Windows Vista Launches!
"... It's an exciting thing to finally be here" :-) .. as Steve Ballmer said in the opening lines of his keynote from NASDAQ in New York this morning We're nearly 'here' for the Irish launch as well. Everything is set to kick off next Tuesday, December 5th. With that in mind I thought you might be interested in seeing what else is happening around the world for launch.
As this announcement marks the beginning of one of the the most significant launches in company history, with more than 1 billion people expected to use these products in the next decade. As you can imagine there will be a lot of news coverage so we have created a virtual launch site : http://msnewday.com/ so you too can be a part of this exciting news cycle. This site provides you with access to the launch keynote, and a forum for discussing business value.
The Windows Server System Reference Architecture Website is a very powerful resource providing you with detailed best practice design for you Device Services, Core Services, Security Services and Supplementary Services of your IT Infrastructure.
As an example here's what you have under Security Services:
Firewall ServicesIntroduction | Blueprint | Planning Guide | Build Guide | Operations Guide
Backup and Recovery ServicesIntroduction | Blueprint | Planning Guide | Build Guide | Operations Guide
Certificate ServicesIntroduction | Blueprint | Planning Guide | Build Guide | Operations Guide
Here are some highlights from the global launch of Windows Vista, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 -
EMEA’s First MCT Community Summit, January 10th – 12th 2007, Switzerland, Zurich
The first ever EMEA MCT Community Summit 2007! We expect 400 MCTs from EMEA to join us in Zurich Switzerland for 2.5 days of great content and energizing networking. We have invited Top of the Bill speakers and look forward to a great event.
Please register and join for this great event and have the opportunity to consume great content and spend time with our EMEA MCTs.
You will find more information on the event and the agenda on the registration pages.
Watch out for these useful announcement and other tips and tricks on the Microsoft Ireland MCS blog.
.... Terminal Services client v6.0 releasedThis is now available to download for Windows 2003 & XP.
More info is over at the terminal services team blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/ts/archive/2006/11/29/remote-desktop-connection-terminal-services-client-6-0-for-windows-xp-and-windows-server-2003-english-only-released.aspx
I heard talk of this before but it's the first time I've seen an independent report on it.
See the Microsoft Oracle Showdown here: Microsoft beats Oracle in security showdown
Forefront is Microsoft's line of security products for the client, edge and server. For more detail check out the Forefront Overview.
You can download and try out the Client, Server and Edge beta products from the Forefront website. Or watch the video showing Microsoft Forefront in action!
It's also noteworthy that Microsoft is in the leaders quadrant in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for E-Mail Security Boundary, for the 25 September 2006.
You can check out the new Windows Sysinternals Site on TechNet. Sysinternals utilities are great for working with and troubleshoot Windows systems and applications.
Of all the demos I saw at TechEd IT Forum last week this was the one that made most of an impression on me. I think SoftTricity has huge potential to make the life of an IT Pro easier. A significant amount of the pain is caused by rolling out and managing applications in your IT environment is due to the interation between the app &/ many different versions of 'the app' with the operating system. You know the story ...you roll out one app and it breaks another.
As appications are installed it changes the operating system. Things get loaded in the registry, files are held on the operating system etc.
Well with SoftTricity there is no need for this! Nothing gets loaded into the registry, nothing is held on the OS. SoftTricity combines application virtualisation which allows software to run on a system without being installed on it at all as well as a streaming technology which enables on demand delivery of software (by streaming circa 20% of the app functionality to allow the end user to use it without it being installed).
Rather than me telling you about it why not watch The DEMO for yourself.