VIRTUALBOY BLOG
Well, me and 10,191 other people, but that's not the point :-)
See more here, http://profile.mygamercard.net/mattmcspirit and feel free to add me as a friend if you want a game of something! My current game of choice is Rockstar Table Tennis!
This session is aimed at providing IT professionals with a complete understanding of Microsoft’s Software Licensing. The course is not in-depth or technical, but will help you evaluate the different licensing options to best suit your business needs. The session will cover:
• The basics of Microsoft’s licensing options
• Differences between OEM, FPP and Volume licensing
• How you can benefit from investing in Software Assurance
• How you can manage your licenses using Software Asset Management (SAM), minimising time and cost
• How to licence a client/server environment including Terminal Services and Virtual Server 2005
• Licensing specific Microsoft Servers, such as Windows Server 2003, MOSS 2007, Exchange 2007 and others
• Preview of Licensing for 2008 Servers
• Question and Answer Session
We will provide you with tools and resources to help you manage your licenses and avoid costly mistakes.
Register now
Now this isn't my request for more friends! If you're a Microsoft Partner, and you're used to using the Ask Partner phone line to ask certain questions, you'll know that sometimes it can be a little time consuming if you only have a few quick questions. The PartnerBot can really help overcome that issue.
What is the PartnerBot?
"Partner Bot is an Instant Messenger 'data digger', which quickly retrieves partner-related information and shows you where you can find the answers you need. Add Partner Bot as a buddy in your Windows Live Messenger contacts and it will always be available whenever you're logged in. Simply type in your question and Partner Bot will bring back an instant response. Whether you're looking for support options, searching for competitive information or want to learn more about competencies, ask Partner Bot and it will point you in the right direction."
Currently, if you add Partner Bot to your contacts and then type this question in the conversation window: 'I want to ask Partner Bot the £1,000 question', you could be in with a chance to win £1,000 in Capital Bonds vouchers.
How Do I Add Partner Bot to My Contacts?
Log-in to Windows Live Messenger
Click on 'Add a Contact' icon
Add 'partnerbot@hotmail.com' into Instant Messaging Address
You can read all about the PartnerBot, and the promotion here: https://partner.microsoft.com/UK/40043201
The closing date of this promotion is April 28 2008.
If you have a Microsoft licensing agreement* there are resources you already have to help explain why and how you can effectively deploy Windows Vista and Office 2007 in your organisation. Following on from a successful event last year on this topic and as a result of further requests for the need to explain the real business and technical benefits of deployment, this event session will look at the ROI, immediate and long term benefits of deploying Windows Vista and Office 2007 within your organisation. The content will include an in depth explanation of the deployment tools and support and how to maximise the value of these tools to deploy Windows Vista and Office 2007 effectively.
Agenda:
09.15 - Why deploy now?
This session will include a higher level look into Windows Vista and 2007 Microsoft Office system now that they have been available for over a year, as well as highlighting the key features including improving productivity
9:45 - How to realise the value of your Microsoft investment
This session will delve into the detail of the vision from the first session. We will showcase best practices, benefits and ROI that customers have experienced
10.30 - Coffee
10.45 - Entitlement and how to activate tools and services
An overview of what is available to help you
11.15 - Tools, best practice and methodologies to assist in planning and deploying
Finally a deeper look into some of the techniques you can use to deploy these technologies in your organisation
11:45 - Q&A
12.00 - Close
-> Register Now to attend on 6 May 2008 in Reading
-> Register Now to attend on 3 June 2008 in Manchester (registration opening soon)
*The number of days of deployment planning services you are eligible for is based on spend on Software Assurance for Microsoft Office programs. Software Assurance spending is calculated at the initial sale; as you purchase additional Software Assurance coverage, it is added to your total until the benefit is activated.
(Note Amounts vary depending on currency.)
The following Volume Licensing programs are eligible for this benefit:
Virtualisation - Public Sector Hot Topic Series
The session on Virtualisation will review the positioning and value proposition of this powerful, performance virtualisation technology with strong management and security features. Hyper-V will help the sector reduce costs, increase agility and system availability for production server consolidation, disaster recovery, test and development, and, when coupled with System Center Virtual Machine Manager, the end-to-end management of dynamic datacenters.
Andreas, one of the Solution Architect's at IBM, has developed a couple of videos talking about Hyper-V, both from an architectural and business perspective, along with how IBM hardware is well placed to provide a platform for Hyper-V. The 2nd video also goes on to discuss other aspects of virtualisation, such as Desktop Virtualisation. This a great example of one of our Partners seeing an opportunity, both around the software, and the hardware, and utilising the web as a way to showcase their work. Nice work guys!
Andreas and I will be undertaking in a small roadshow in the near future, to showcase some of these technologies in more detail, so watch this space!
If you're interested in learning more about the Microsoft Partner Programme, and all the benefits it brings, this is for you! The KickStart courses have been so popular with partners, we’ve scheduled even more dates to meet the demand. Feedback from previous courses showed 100% of the attendees were satisfied:
“I could have done with this course 12-18 months ago when we first became a gold partner!” Alliance Systems, MBS Gold Partner.
“A very informative and worthwhile training event...I found it extremely useful, making over 5 pages of notes” MidlandHR, Certified Partner
The course covers the following:
To register, visit www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/plc and do a search for 44WK018 which is the course code. You should find all the different times and venues listed in the results.
Intended Audience:
Key partner dedicated administrators within the business. Any other personnel who would like to be trained up on the tools and resources we offer on our partner portal. Open to all partners, but some sections will be specific to Certified and Gold partner tasks.
Training Dates for 2008: