From time to time a storm sweeps across the IT landscape and transforms the landscape. We've seen this before with the PC, the Windows operating system, the internet, and object oriented programming to name a few.  There have been a lot of other technologies of course in the mix, but the latest technology that has this kind of authority is the movement of on premise services to the cloud.

The three few years, I've been working in Partner Technical Readiness for Business Productivity Online Suite and it's been a wild ride watching from the inside as Microsoft and our partners come to terms with the new opportunities and challenges presented by cloud services.

While Microsoft has been learning the ropes along with the rest of the industry, Microsoft started this rope course a while back with online services like Live Meeting and Hotmail. And don't forget there are a million or more at any time using Xbox Live!  One of the busiest services on the planet - Windows Update runs reliably day in and day out worldwide keeping system up to date and downloading more content than most any free public service. Since these services debuted, many other services have since arrived including BPOS (SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, Office Communications Online, and Live Meeting Online), Azure, SQL Azure, Dynamic CRM Online, Exchange Hosted Services. Recently, Microsoft System Center Online Desktop Manager announced a beta as well (http://www.microsoft.com/online/system-center.mspx).

I work on the BPOS product team and the momentum we're seeing is truly extraordinary And while I can't say much about it, I can say that with the next wave or services that are coming online are going to bring an unprecedented set of services to the market. Yeah, I know I'm a a bit over the top on the enthusiasm scale, but I come about it honestly as I believe that technology is what's going to create new wave of business momentum in the world that will result in even greater productivity,  improved  ROI, and predictable costs.

As a hard core IT Pro I know there are lot of tech guys out there worried that the cloud is going to move their jobs out of the enterprise into the data center. And for some that will be true, but for others, the challenges simply move from managing mailboxes and resetting password to doing truly productive work. A lot of shops have upgrade plans for applications, networking infrastructure, optimizations, and even security work that have languished under the burden of routine system administration. Once you outsource those tasks to Microsoft, your expertise can be put to work implementing changes that can have much more dramatic impacts on your organizations efficiency.

Toward that end, a lot of IT Pros need to get up to speed about what BPOS is and how it differs from the on premise version Exchange and Sharepoint. While they share the same name and many of the same core features, it would be a mistake for a SharePoint administrator to assume since they know SharePoint on premise, they know SharePoint online.

Where to start? Here are some good resources that will get you going:

• Service descriptions at http://microsoft.com/online. These are really great references that are kept up to date. You should be sure to review these periodically.

                               o    Exchange Online

                               o    SharePoint Online

                               o    Office Communications Online

• Microsoft Online Services Team Blog - You MUST subscribe to this blog for the latest announcements, service updates, webcasts etc. For example, we recently posted new details on updated Blackberry services This is the fastest way to stay to up to date.
• Infrastructure Planning Guides for Microsoft Online Services - Great guides for walking you through deployment planning
• Webinars

        • And of course, for Partners: https://www.quickstartserviceonline.com which is produced by my team.

There's a lot more to come - so stay tuned!

Hi everyone, I'm writing this post to introduce myself, and let you know who you're dealing with. My name is Jim Glynn and I've been working in the high-tech/information technology field for about 25 years. I've been at Microsoft for the last 12 of those years. Wow! This is the first time I've slowed down long enough to figure that out!

I'm currently working on the Microsoft Online Services Community effort. When I was asked to take on this project, I jumped at the chance. I love the energy and urgency of a startup environment, and I'm passionate about providing the best possible customer experience. I understand the delicate balancing act between getting a product running and supporting early adopter customers. We're building the community by engaging with the product team and providing valuable information to our customers and partners. We want to involve the community in the product development process and feature contributions by customers, partners and MVPs. You can follow the Microsoft Online Services Team Blog and follow us on Twitter.

I attended college during the Vietnam era, dropped out, and returned in my late 20s to earn an Industrial Design degree. I discovered computers late in my college career and seriously considered changing my major to Computer Science, but it was time for me to be done with school. My university was one of the few at the time that allowed open access to IBM mainframes via ASCII terminals. I took a few punch card based programming classes, but I learned best by playing with those terminals 24 hours a day.

In early ‘85, I moved back to the Seattle area to work with a friend of mine who had started a company that created hardware, software, and firmware for the Industrial Engineering and Statistical Process Control (SPC) industries. We introduced new products about every 6 months. I travelled extensively training customers, support and field personnel. I participated in trade shows and provided technical sales support. I also installed and managed the company's network, phone system, BBS, and eventually their web site. My favorite part of that job was walking into my friend's office/lab and hearing him say, while pointing to a bird's nest of wires "It's the only one of its kind on the planet!"

I took a year off in 1997 to decompress, earn my MCSE and MCT certificates, do some consulting, and work as a technical trainer. I joined Microsoft in 1998 as a lead Technical Writer, working on Server 2000 and Active Directory. I managed the UA team for Small Business Server 2003. After shipping SBS, I took a PM job running the Live Meeting 2005 Technology Adoption Program (TAP).

After shipping Live Meeting, and a series of re-orgs, I became one of the first PMs on Microsoft Online Services. After about 6 months, it looked like I could contribute more as a technical writer, so I became one of the first writers on their User Assistance (UA) team, concentrating on our migration, coexistence, and onboarding/offboarding documentation.

When I'm not working, I'm usually remodeling my house or outdoors hiking and scrambling with friends and family in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest.

I had to go to Bainbridge Island for work last Friday afternoon. It was Valentine’s Day weekend, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and invite my wife. She, of course, decided to invite our dog.

Speaking of dogs, my team is dogfooding the Microsoft Online Services Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), which includes Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Communications Online, and Live Meeting. This means that all my e-mail, SharePoint sites, presence indications and secure IM communications are provided by BPOS and they’re available from anywhere that I can reach the Internet.

Anyway, while hanging out in our hotel on Saturday night eating Safeway sandwiches and watching the Olympics (because we couldn’t leave the dog alone), I got the urge to work on a document that was due on Monday. My laptop is my only computer, so I grabbed it, connected to our hotel’s wireless network, opened the Sign-In application, and clicked My Company Portal. From there, I clicked on our team’s SharePoint Online site and started editing the document. While accessing the doc, the integrated presence indicators showed me that a few other folks on our team were working on the weekend too.

I found a few unexpected questions that I had to get answered before I could finish the doc. Office Communicator is always running on my laptop, so I took a look at my team contacts and noticed that Damien was available. He’s one of those guys with the answers to almost every question, so I pinged him and, sure enough, he was able to help. I finished the document before Apolo Ohno won his silver medal, and checked it back in to our SharePoint Online site. I sent an e-mail to my boss via Exchange Online with a link to the doc to let him know it was ready, and then scheduled a Live Meeting for Monday morning to review the doc with some team members in Boston.

It’s important to understand that I was able to do all this without the hassle of creating a VPN or initiating a remote desktop session. With BPOS, I can work from anywhere; all I need is an Internet connection. My user experience was exactly the same as it is every day at work, except that I was propped up in my hotel room with my wife and our dog. I’ve been in this business long enough to appreciate just how amazing and how cool this really is!