Where System Builders Talk Shop... : Bret Roloff

Watch and Win a Zune!

BOBblog — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 22:05:00 GMT

Watch an on-demand webcast through Dec 2, 2007 to automatically be entered into a drawing for a chance to win a Zune™ digital media player.

www.msreadiness.com/systembuilderondemand

Office Ready... Make sure you have all the pieces

BOBblog — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 21:15:00 GMT

Hopefully by now you have ordered your Office Ready Master Kits and are ready to get going selling new systems with Vista and 2007 Office using the new Office Ready technology to enable the 60-Day trial mode. One important thing you need to know is that the Office Activation Assistant did not make it into this initial release of the Master Kits. In order to convert these installs to trial mode you need to download a seperate application from http://oem.microsoft.com/officeaa. The good news is that it's pretty small (less than 7MB) so it shouldn't take you very long.

Cheers,

Bret Rohloff

U.S. S.B. Tech Team

DST and Launch webcasts

BOBblog — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 20:36:00 GMT

Hi there! My name is Juli-Ann and I work closely with the BOB team on the marketing side of things. From what we hear, many of you fill a variety of roles at your company including technical and marketing. I wanted to share with you some things on my mind.

First, daylight savings time! In March 2007 the start and end dates of daylight saving time (DST) will transition by 4 weeks to comply with the Energy Policy Act of 2005. These changes could impact software. Are you ready? You can read more about how Microsoft will be releasing updates for affected products at this link:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/timezone/dst2007.mspx

Second, I know we have a slew of webcasts, but there are two coming up that you won’t want to miss.

January 25 we will be covering what you need to know to be ready for launch of Windows Vista & 2007 Office system. See what campaigns and tools are available for you. Register for “Be Ready for Launch!” at: http://www.msreadiness.com/WS_abstract.asp?eid=15005033
Then on January 29 at 1:30pm, join the celebration LIVE with Bill Gates! Plus, we will also have live training from our own Bret Rohloff, whom you may have seen at one of our Ready 2 Rock road shows last October through December. Register today at: http://oem.microsoft.com/vistaofficewebcast

Let us know what you think!

Juli-Ann (aka BOBette)

PS – For those of you who also wear the marketing hat, we’ve recently started a monthly marketing webcast the third Wednesday of the month. Thanks to the 200 who attended our first one on 1/17. Our next one is 2/21. Come join us to hear the the latest tools and campaigns we offer to help drive your business. Here’s the link: http://www.msreadiness.com/custompage.asp?pageid=1095

Get Ready Your Way and you can get a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate!

BOBblog — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 06:33:00 GMT

As part of the Get Ready Your Way promotion, you can get yourself a copy of the top of the line in versions of Windows Vista. That's right, Windows Vista Ultimate! Find out more at http://www.microsoft.com/oem/getready

A funny thing happened to me while in Florida...

BOBblog — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 07:18:00 GMT

So I was talking to a group of System Builders while presenting at a road show in Florida. One of the System Builders in the audience made a comment that he was annoyed that every time someone came in with a machine that needed the OS reinstalled, he had to call to have it activated. That struck me as a little odd so I asked a couple qualifying questions and found out that these were typically machines made by Dell, HP, etc. I asked if he was using the reinstall disk that came with the computer and he indicated to me that no he was using a copy he had on hand and using the COA number on the side to activate it. I took the opportunity to inform him that what he was doing violated the System Builder license.

Well I am pretty sure you could see the explosion from space. Needless to say this was not only a revelation to many of the partners in the room but it was also cause for great consternation and anger. Well the fact is, it's a tough situation. A customer comes in and just wants their machine fixed and they are looking to you to do it. In order to be fully license compliant, however, you have to use the restore disk that came with the system. Now I understand that often times these computers don't come with restore disks but with images on the hard disk that can be used to create recovery media. The problem is that often times the consumer chooses not to be diligent in storing their installation CD's and various backups of their software. So you want to help out the customer but you also don't want to do something that violates the OEM license. I am wondering if anyone has any ideas on how we can make this situation better for both the System Builder and the consumer.