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Office 365 Adapter - Deploying Office 365 Single Sign-On using Windows Azure

MSFTTS2 — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:41:27 GMT

B V A

The following link is for a recently published document detailing How to utilize Azure for Single Sign-On to Office 365. It is designed for system architects who want to understand the architecture and deployment options for extending your customer’s on-premise Active Directory Infrastructure with Windows Azure Virtual Machines: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=38845

In reading through the document, not only does it discuss the Azure conversation, it does a phenomenal job in distinguishing the concepts of ADFS, and Azure. The Document provides insights into the best implementation practices, an analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of the new Windows Azure solutions available, and a comparison to on-premises implementations. Depending on your customer’s business needs, Windows Azure will be the appropriate choice.

Running infrastructure components in Windows Azure™ has multiple benefits that include:

· Cloud strategy. Better aligns with your cloud strategy, helping to reduce on-premises hardware investments.

· Potential for reduced cost for hardware and software. Includes the potential to expand the conversion from capital expenditures to operational expenditures for the infrastructure services that are supporting your Office 365 deployment. You won’t have to purchase additional servers and run them in your data centers or from a remote location.

· Rapid deployment. Infrastructure components can be deployed in a relatively short time, requiring little to no additional on-premises hardware resources.

· Improved business continuity. Federated users can continue to log on to Office 365, even when the on-premises environment is temporarily unavailable.

· Scalability on-demand. If you require expansion or changes to your directory integration in the future, Windows Azure gives you the flexibility to make these changes rapidly, without additional on-premises investments.

· Site resiliency and disaster recovery. Possible scenarios include disaster recovery where Windows Azure is hosting redundant critical services for your infrastructure. This enables a failover in case there’s an on-premises disaster.

· Flexibility. Components may be relocated, load-balanced, and distributed across multiple geographic regions. This reduces dependency on the corporate network.

Integrating Office 365 with your existing on-premises platforms requires careful planning, regardless of whether they are implemented on-premise or in Windows Azure. Planning the implementation and management of these infrastructure components in the cloud is almost identical to implementing on-premise. I would strongly encourage the detailed reading and thought process in Section 3, as it describes the deployment scenarios, but also goes into detail on “Is this the right solution” ?

Mobile Device Support in the New Office 365

MSFTTS2 — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:40:35 GMT

Tim Tetrick

I wanted to take the opportunity to review the great mobile device support that’s included in the new Office 365. You can access email, calendar, documents, instant messaging, presence, audio, video, and other Office 365 services from your mobile phone or tablet. Supported devices include Windows Phone, iPhone and iPad, Android Phone, Nokia (Symbian OS), and BlackBerry devices. For a comprehensive look at all the features and capabilities available across the different phones and tablets, see Compare how different mobile devices work with Office 365.

With Exchange Online, you can use your mobile phone, tablet, or other supported device to access information in your mailbox including email messages, voice mail messages, calendar items, contacts, and task data. For more information, see Set up and use Office 365 on your phone or tablet.

With SharePoint Online, you can access SharePoint sites and SkyDrive Pro from an Internet-connected mobile phone or tablet. You can view and update documents, lists, and other site content and collaborate with colleagues, all from your mobile device. Learn more at Use a mobile device to work with SharePoint Online sites

For Lync Online, the recently released Lync 2013 mobile clients now include voice over IP (VoIP) and video over IP capabilities, in addition to contacts, presence, and IM features. Mobile users can choose to communicate with others through IM, voice calls, or video calls by using either Wi-Fi or their cellular data connection. With a single click of the meeting link in a calendar item, mobile users can join voice and video meetings. For a comparison of features and capabilities of the Lync 2013 mobile clients across the various supported platforms, see Mobile Client Comparison Tables.

I created a short video which walks through the mobile device experience in the new Office 365. This video specifically shows the Windows Phone 8 experience.

To get started, go to Set up and use Office 365 on your phone or tablet and follow the links to setup your specific device. Enjoy!

Apps for SharePoint and SharePoint Online

MSFTTS2 — Fri, 17 May 2013 22:26:17 GMT

Michael Kophs, Cloud TSP

A while back I blogged about adding Apps from the Office App store to Excel. You can also add apps to the latest version of Outlook, Word and Project as well. Now if you think Office Apps are cool, then you’re going to love SharePoint Apps!

The last time I checked, there were 171 Apps in the SharePoint App store. Most are free, some you have to purchase. OK, not quite the store size we’re used to, I get it, but there is still something very compelling about the Office and SharePoint App Store. 1) The current apps offer instant BUSINESS value and functionality to Office 365 (sorry no ill-tempered bird games, zombies or highly addictive word games) and 2) the new App Dev platform is based off of open standards, allowing for a much simpler development model. We can certainly expect the number of quality apps to rapidly grow in the coming months.

Following are screenshots of a few FREE apps that I think are pretty cool and could easily be deployed and adopted by any business using SharePoint Online (part of Office 365) or even SharePoint 2013 on-premises. Each screenshot is linked to the Office App Store:

Easily display the weather of each of your company offices on your SharePoint home page:

Here’s a must have App for every organization. Display your company news on your SharePoint homepage with this interactive news app that automatically cycles through each news item:

Easily download and deploy this Recruiting App to assist with your HR departments recruiting efforts:

Need a quick and painless way to track employee PTO requests? Check out the timeOFF Lite app:

Explore the app store and easily add apps that you find compelling to your Office 365 account and test them out yourself! Here are few links to get you started in your App evaluation:

Office and SharePoint App Store

Development Center for Office and SharePoint Apps

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/officeapps/archive/2012/07/17/introducing-the-new-office-cloud-app-model.aspx

Exchange Online Archiving (EOA) NOW Available as Add-on to Any Enterprise Exchange Online Plan

MSFTTS2 — Thu, 16 May 2013 22:00:38 GMT

Todd Sweetser

Hi Cloud Sellers!

GREAT NEWS! Exchange Online Archiving (EOA) is now available as add-on to any Enterprise Exchange Online plan.

What does this mean? Exchange Online Archiving (EOA), including In-Place hold and unlimited storage, was previously only available to be purchased as an add-on to on-premises Exchange Server 2010 mailboxes. Customers who wished to use Exchange Online mailboxes and required In-Place hold (or Litigation hold as it is sometimes called) were required to purchase Exchange Plan 2 (or E3/E4.) With this enhancement, Exchange Online Archiving (EOA) can now be purchased as an add-on to any Exchange Online plan, including Kiosk and Plan 1.

Specifically, Exchange Online Archiving (EOA) is now available as an add-on for Enterprise K1,K2, E1, A2, G1, and Exchange Online Plan1, Exchange Online K SKUs at a cost of $3.00 per user license per month.

How to add this to purchase:

During purchase process you select to Add your selection to the cart:

Following dialog is displayed, select optional add-ons:

From there you will now see option to add Exchange Online Archiving:

See similar example for the E1 SKU:

For customers who have already purchased the process is as follows:

When accessing your licenses on the Commerce Portal in the Office 365 console here you would see following:

And here you will see optional add-ons section to add Exchange Online Archiving:

Thanks and good selling!

Can USB drives be used for Windows Server 2012 Backups?

MSFTTS2 — Thu, 16 May 2013 14:22:09 GMT

Rob Waggoner

I received the following question from Joe:

“Is there an easy way to install a USB hard drive that can be used for backups?”

Answer:

Easy is always a relative term, but the following article talks about how to setup a schedule with multiple external drives and should give you what you need.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732939.aspx

Another option these days is cloud based backup. Windows Azure is offing a Preview of their backup service, additional details here:

http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/details/backup/

Until next time,

Rob

Get a Rebate on your Hyper-V deployments with Hyper-V Surge

MSFTTS2 — Wed, 15 May 2013 22:30:00 GMT

Rob Waggoner

We just announced this program for our partners deploying Hyper-V. The full detail is located here, but basically you as the reseller can get a $150.00 rebate for selling Windows Server Standard and a $500.00 rebate for selling Windows Server Datacenter. You also need to install the Hyper-V role and deploy virtual machines on the Server, but this is a great way to add additional margin to the work you are doing already!

Be sure to check out the full terms and conditions; this is designed for our small and medium business (SMB) customers who have a maximum of 250 seats purchasing the Server products through Microsoft Open licensing.

Of course this is a limited term offer for your sales between April 15, 2013 and June 21, 2013. All sales must be registered by June 30, 2013 and the deployments must be complete by September 30, 2013.

The full terms of the offer are listed here.

Until next time,

Rob

del.icio.us Tags: Hyper-V Surge,Hyper-V Rebate,Windows Server Standard,Windows Server Datacenter,Rebate

Partners, your customers only have 15 Days and 20 Hours to make a qualifying Big Easy or Cloud Easy purchase!!

MSFTTS2 — Wed, 15 May 2013 20:23:49 GMT

J.J. Antequino

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I’m not sure if I have made this clear enough, but you and your customers only have about 2 weeks to take advantage of the Big Easy and Cloud Easy offers!

This incentive ends on MAY 31st!!

I wrote about both of these incentives a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to send out yet another reminder

Head on over to the following Partner landing pages to learn more:

Big Easy – http://aka.ms/bigeasyoffer

Cloud Easy - http://aka.ms/cloudeasy

I would also encourage you to send your customers to http://www.microsoftincentives.com/BigEasy10/ and http://www.microsoftincentives.com/CloudEasy3/ where they can see how little time they have left. The clock is literally ticking on those pages!

What’s new about The Big Easy Offer 10?

1.	Office Open L– Big Easy 10 includes subsidy payout on Microsoft Open L for Core products (Office & Windows Server).
2.	Higher payouts on growth and incubation products– enabling you to catalyze small and mid-sized business adoption of SQL, Dynamics, Lync and System Center.
3.	Annuity Accelerator– 5% annuity kicker on annuity licenses added, enabling you to drive annuity business.
4.	The “Hybrid IT” accelerator- Customers can earn an additional 5% in partner subsidy funds when they attach a minimum of 10 seats of O365 Open (M or SBP) to any Open agreement containing Windows Server or SQL Server within 30 days of the original purchase. This accelerator is available April 1 – May 31, 2013.

What’s new about The Cloud Easy?

1. Includes Online Services – Customers can earn 15.0% subsidy payout on Microsoft® Office 365 Open/SBP, Microsoft® Office 365, Microsoft® Windows Intune, Microsoft® Dynamics CRM Online, Microsoft® SharePoint Online, Microsoft® Lync Online and Microsoft® Exchange Online in a single subsidy offer.

2. “Hybrid IT” accelerator – Customers can earn an additional 5% in partner subsidy funds when they attach 10 seats of O365 Open (M or SBP) to any Open agreement containing Windows Server or SQL Server

Refer a friend to WPC and get a $100 refund on your Registration!

MSFTTS2 — Tue, 14 May 2013 21:34:08 GMT

Rob Waggoner

This offer is only good for 48 hours so act now!

Here are the details from this link:

For 48 hours only, from 7 a.m. PST on Tuesday, May 14 through 7 a.m. PST on Thursday, May 16, you can receive a US$100 refund for each friend or colleague you refer who registers for WPC. Refunds will be provided for up to ten (10) unique, individual referrals, up to a maximum of US$1,000. But that’s not all: your referred colleagues will also receive US$100 off of the full registration price for a 2013 WPC all access pass, which means they will only have to pay US$1,895.

So as the site says, you can save a lot of money by referring up to 10 people within the next 48 hours.

Please check the WPC site here, for the full details, but act now before time runs out!

Until next time,

Rob

Technorati Tags: WPC Refer a Friend,Save Money on WPC 2013

WPC is for US SMB Partners... Here's Why!

MSFTTS2 — Mon, 13 May 2013 19:43:53 GMT

Rob Waggoner

Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) is just around the corner and many partners are wondering what to expect this year in Houston. During WPC 2012, the focus was on anticipating what was to come. This year, the new era is here! With new versions of virtually every product in the Microsoft portfolio launched within the past 12 months, and the introduction of Office 365 Open delivering choice to partners in how they sell cloud, it truly is a new era for Microsoft and our partners who serve SMBs.

In this video hear from Cindy Bates, Vice President of Microsoft U.S. small- and mid-sized business and distribution partner group, about the valuable opportunities for partners at WPC and how to take advantage of the new era. She’ll provide details about her keynote on Thursday of the conference, entitled “Winning and Growing in the SMB Relationship Era,” and insight on the in-depth session, called, “The U.S. SMB Partner Playbook.”

To register for WPC 2013, please click here.

Until next time,

Rob

Technorati Tags: WPC,Microsoft WPC,Cindy Bates

del.icio.us Tags: WPC,Microsoft WPC,Cindy Bates

Don’t Leave Free Money on the Table: The Customer Ignite Offer expires in two weeks.

MSFTTS2 — Wed, 01 May 2013 03:52:55 GMT

Woody Walton

It isn’t often that anyone offers to give you anything for free, so when it comes along you should take advantage. Recently, the Ready-to-go team at Microsoft put together the Customer Ignite offer. The offer ends on May 15th and there is still plenty of time to act if you have not done so. A summary of the offer is below and is limited to the first 250 partners that act. …so act!

Why use the Customer Ignite Offer?

This is a tremendous launch year and we know you’re aware of the significant customer upgrade opportunity it presents. To help you seize this opportunity, Ready-to-Go Marketing now has a new service to help you customize and send unsolicited sales proposals through a direct mail fulfillment program. It’s an easy and effective way for you to generate customer interest and demand.

To get you started, Microsoft is offering the first 250 partners to respond up to Eight Hundred Dollars USD $800.00, (*please refer to the terms and conditions) - towards the cost of sending customized sales proposals to new and existing customers.

-Woody

LiveJournal Tags: Woody Walton,Microsoft Partner Network,Ready-to-go,Customer Workbook,Customer Ignite,Free marketing help,Drive demand,sell microsof