I want to let people know of some great work that our Small and Medium Business team released to beta today. The work is called the Assessment and Deployment Solution for Mid-sized Businesses (really catchy name...) Over the next several months this work...

Our team is well into planning for IT Forum and will be delivering a number of breakout sessions, chalk-n-talks, and hands on labs. The curriculum list is almost final and when it is locked, I'll be posting what specific sessions we are doing. If you...

I fell off the blogging wagon in June. My lame excuses include: TechEd came up and that took too much time with planning and actual event, vacations hit and I was gone, it is too sunny in Seattle in the summer so I was outside storing up sunshine for...

At TechEd next week, my team is going to be doing a couple of focus groups. One, on Thursday at noon, is going to be around MidMarket IT issues. On Monday at noon, we are going to be focused on interoperability and migration issues. If you would like...

BOF stands for Birds of a Feather -- these are more informal conversations around key topics, typically held in the evening at TechEd. If you are working through platform interoperability issues, come join Jason Zions in a conversation about his work...

One of the more challenging tasks for an IT pro is building out and supporting a branch office infrastructure. Come hear about the work we have done in this area to make it easier and more predictable: MGT375 Branch Office Infrastructure Solution ...

Know MOF? If not, this is the place to learn it from one of the best. MGT205 Improving Operational Efficiency with Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) Speaker(s): Kyle Bergum Session Type(s): Breakout Sessions Track(s): Management & Operations...

Interested in operations and management of Windows infrastructure? MGT304 Introducing System Center Reporting Server 2005: Understanding, Architecting and Deploying Speaker(s): Karri Alexion-Tiernan , Craig Morris Session Type(s): Breakout Sessions...

You in a Medium Sized business? If so this is the session for you: SVR329 Design and Implement an End-to-End Infrastructure Based on Windows Server System in a Medium-Sized Business Speaker(s): Kevin Lisota , Kalpesh Patel Session Type(s): Breakout...

We completed a big project on IPsec. These guys are the authors and experts so if you want to learn about IPsec, this is session for you. SEC330 Server and Domain Isolation Using IPsec Speaker(s): Steve Clark , Charles Denny Session Type(s):...

We have a large contingent from our team heading down to TechEd next week. We have a number of speakers leading breakout sessions, have one Birds of a Feather session, running a couple of focus groups, and working the show floor. If you are going you...

Interesting report today on MSNBC about bank employees who stole 700,000 customers bank account information and sold to collection agencies for $10 an account. What is interesting for me is that I spent some time over the last year talking with customers...

Interesting article on the recent moves in California to rein back in potential national privacy transgressions. Question I have is -- why is it that California has to keep leading the way on privacy issues? We, as in the rest of the US, likely would...

New report out from Pew on the growing importance of the Internet in the daily healthcare of people: "Eight in ten internet users have looked online for information on at least one of 16 health topics, with increased interest since 2002 in diet, fitness...

Internetnews.com reports on a study completed by Forrester noting "most IT users are not satisfied with their company's IT support, and users are "less than satisfied with their relationships with their IT departments." The big dissatisfiers were the...

Computerworld had an article on the impact that Sabanes-Oxley compliance is having on IT projects: "Jim Morse, program office manager at Meijer Inc., a Grand Rapids, Mich.-based retailer, estimated that Sarbanes-Oxley-related quality-assurance testing...

Noticed an interesting article in Computerworld regarding IT and business alignment. Of particular note was the following quote: "Alignment is a moving target, not a permanent condition. Moreover, the likelihood of achieving it is slim at best unless...

I have been lax on the postings lately because I underwent Lasik surgery on my eyes to correct bad near sightedness. It was an interesting experience from a technology perspective. At one point they do a full refractive analysis of my eye -- how is my...

When I was a kid, living in NY, my parents used to say that what California did, the rest of the country would do in a few years. Well if the momentum in DC keeps up, as reported in InformationWeek , we may soon have a national data privacy law, much...

CNet reports today on the latest article by Nicholas Carr (author of IT Doesn't Matter) where he describes how companies will move from treating IT as an asset they own to a service/utility they rent. He cites that virtualization, grid computing and web...

Saw this report today on feed from Doc Searles . Very interesting. NOP World notes: "When asked how they make recommendations, 80% of consumers say they make them in-person, followed by 68% who say they make them over the telephone. This phenomenon...

With the reported loss of employee data by Time Warner yesterday, I have been thinking about what Bruce Schneier wrote in his newsletter about two factor authentication and identity theft. I have to now agree with his point -- the way to meet this threat...

Solution Guide for Migrating Oracle on UNIX to SQL Server on Windows The Competitive Platform Interop & Migration Solutions team announces the release to download and Web of the Solution Guide for Migrating Oracle on UNIX to SQL Server on Windows...

Interesting report today in the News-Record in North Carolina. Seems that High Point Regional Healthcare System is now hosting patient blogs on its website -- partly as a means to help drive traffic to their site, but also because it seems to be therapeutic...

Information Week released their recent salary survey . Seems that people in general in this field are more satisfied this year than a year ago. But what was interesting is this finding: "While the majority of the 12,158 IT professionals surveyed...