Lots of notes & noise swirling around today after the Professional Developers Conference announcement of Windows Azure , Microsoft's platform for cloud computing and software + services. As you can imagine the wraps on this were kept tighter than...

I went to the Kenny Rogers concert on Friday night at the State Theatre. Now before you start - it was fantastic. He was funny, the crowd loved it (admittedly I was one of the youngest people there) & he sang all his hits - The Gambler, Lucille, Lady...

What is the purpose of this alert? Microsoft is scheduled to release a security bulletin (out-of-band) to address a vulnerability in all currently supported versions of Windows. The software update will be available for download from the Microsoft Update...

As of tomorrow (Friday), I have exactly one week to go until I finish my MBA . Why am I telling you this? Well, just so as you know that I may be a bit hard to catch over the coming seven days & not as responsive as I'd like to be as I finally climb...

Just received word that the exclusive SBSC Toolkit shipping with the October Action Pack will include 15 additional CALs for SBS & EBS. Nice. The kits will be at the Microsoft post office from October 24th & so should be with you a few weeks after...

You've probably heard by now that Steve Ballmer's going to be in Sydney on November 6/7, however what you may not know is that he's going to be presenting at a live web rally . That's right, along with about a thousand other meetings the Microsoft CEO...

Great pick-up from the lads over at our Australian Windows Mobile blog on what really happens when old phones get recycled. Made me chuckle. :-) Robbie

Following on from my earlier post on our proactive campaign to help customers succeed in a tough economy, please find below a video address that Paul Voges recorded earlier today for the attention of all Microsoft Australian partners (Paul is the Director...

Great to see more positive reviews coming through for Small Business Server 2008 in the lead-up to the November 12th launch. This latest one comes from the PC World Australia & their closing thoughts? With the release of Small Business Server 2008...

Hard times. Nervous times. Companies losing confidence & the economy in turmoil. What to do? There's a very strong argument that says organisations should pull back, consolidate, stop spending and just ride out the storm. And that absolutely makes...

Great post from my good friend & must read blogger, Karl Palachuk in Sacramento, about how to continue making money when all clients want to do is save. Here's a snippet: When you hear people say that small businesses are more flexible than big businesses...

With thanks to Christian Long from our ISV team: Register now for the Microsoft Innovation Days roadshow in November. This is your opportunity to 'get your feet on the ground, head in the clouds' and connect with top IT architects, developers and partners...

Lots of discussion (and confusion - our fault) on SBS 2008 downgrades & so to try & make it clear, the table below summarises what you can do: CALs If I want to downgrade SBS 2008 to SBS 2003, how will CAL activation work in that scenario since...

The stock has arrived into Australia. Finally. Its sitting with customs at the moment & then shipping to our fulfillment centre next week where we will collate & send out a copy to each of the attendees of our recent SMB Servers day at TechEd...

They've only been live for a couple of days however the first round of SBS 2008 & EBS 2008 hands-on labs are starting to fill-up. The keen-as-mustard Queenslanders have already reached capacity for the first session so nows the time to book yourself...

With its worldwide availability just around the corner, now is the time to start thinking about whether Essential Business Server 2008 is a solution that you want to offer your clients. Does it fit your practice? What technical training will you need...

Following on from the SBS 2008 demo , we have the Essential Business Server 2008 version . Great way to start talking about your solution with potential clients. Cheers & let me know what you think, Robbie

Not sure how many people have seen the SBS 2008 click-thru demo & so here it is again. With scenarios such as back-up, adding a new user, reports & RWW, this fully-scripted demo is a simple, easy way to show a prospective customer the benefits...

Lots of questions about this at the moment & so the definitive answer is: Components of SBS cannot be downgraded independently. If you choose to downgrade one component, you must downgrade the entire suite. Because Microsoft recognizes that line-of...

Hot on the heels of the hands-on labs we announced last week, you can now check-out the recently recorded Partner Academy Live Technical Training series. Recorded at Corp with a mix of demo & talking-head PPTs, each hour long, downloadable session...

Not sure how many partners in Australia use this complimentary online technical support service but it could be worth a look. Not the be all to end all of technical support, but another tool in your armoury. Open to MAPS subscribers only, questions will...

Now that EBS 2008 has RTM'd , I'm pleased to announce the local Australian estimated retail prices. The specific SKUs & dealer pricing will be available via distribution from November 1st however I acknowledge that partners need to see at least indicative...

Lots of good technical content starting to flow down for SBS & EBS now & so at the risk of clogging your download limits, I thought I'd collate & share some of the most popular. A few of these were distributed on the USBs that we handed out...

Lots of questions around the availability of Small Business Server 2003 R2 now that SBS 2008 has been released. So to clarify: Volume licensing- SBS 2003 R2 media will be available until the version following 2008 is released, however SBS 2003 R2 license...

With the release of SBS 2008 onto the distribution pricelists on October 1st, there have been some issues around: SBS 2008 CAL downgrades to previous version (how to get the license keys) Adding SA to SBS 2003 R2 OEM & FPP product I'm waiting on an...