GMT

Available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in the Office 365 Community, the tool serves as a comprehensive, self-help solution that gives customers the ability to solve questions or issues they may have with the Office 365 suite of services, whether they are a small business owner, enterprise administrator and/or end user.

The Troubleshooter pinpoints key technical support issues and provides immediate solutions without the need to post questions to the community or submit a support request ticket. The tool’s interface conveniently displays hundreds of possible help and support assets (i.e. Help topics, KB articles, videos, wikis, blog posts) from within the Office 365 suite. As you move through a list of troubleshooting options, the tool dynamically displays funneled-down content to lead you towards the answers you need.

By mid-November, the tool will be available in eight languages including: Chinese (Traditional), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Spanish. We’ll continue to update the tool as new issues are identified and new content is developed.

The Office 365 DIY Troubleshooting Support Tool is free and available in the "Troubleshooting" section of http://community.office365.com (no registration required). It will be announced to customers via a Technical Blog in the Community.

http://community.office365.com/en-us/p/troubleshooting.aspx

Update to the Office 365 Enterprise Deployment Guide : Sep 2011

Brettjo — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 19:31:53 GMT

Has been released:

PDF version of the Deployment Guide, an updated web edition has been released. The web edition provides all of the same content of the document version.

Lync for Mac 2011 RTM

Brettjo — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 07:39:34 GMT

And yes…. this does work against Lync Online..!

http://blogs.technet.com/b/uc/archive/2011/09/08/lync-for-mac-2011-released-to-manufacturing.aspx

Free eBook: Microsoft Office 365: Connect and Collaborate Virtually Anywhere, Anytime

Brettjo — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 12:08:36 GMT

Free eBook: Microsoft Office 365: Connect and Collaborate Virtually Anywhere, Anytime

By Rosemary Caperton

We are very excited to announce that we are able to offer Microsoft Office 365: Connect and Collaborate Virtually Anywhere, Anytime (ISBN 9780735656949), by Katherine Murray, as a free eBook.

For details on this book, including the Table of Contents , see our previous blog post here.

To download your free PDF eBook, click here. Updates to this eBook, as well as additional eBook formats, will become available in the future, so check this blog for updates.

Office 365 User Group Community in the UK

Brettjo — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 09:29:40 GMT

Purpose

· To develop an Office 365 Community in the UK where we can share experiences, drive deployment and for the community to feedback their experiences and concerns to Microsoft where we in turn can then respond back at the next event.

· It is planned to have an Office 365 Community event once a quarter at a minimum.

· This is open to anyone: customers, partners and obviously MSFT

· This is a great opportunity for us to connect with customer and partners in a community forum.

Social Media:

· LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=4012080

· Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Office-365-User-Group-UK/156410594436902

· Twitter: #O365UKUG

Register Your Attendance

http://www.office365usergroup.co.uk/Pages/default.aspx

Agenda

1. Welcome (Microsoft)

2. Microsoft Session: (Microsoft)

a. Where are we with Office 365..? Facts and Figures

b. Introductions to the Office 365 Team in the UK

c. Customer Decision Framework

d. BPOS to Office 365 Transitions

3. AvePoint and Office 365: (AvePoint - Dawid Kozlowski)

4. Office 365 Lessons Learnt: (Tony Sloggert/Andy Hutchins – Avanade)

5. Office 365 and the hybrid organisation: (Ant Clay – 21 Apps)

A fascinating look at Steve Jobs and Bill Gates

Brettjo — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 11:38:48 GMT

With the recent announcement, I have been glued to these historic videos. I personally liked the guest appearance of Bill at MacWorld

Take a look: http://mashable.com/2011/08/24/breaking-steve-jobs-resigns-from-apple/#D1R-jKKp3NA

Tata Steel select Office 365

Brettjo — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 08:03:36 GMT

LONDON — 25 August 2011 — Microsoft UK PLC, Microsoft BV and Capgemini UK plc today announced they have been selected by Tata Steel in Europe for a project to migrate its two existing email systems to a new Europe-wide standard platform based on the Microsoft Office 365 cloud computing productivity suite. The project marks the first significant deployment by Tata Steel of cloud computing and is one of the first large-scale enterprise implementations of Office 365 in Europe.

Office 365 Technical Briefing

Brettjo — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 17:05:23 GMT

This half-day technical briefing, with sessions from Microsoft and Oxford Computer Group will provide vital information on transitioning to Office 365 and Cloud apps. Including presentations, round table discussion and solution demo's we'll provide an overview of Office 365 and the critical issues to consider when moving to the Cloud. Topics will include; key security considerations, how to provision users and accounts, managing entitlements, simplifying access and how to provide Single Sign-On.

http://www.oxfordcomputergroup.com/news/events/uk-office-365-technical-briefing-255.php?utm_source=Boomerang&utm_medium=Email&utm_term=See+the+full+agenda+and+register+here%85&utm_content=padoyle@microsoft.com&utm_campaign=Get+Ready+for+Cloud+with+our+Technical+Briefings

09:00 - Coffee and Registration
09:30 - Microsoft Office 365 Overview and demo
10:15 - Transitioning from on-premise apps and BPOS to Office 365
11:00 - Break
11:15 - The role of Identity and Access Management in preparing for Cloud
11:30 - Managing users with Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager (FIM) 2010
12:00 - Claims, Federation, Authentication & Single Sign-On
12:30 - Q&A with buffet lunch

Content and Code: Cloud Service Offerings Event

Brettjo — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 10:06:23 GMT

Microsoft and Google are going head to head in a bid to win the next business platform; the cloud. But what is all the hype around Microsoft and Google’s Cloud Services Offerings about? Content and Code are hosting an exclusive event on the 17^th August at New Broad Street House, where you can see both offerings in action, learn about the differences between the two and decide which will drive the right results for your organisation. Content and Code will compare the two leaders in cloud computing with live demonstrations, to help you choose the best service for your organisation. Come and learn about Office 365 and Google Apps and see how they compare with regard to security, messaging, collaboration and communication, as well as discover the strengths and weaknesses of each platform.

The Key Features of the event:

•	Security: How do Microsoft and Google view and implement security?
•	Messaging: Features and benefits of both Exchange Online and Gmail
•	Collaboration: Differences between SharePoint Online, Office 2010 and Google docs
•	Communications: Comparing Office Communicator Online and Live Meeting with Google Talk and Google Voice
•	Mobile: Comparing the strengths of the Windows Phone 7 and Google's Android phone
•	Live demonstrations of both platforms

For further information on the event or to register, please contact Amber McCormack.

Patriot Act and the EU Safe Harbor

Brettjo — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 08:37:28 GMT

Over the past few months I have had many discussion about data security, Patriot Act and EU Safe Harbor with Office 365. I have just read this article which explains, quite simply, what can be done and what can’t without having to be a lawyer:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/igeneration/microsoft-we-can-hand-over-office-365-data-without-your-permission/11041

At the Office 365 launch in London the same topic was raised as discussed here:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/igeneration/microsoft-admits-patriot-act-can-access-eu-based-cloud-data/11225?tag=nl.e540

If you need a more and haven’t seen the Microsoft Trust Centre then take a look here:

http://www.microsoft.com/online/legal/v2/?docid=21&langid=en-us

HD Telepresence and Lync Online

Brettjo — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 10:00:28 GMT

http://www.polycom.com/partners/strategic_global_alliances/polycom_microsoft_alliance.html

New Breakthroughs in Enterprise UC
Polycom and Microsoft announced on June 1 a new enterprise UC productivity tool code-named “Rally” that combines HD telepresence with Microsoft’s Lync. This collaboration tool will enable a powerful yet simplified user experience and is an excellent addition to Polycom and Microsoft’s full line of integrated UC devices and infrastructure that meet the needs of businesses. This new product will be the first fully integrated telepresence solution with Microsoft’s cloud-based Office 365 solution

Office 365 Final Service Descriptions

Brettjo — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 06:58:10 GMT

Can be downloaded from here:

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=13602

The Microsoft Lync 2010 Conversation Translator

Brettjo — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 10:13:45 GMT

The Microsoft Lync 2010 Conversation Translator translates instant messages in real time using the Bing Translator service.

Neat.

http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/Features/2011/jun11/06-20ConversationTranslator.mspx

Oxford Computer Group ADFSv2 Webinar

Brettjo — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 12:36:00 GMT

If you want to understand ASFSv2 a little more then this would be a good session to attend delivered by the Oxford Computer Group:

Webinar - Federation with Microsoft AD FS 2.0

Thursday 7th of July 2011 11:00:00 AM
A 30 minute webinar on Federated Identity and Microsoft Active Directory Federation Services 2.0...
More information

Further recording and resources from OCG and Office 365 are below:

Webinar: Cloud Services Prep for Education Providers
Recording of webinar from May 10, 2011 on preparing for the adoption of Cloud Services including Office 365
Office 365 Prep for Education Providers
Microsoft Live@edu and Office 365 present compelling benefits for Education Providers. In this paper we examine the vital role Identity and Access Management plays in preparing for your move to Cloud services and managing your users
Claims-based identity and Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager (FIM) 2010
This paper considers two viable strategies for solving the “identity problem”, and in asking whether they are somehow competitors, concludes that they are not merely co-operative, they are symbiotic.

Technorati Tags: Office 365,OCG,ADFSv2