Found an interesting quote from IT Pro today : For customers who do switch to Vista, there are fewer issues than with XP; fewer users are calling Microsoft or the OEMs for Vista support compared to the first 90 days of XP and the call volume is decreasing four times faster than it did with Windows XP...

Today sees the launch of Windows Server 2008 and the campaign we're pushing out into market is one of turning IT guys and girls into heroes within their companies.  Don't get it? Imagine turning the perception of your IT department as a cost centre and a black hole for budget into one of delivering...

Chris has got info on new product demos featuring System Center and Business Intelligence: The Microsoft Partner Demo Showcase download has been extended to include Deep Dive/Product virtual environments which are available to ALL Microsoft partners, including SBSC. Only Demo Showcase remains as the...

I've been doing a little light reading on my flight to Edinburgh this afternoon.  I'm in Scotland for meetings with Partners over the next couple of days to talk about Core IO and these two whitepapers are very pertinent to those discussions. The first is a whitepaper from EMA talks about why, with...

As one might expect, Mr Mobile - aka Jason Langridge has details on upcoming training for System Center Mobile Device Manager.  Worth checking out if you need to easily manage all your mobile devices from one place. Windows Mobile Security and Device Management:  Business Value for Partners  ...

Matt passed this link on to me today and thought it might be useful to help understand and demonstrate the capabilities in our Edge security offering.  In particular Intelligent Application Gateway (IAG) which provides secure access to company applications and resources wherever you are connected...

One of things we are currently talking to our customers and partners about is the concept of having end-to-end management of IT products and solutions from desktop all the way to the datacenter servers and all the infrastructure in between. New products in System Center including Virtual Machine Manager...

One of the things that I spend much of time talking to partners about is how to use the excellent tools and resources available to them so that they can turn their deployment of Vista and Office 2007 into a efficient, cost effective operation. IT can be the competitive differentiation between you and...

We've sold 1,000,000 licenses for MDOP since October 2006 - so it must be pretty important right? So what is it? Well, it stands for Microsoft Desktop Optimisation Pack (you'll need to use Optimization if you want to Live it) and is a set of desktop management tools available through Software Assurance...

Well, it depends a lot on your individual circumstances as a organisation but the Swedish Medical Center in Seattle have managed to do save $1,000,000. Their IT is quite big with 500 applications across 4,500 desktops and 150 thin desktops and they have just over 7200 employees. They made their savings...

The new public beta for Windows Vista Hardware Assessment has been released and you can go sign up and download the beta from the Microsoft Connect website . What is Windows Vista Hardware Assessment? I've covered this before ( see here for all the detail ) but in essence this free app allows you to...

Powershell is an object orientated scripting language which is extensible and is the foundation admin tool for Exchange Server 2007 and System Center Operations Manager 2007. One of our MVPs (Most Valuable Professionals) talks about Windows Server 2008 in particular powershell and virtualisation on this...

Just speculation, but upon closer inspection of the announcement of the agreement between Microsoft and Juniper networks , this little excerpt slipped out: "Microsoft is announcing that Windows Vista supports this protocol today and Windows Server ® 2008 and Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) will support...

Being an earlier adopter can sometimes be painful because you have to do a lot of the learning and path finding on your own. Microsoft IT are the best example of early adopters and it's good to see they are sharing their experiences with the rest of us so we can learn from their mistakes and knowledge...

Something I've been crafting for the last couple of weeks is a one stop shop for all your deployment resources and information. Well here it is, the Vista Deployment Den ! Most recent additions include: Vista Driver Compatibility Assess your Hardware the easy way! Software inventory and app compatibility...

We are pleased to announce the new Desktop Deployment Planning Services Readiness (BDD v3) Workshop for partners. Duration 4 Days Cost £400 4 Deliveries in H2 Technologies & Products used during the course User State Migration Tool 3.0 Windows Vista Deployment tools WinPE System Image Manager Windows...

If they haven't deployed already, businesses are starting to think about deploying Windows Vista and Office 2007. Microsoft Partners have a great opportunity to provide deployment services for these new technologies and do so in a repeatable, process-driven manner. The Business Desktop Deployment Accelerator...

Support Assistance: Microsoft has implemented worldwide procedures to provide customers and partners no-charge support for DST assistance. Check them out below: Premier 1. For technical support at no-cost contact the local Microsoft Customer Support: 1-800-936-3100 (U.S.) or visit the support site for...

The training maestros over QA-IQ are running a free Windows Vista Deployment Summit at Microsoft UK HQ on April 18th. There is capacity for 120 people but, as always, the tickets are going very quickly . The summit will feature Jason and Keith from the Deployment Center of Excellence Team and a keynote...

The IIS website over at www.iis.net has had a revamp in the wake of the Vista launch which of course comes with IIS7; the latest and greatest version of Internet Information Server. One of the things that I like about IIS7, apart from the new management console, is the fact that as an application developer...

We are pleased to announce the release of the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment Public Beta! Please proceed to the Downloads area of this Connect site and download the TWO packages labeled Version 1.0.151.7: Software: Windows Vista Hardware Assessment Public Beta Build Powerpoint Files: How to Use Microsoft...

To help customers through this change and in response to their feedback, Microsoft has decided to amend the regular Extended Hotfix Support program to add a new pricing category for extended non-security hotfixes with a wide customer demand. The new pricing category will be applied to the daylight saving...

Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007 is THE best practice set of comprehensive guidance and tools from Microsoft to optimally deploy Windows VistaT and the 2007 Microsoft® Office system. BDD 2007 has undergone many changes to significantly ease the deployment of Windows Vista, including new out-of...

We've got a fair few machines kicking about at Microsoft and as you can imagine deploying Windows Vista and Office 2007 is quite a task in itself. In fact, planning such a depoyment is a job in itself. If you're planning your Vista and Office 2007 rollout and you want to get some great insight into how...

Further to my recent post about Daylight Saving updates to Microsoft products, partners are encouraged to join the webcast on this very subject. You can sign up for the webcast here: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032324210 Again, you can find more information on the DST...