Woody Walton   Happy Holidays all!   I wanted to drop you a note and let you in on a promotion that is forthcoming.  On January 3rd we will launch the BIG CASH SWEEPSTAKES! Remember, you cannot win if you do not play! You can find out more...

Posted by Charles Van Heusen I’ve been doing a fair amount of research for the past few months looking for a wireless headset solution that I could use as my primary headset in my home office to connect with my desk phone as well as a softphone solution...

by Ron Grattopp…..Back in March I blogged about something called “Microsoft Wave” and how it’s something of a showcase for our technology.  In that post I called out technologies such as: Live Mesh , Photosynth , pptPlex , Songsmith , WorldWide Telescope...

Rob Waggoner I should have told you about System Center Essentials (SCE) before now, but better late than never, right? I just watched a video with Kory McCormick and Edwin Yuen discussing Virtualization in the SMB space and Edwin has some good insight...

Rob Waggoner Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell released an application in October, Disk2vhd , that will convert a physical OS installation to a virtual machine. The application performs the P2V so that your old physical OS can become a virtual OS. ...

Q: (from Chris) I am very excited about the new Microsoft Server 2011, Office and Windows 7 family. My question is how can I learn more about these products? I am a small business but have a large client base that almost all use your software. I would...

Q: (from Jason) We’re looking for a Microsoft Partner in our area that resells Great Plains. I’m having a really hard time finding this information through the Microsoft Partner website. Is it possible that you can help me out?   A: Have you used...

Q: (from Willie) Do you know where I can send my partner for training on SharePoint Online basic setup and configuration?   A: The resource that we recommend for partners to search for training is: http://training.partner.microsoft.com I searched...

Q: (from Matt) Do you know the process on how to get a IUR (internal use licenses) for hosted CRM?   A: As of November, we’ve got a posted PDF: https://partner.microsoft.com/us/40149008 Which talks about access to 250 IUR CRM seats for partners who...

Cloud technology is getting a lot of attention. And a lot of businesses have questions about what the cloud can help them do. Materials from Ready-to-Go Marketing can help you provide answers about the cloud—and promote the uniqueness of Microsoft cloud...

The CRM team just announced the Release Candidate availability.  As things slow down over the holidays, this is a perfect time for you to get your hands dirty with the Release Candidate to prepare for the launch.  Here is the official announcement...

With the release of the security bulletins for December 2010, this bulletin summary replaces the bulletin advance notification originally issued December 9, 2010. For more information about the bulletin advance notification service, see Microsoft Security...

Many of you that have been working with the Beta releases of both Small Business Server 2011 and 2011 Essentials have provided a lot of great feedback as well as shown a lot of excitement around the next generation of updates for the Small Business Server...

  Hurry time is running out on your FREE EBS migration kit.  This Kit helps partners and customers migrate from the suite to the standalone products by providing most of the individual component software from the suite at no charge. This offer...

    SBS 2011 (which is based on Windows Server 2008 R2 technologies) has been released to manufacturing. Official Announcement: http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2010/12/13/windows-small-business-server-2011-standard-releases-to-manufacturing...

Woody Walton   Hey all! I wanted to convey some good info that relates to a post I made a few weeks back concerning Practice Accelerators.  I just got word from an internal source that if you register for upcoming Practice Accelerators in January...

Q: (from Norman) I've been having trouble finding where I need to go to purchase the licenses for Office 2010 Starter. At the Intel show in Philly you mentioned going to oem.microsoft.com which then referred me to partner.microsoft.com, but I didn't find...

Q: (from Jeff) The last time you spoke with us, delivering Office 2010 VL training you mentioned that Home Use Rights is a new feature in Open Business VL with Software Assurance. We were recently told by a licensing specialist that Home Use Rights is...

Q: (from Willie) I know that the Enterprise CAL is not a prerequisite of the Plus CAL, but if the customer only wanted voice functionality would they still need the Standard CAL (I feel confident the answer is yes, but I could not find it in the licensing...

Our friends at MSPTV in conjunction with Redmond Channel Partner are hosting a pre-holiday webcast to help you plan for the new year and making that transition to the cloud.  I know many partners are wondering how Cloud services fit in their practice...

  Exchange 2010 Upgrade and Deployment (HOLO)   This 300 level hands-on labs online course (including seven hands-on labs) will prepare learners with the knowledge to engage with customers to help them implement best practices for smooth Exchange...

Q: (from Willie) Can you elaborate on the difference between the plan 1 and plan 2 for the E3 and E4 suites? A: When you look at the differences in Exchange in E1 & E2 compared to E3 & E4, you will see we’ve added Voicemail & Advanced Archive...

by Ron Grattopp…..In my previous post I introduced an article on CRN, by Rauline Ochs, called Shopping For Cloud Vendors .  Rauline works, I believe, for IPED, apparently a research arm of CRN, and my post included an overview of the 4 main questions...

by Ron Grattopp…..I’ll bet all of us have heard that phrase on a flight followed by the crew’s thanks for your business.  This post isn’t so much about thanking you for your loyalty – it should be a given that we appreciate your partnership – but...

If you’ve been trying to figure out how to make the transition to the cloud, but didn’t know where to begin, this is the perfect opportunity for you to gain the in depth knowledge you need and get your questions answered at the convenience of working...