On Monday 21st November 4pm-5pm (UK time) we will be hosting a web cast on troubleshooting Exchange Activesync. The speaker will be Paul Flaherty, Support Specialist for Microsoft UK. He will be covering off some of the most common support issues around Exchange Activesync and techniques and tips for delving deeper into problem solving in EAS. Paul will also be covering off how to troubleshoot some of the new features of Exchange 2003 Service Pack 2.

You will be able to join the webcast on 21st November via this link: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/microsoft/join?id=MB9CF5&role=attend&pw=hh%5DGD8HQq

It's totally off topic, but I thought this was interesting:

Reading - UK - 20 October 2005 - Microsoft UK and Wembley National Stadium Ltd have today announced that Microsoft has become Wembley Stadium's first Founding Partner.

The 90,000-seat venue will be the biggest and most sophisticated stadium in the world, when it opens next year. As Wembley Stadium's first Founding Partner, Microsoft UK will support the Stadium in its final stage of construction and for the first four years of its operational life.

Nick Barley, Business & Marketing Officer at Microsoft UK, explained:

"Microsoft believes in helping people to achieve their potential. Wembley Stadium plays a unique role in British life it's a national icon that has inspired generation after generation of young people with the dream of playing and performing at Wembley. By becoming Wembley Stadium's first Founding Partner, we are helping to ensure that dream continues."

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/press/content/presscentre/releases/2005/10/PR03529.asp

Now imagine the referee running around the pitch with a little wireless Pocket PC in his to pocket, being able to call up video clips from various angles and photos of incidents.... Now how about tagging the players and using real time tracking to help with off-side decisions... :-)

Last week we hosted a webcast on Mobilising Small Business Server. Scott Millar of Exactive shared some of his experiences with Windows Mobile and SBS2003 and some of the key messages that he takes to his customers. If you want to check out the webcast, the recording is here: https://www119.livemeeting.com/cc/microsoft/view?id=47NFCH

My thanks to Scott for taking part and thank you to those who attended the live webcast.

They powered the Gumballers across Europe and now the boys over at ALK have been busy updating CoPilot and have announced the arrival of v6. I *love* this application as it just works - it's easy and powerful and if you're a business, you will love the Live element that allows you to track units in the field. Check out the business solutions site from ALK where they highlight their recent partnership with TBS

Great news for Microsoft Partners working with Exchange - we now have a Hand on Lab (HOL) available on the Microsoft Partner Program site. As many of you will know, SP2 for Exchange is shipping soon (very soon!) so now is a great time to get fully up to speed on how this mobility features work and how to administer them. The Community Tech Preview of SP2 didn't include device wipe but these labs do so well worth checking out.

Enjoy and remember the mobility competency launches very soon so get yourself ready for that be checking out the requirements!

If you're a developer you may want to check out the Visual Studio hosted labs - a great way to learn more about VS2005

Well it made me laugh

A week in and I'm loving this phone. The HTC guys have done a stunning job on the design and finish of the unit - it really looks like a well polished product and will stand out from the crowd. Although marginally bigger than my previous SP3 (C500) and SP3i units it's worth in in terms of the keypad which is comfortable and the joystick seems solid so far. The killer feature remains the WiFi inclusion and all of my colleagues in Microsoft have "oohed" and "aahed" when a press the little button on the top right that allow you to quickly enable wireless. It has a good set of config options for WiFi including 802.1x support which means I was finally able (when i found the time) to get this on to our corporate network today with certificates enrolled.

As it comes from iMate, the eTrust client is also installed and downloading the new signatures over WiFi is a breeze. The camera is pretty solid too though if I was being picky I'd say it would benefit from a flash but that's a minor detail on an otherwise excellent unit. The acid test was showing it last night to the MD of Doherty IT Solutions who was very impressed and now has one on order.

Coming up on the 16th December we are hosting an event at Microsoft HQ on the Mobile Opportunity. The event is open to our Partners and is 100% subsidised. If you want to find out more about the latest happenings in the Windows Mobile space and how you can take that to your customers, do come along to meet us.

Here is the blurb from the web:

We'll cover how mobility fits within the Microsoft vision, the Windows Mobile device platform including Exchange SP2 and Windows Mobile 5 features, selecting a device, security, systems management and mobile application scenarios. During the day we’ll demonstrate Exchange 2003 with Exchange Active Sync, CRM mobile and SQL based mobile solutions. You will see the latest mobile devices such as the i-Mate K-Jam (new Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC Phone Edition with integrated WiFi and keyboard).

We'll also showcase a range of killer applications for mobile devices such as live GPS tracking, field force enablement and more.

The link to book on to the event is here:   www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/readiness/opportunity/mobility

Our partner in crime,Jason Langridge, has just posted a great piece on a paper by IDC outlining the benefits of Microsoft Mobile Messaging solution.

The headlines were that companies implementing Microsoft Mobile based solutions:

• Paid back the cost of implementation in 4.3 months
• The one-year return on investment (ROI) of implementing the mobile solution was 129

Today we have released Service Pack 2 for Exchange Server 2003 to the web, including the new Direct Push Technology. To get more information and download the service pack check out this link: http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/downloads/2003/sp2/download.mspx

To find out more information about device compatibility with Exchange Server 2003 have a look at this link: http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/evaluation/features/owa_mobile.mspx

Please note you will need the Messaging & Security Feature Pack for Windows Mobile 5 devices to enable this functionality on the device side. Check with your device OEM or mobile operator for more information about when they will have this tested and available.

Regular readers will be well aware that we're about to launch our Mobility Competency as a new competency within the Microsoft Partner Program. We'll be hosting a Live Meeting on November 2nd to discuss the MSPP 2006 and the new competenices. Worth checking out to find out about the new stuff

Hopefully this blog is proving useful to some of our partners out there (let us know if not). We decided to use a blog instead of the bi-montly Windows Mobile kitbag we were previously issuing as a blog allows you to opt in rather than us indiscriminately send you email. It also allows a better drip "feed" of information in an area that is pretty fast moving.

Blogging is somethign Microsoft has really taken to in a big way and employees are encouraged to share their views and thoughts and in that spirit king of the bloggers, Robert Scoble, has an upcoming Technet webcast to introduce you to this rapidly growing and evolving technology. There is also a great intro from the BBC

I had an email from Brandon over at PocketNow.com and he pointed me at a site that they have set up for the community to track experiences running current applications on the new Windows Mobile 5 devices. At Microsoft we do a lot of testing to ensure application compatibility and we provide a lot of documentation and help for developers about the changes that occur with OS revisions, but inevitably some older applications have hiccups and some ISVs are not resourced to get application updates out straight away. The site is at: www.wm5fixsite.com

News just in - I just took delivery of an iMate SP5 Smartphone. This device is getting pretty close to my ideal single mobile device - a smartphone with Windows Mobile 5, Bluetooth *and* WiFi. I'll be road testing over the next few days and reporting back but you can land one yourself from eXpansys. I just got it connected with WEP key to my home WiFi network and will be testing out Skype tomorrow. Any questions, just shout!

Next Monday (17th October) we will be hosting another LiveMeeting for our Partners. This time the topic will be "Mobilising Small Business Server 2003". The webcast will be broadcast 4pm - 5pm and will also be available for offline viewing afterwards.

The webcast will be presented by Scott Millar of Exactive Ltd. Scott has a lot of experience with SBS2003 and Windows Mobile and will be giving an overview of the mobile capabilities of Small Business Server and how it integrates with Windows Mobile. Scott will also provide an insight into some of the customer scenarios he has come across, gotchas to watch out for and additional value that you can bring to your customers.

The link to attend the webcast next Monday is: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/microsoft/join?id=47NFCH&role=attend&pw=PB%40%3E7%3AxpT

See you there!

You may think from the title of the message that I have a broken space key on my PC - thankfully not :) WindowsMobileTraining is a website that has a terrific set of resources to learn more about the Windows Mobile OS and the devices on which it runs. Windows Mobile 5 training just got added too!

There is also some great content on Windows Mobile vs. competitive devices.

Being the bit of a geek that I am, I always keep an eye out for what devices and phone people around me have when I travel. Today I popped into London for a brief time and on my travels I saw far more Windows Mobile devices in use than other technologies. Of particular note, I saw these people:

• a guy walking down the platform of Paddington Station browsing through something on his HP 6500 Pocket PC Phone Edition device - checking email? looking at the footie scores? finding directions? using the built in GPS to find out where he was? playing a cool game?
• on the tube a guy was checking his email or writing something on his Orange SPV c500 Smartphone - judging from the way he was flicking around the keypad he seemed to be well practised at text entry on the devices, and no he wasn't one of those 12 year olds who can text faster than they can think...
• A guy sat in Baker Street station using his XDA IIs - again, checking his email? using the Tube map application to find his way around? finding out the latest on George Best? chating with his MSN Messenger buddies?

I only saw one person using a Blackberry device on my travels, but the thing that really struck me was that these people I saw could have been doing anything on their Windows Mobile devices. When you see someone with a Blackberry you natrually think "Oh, they're just checking their e-mail" and when someone has a mobile out "they're just texting", but when I saw these people with Windows Mobile devices I was really curious about what they could be doing. The potential is huge!

I know, device spotting is geeky, but at least I haven't hit the nerdy point of walking up to someone and saying "Oo, that's a nice device, what're you doing on it...?" [:)]

My colleague John Westworth has posted a useful link to Partner Readiness around the impending end of support for Exchange 5.5
Worth a look to learn more about how to leverage the upgrade campaign

One of the most frequently asked questions when I talk to partners and customers about Windows Mobile 5 is "how do I get it?". Unfortunately the answer is not straightforward. To shed some light on this one of my colleagues has posted a nice article explaining some of the thing that goes on by the OEMs and operators when considering providing upgrades.

Check it out at: http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2005/10/06/477999.aspx