In case you haven't seen this already, the PowerShell Cmdlet designer is now available for download as Open Source. Anyone doing any large scale cmdlet implementations can benefit from this. And it makes it a lot easier to browse a cmdlet module :-) Kudos...

It’s here… for situations where Outlook is not your preferred way to schedule meetings, we now have an alternative available.  The web scheduler is cross-platform and even works for you Lotus Notes fans ;-)  Enjoy: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads...

There is a new whitepaper out that you may want to take a look at that provides detailed guidance on how to achieve high availability and disaster recovery between regional datacenters.  This is a non-trivial problem and requires a bit of know-how...

Having recently suffered a personal loss, I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching and along the way realized a number of things I wish I had known when I was 21.  I wouldn’t ordinarily post something so personal but as I started to think about it...

Wow, has this ever stirred things up! :-) Is anyone really surprised though?  This has been expected for at least 2 years now.  If Win7 didn’t have a SKU for Netbooks, this might even be interesting.  Having used Win7 for several months...

There’s an interesting thread going on inside Microsoft about what are the cool and innovative things we have done as a company over the last decade.  I think about this quite a bit as well.   Working inside Microsoft you see both sides...

Our virtual launch is coming very soon, but I thought I would share some tidbits of information that you should know about OCS 2007 R2.  Just something to whet your appetite … 10.   64-bit We’ve made the switch to 64-bit at last. ...

Yeah, what he said:  http://radar.oreilly.com/2008/12/hard-work-and-practice-in-programming.html One thing to add is this is not learning by rote. This is discovery and creation that only surfaces through practice. The same applies equally to being...

Like most of the country, the Pacific Northwest is seeing a bit more snow than usual.  In Redmond, we fear snow.  For the greater part of the year we have very moderate weather and so most folks here don’t know how to drive on snow and ice. ...

In two weeks, VoiceCon San Francisco will kick off.  After our announcement of Office Communications Server 2007 R2 at the VoiceCon event in Amsterdam, I'm expecting quite a bit of excitement and questions about our upcoming release.  Microsoft...

Shameless plug :-) We're looking for a rockstar PowerShell program manager to join the team here in Redmond.  Got what it takes or know someone who does?  Shoot me an e-mail:  sean dot olson at microsoft dot com  UPDATE:  Thanks for all the references...

At last we are free to start blogging about our upcoming R2 release of OCS 2007 .  We've made a formal announcement at VoiceCon Amsterdam and the lid is off on this release which we've been cooking for over a year now.  I'm especially proud...

I've attended just about all of the major voice related conferences in our industry to date but of late it seems like the buzz that drew so many to VoIP and SIP in the "early" days is starting to wane as the industry matures and SIP is no longer...

Perhaps I'm getting spoiled, but I've gotten used to some basic features in any application I used nowadays and I'm really surprised by any new application that doesn't have these: Automatic, in-place upgrades: why make the user work so hard to see your...

The role of program manager at Microsoft is unique. I say that because very few external candidates who interview at Microsoft have done the job of a PM and quite a few have never heard of it before. I also say this because if you ask ten different PMs...

Awesome. Twitter meets INSTEON in the strangest combination of technology to-date. Check out the particulars here:  http://www.vimeo.com/1025711?pg=embed&sec=1025711 If you thought that was strange, check out this:  SIP for Light Bulbs Using...

Great set of videos on how folks use their Chumby over at YouTube.  I'm still working out how to hack together a simple intercom system using my Chumby and Windows Live Messenger.  In the meantime, I'm going to use a text based system via Twitter...

Recovering from a hard drive crash tells you a lot about yourself.  What do you backup? What do you miss? And what can't you live without as you start to re-create your digital life (or laptop)?  I at least had advanced warning from the intermittent...

It's that time of year already when thousands flock to sunny Orlando to experience VoiceCon . Last year, I got to see the world's largest phone: Kinda silly when you think about it but you can't help but stop and stare. Stop by the Microsoft booth to...

I worked on Unix systems for probably close to a decade before coming to work at Microsoft. The common denominator among them all was that the command line was way more interesting than whatever GUI they might provide (the two exceptions being the NeXT...

You want this tool. You need this tool. Get it now: http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/0/7/207bb9fb-bffe-478f-91b7-8339d25f7fdd/OCSPlanningTool.msi . Answer some simple questions Click Finish See your OCS 2007 Topology Nothing could be easier. Technorati...

I finally broke down and purchased a Chumby in basic black. It was a tough decision .... I mean, it runs embedded Linux after all :O.. I managed to rationalize it to myself by saying I needed a new alarm clock. Not entirely true since my current alarm...

The OCS 2007 Resource Kit book is finally here. Check it out on Amazon or your favorite bookstore. Technorati tags: Office Communications Server

Great article over at FastCompany about high quality video conferencing. My favorite part is this quote: The question is: how on earth are we still dealing with the awful sound quality of telephones, well into the age of ubiquitous internet, hybrid cars...

I hear this question all the time from customers. It's a fair question and a natural one since enterprise telephony has long been the province of the PBX manufacturers. In fact, this was such an entrenched mind set that most of the enterprise VoIP products...