Deploy/Adopt: Realizing Value

Updated DDPS Offerings

cmross — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:25:02 GMT

Microsoft provides additional services and benefits to customers with Software Assurance. These benefits include Packaged Service Benefits which enable customers to use their allocated days to engage MCS and/or certified Partners to deliver services related to desktop deployment (DDPS), business value planning (BVPS), SharePoint deployment (SDPS) and Exchange deployment (EDPS).

Desktop Deployment Planning Services the culmination of best practices demonstrated by MCS and Partners in programmatically addressing deployment planning and pilot, has been a tremendous benefit to our customers and the service organizations that support them.

Today, I’m pleased to announce that Desktop Deployment Planning Services is entering a new era of flexibility, and now incorporates many of the additional services asked for. The chart below describes the richer suite of planning services available to customers.

And, the exception process has been streamlined, to a review process committed to our customers, the Partner community and Office deployment.

As a customer, you can contact your preferred Partner or Microsoft account manager to learn more about Software Assurance benefits and DDPS specifically.

Partners can find out more information on the Microsoft Partner portal.

Webcast: Best Practices for Windows 7 Migrations Using MDOP

cmross — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:23:31 GMT

I've known Liz Eversoll for many years, and am very pleased to see that she is presenting on this topic. Well worth your time if you are looking for best practices in leveraging Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) for your Windows 7 migration.

Best Practices for Windows 7 Migrations Using Microsoft Application Virtualization

Oct 26, 2009
12:00 p.m. Eastern / 9:00 a.m. Pacific
Duration: 60 Minutes

You need to increase the manageability of your IT infrastructure and boost employee productivity, all while reducing help desk costs. Join us to hear firsthand how CDW, a leading provider of technology solutions for business, government and education, overcame those same challenges in its organization.

Join us for an interactive 1-hour webcast and discover how to:

Separate applications from the OS to deliver application upgrades quickly and without conflicts with other applications
Save time on application testing, packaging and deployment by allocating resources to your higher-priority projects
Deploy new desktops 25% faster with 70% in cost savings using your pre-existing hardware

Find out more about CDW's best practices migrating from Windows Vista to Windows 7 and how you can streamline application delivery and desktop manageability.

Also, bring your questions for our panel of experts to address during a live Q&A following the presentation!

REGISTER TODAY >>

Liz Eversoll
Vice President of the Microsoft Practice
CDW

Michael Van Cleave
Technical Specialist
CDW

Joseph E. Maglitta
Editorial Director and Market Expert
Ziff Davis Enterprise

eSeminars Information
Copyright 2009 Ziff Davis Enterprise All Rights Reserved.
Ziff Davis Enterprise, 28 East 28th Street, New York, NY 10016

The Productivity Hub is now live!

cmross — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:26:00 GMT

I mentioned this during my session at ILTA this week, and the response has been overwhelming. Suzanne has provided more information below, as well as a link for downloading.

What is the Productivity Hub?

The Productivity Hub is a SharePoint Server 2007 site collection. It comes packed with over 300 pieces of content, including videos, documents and PowerPoint slides. Customers may then create a learning community within their firewall.

The Hub uses SharePoint Server’s social networking features to engage end users. It also offers training for “coaches”, or power users internal to each customer. Coaches reduce the burden on training and helpdesk staff by adding another level of support.

The Productivity blog is another strategy to build a daily customer connection. Blog posts from the Crabby Office Lady, product managers, the field, and our learning partners feeds directly into the customer’s Hub through the included RSS feed.

The Hub pilot has reached over 100 customers around the world. During the pilot, one customer remarked, “We owe you a debt of gratitude,” and another said they weren’t allowed to move forward with deployment until they installed the Hub.

Customer benefits:

•Helps reduce costs: Streamlines training and helps reduce training overhead. Acts as a tool for training departments and IT.

•Multiple learning paths: Includes learning roadmaps, coaches, forums, searchable content and more.

•Helps increase productivity: Accelerates 2007 Office system adoption through a learning community.

•Drives adoption: Ongoing access to training enables deeper use and helps create new power users.

•Ignites collaboration: Creates customer evangelists through the coach program.

•Proof of concept: Provides a vision for collaborative learning – leading to collaborative work.

Hub Download link

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=277fefca-d62f-41bc-943d-79002254cfee

Going through all of the business cards ...

cmross — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 17:30:00 GMT

Going through all of the business cards gathered throughout the week of WPC 09. I hope everyone heeds my caution and waits to email me until August - that way I have the time to get through everything that's come in this past week as well as the week of our sales conference (MGX) and technical conference (TechReady).

Deployment Services Roundtable at WPC

cmross — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:11:10 GMT

I will be part of an expert panel for desktop deployment at WPC, along with several of Microsoft’s senior marketing representatives and a few partners with DDPS certification. This would be the right audience for you to share feedback on utilizing your customers Packaged Service Days for Desktop Deployment Planning Services, Business Value Planning Services, etc.

Hope to see you there!

A New Laptop Hunters Video – Why I Like Them

cmross — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 18:13:14 GMT

Another good ad pointing out the obvious. It’s been interesting reading the blogs and comments, which are mostly positive. What surprises me is how well the ads portray the decisions every consumer has to make: I have specific needs and a finite budget, how can I get the most for my money? Enjoy!

Upgrading from Win7 Beta

cmross — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:08:42 GMT

Recent blog articles have discussed whether or not you can upgrade from the Win7 Beta, including one today from ZDNet pointing this out. In fact, our own Windows 7 Engineering blog offers a workaround to this, but I highly suggest that Enterprise IT understand that, while it’s a cool hack, it’s a hack nonetheless better left to hobbyists. What I have encouraged customers, our Partners and field teams on is the following:

· Do encourage your customers to pilot Win7 with a cross-section of their users. For the Beta, I would suggest 0.5% (1 out of 200 desktops), especially if they have decided to skip Vista.

· Do raise their awareness to the fact that this is still beta code. Frequent backups and/or redirection will ensure a good user experience should something go poorly.

· Don’t imply that they won’t have to reinstall with the RTM release. If this is a concern of your customer, draw them into a discussion about their deployment plans and infrastructure optimization.

We all want you to have a great pilot experience with Windows 7. But, it is still a pilot – don’t let your enthusiasm and anticipation cloud your judgment as to what’s best for your end users (and your sanity!)

Free Office 2007 Deployment Training Available

cmross — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 22:06:19 GMT

Our Office marketing team continues to develop ways to help IT get relevant training in this “new economy”. If you’ve not taken advantage of a Microsoft Office 2007 Labcast before, what are you waiting for? They use a virtual lab to get you the experience you’re seeking around deploying Office 2007, server management tools and application compatibility. Register today. Good stuff!

Join the Desktop Deployment: Planning, Deploying and Managing Office 2007 Labcast series to learn about new tools and technologies to deploy the 2007 Microsoft® Office system. During these half day events you will receive practical technical information and proven techniques to help simply your 2007 Office deployment. The labcast provides a hands-on virtual lab environment where you can perform the tasks yourself with step-by-step guidance from Microsoft professionals, giving you experience-based knowledge on how to deploy the 2007 Office system. Click here for more information about the 2007 Office labcast series.

Labcast sessions :

Deploying the 2007 Microsoft Office system with the Deployment Workbench

o Add the 2007 Office system to the Deployment Workbench

o Perform multi-language integration

o Learn about the Office Customization Tool (OCT)

o Use SMS 2003 for 2007 Office system deployment

Click on the date to register

Deploying the 2007 Microsoft Office system with the Deployment Workbench

3/23/2009 8:30 AM CST

4/06/2009 1:00 PM CST

4/20/2009 8:30 AM PST

5/04/2009 1:00 PM PST

5/18/2009 8:30 AM CST

6/01/2009 1:00 PM CST

6/15/2009 8:30 AM PST

6/29/2009 1:00 PM PST

Assessing Application Compatibility and Managing Your Office Clients with Group Policy labcast

· 2007 Microsoft Office system Planning and Migration Tools: Office Migration Planning Manager (OMPM)

o Install and configure OMPM

o Perform a scan on a user system

o Convert documents with no issues to the new file formats

· Managing the 2007 Microsoft Office system with Group Policy

o Import the new Group Policy Administrative Templates for the 2007 Office release

o Use Group Policy to configure the Default File Save options in the 2007 Office release

o Use Group Policy to configure the Default File Save options for Office 2003 (to support a mixed Office environment)

Click on the date to register

Assessing Application Compatibility and Managing Your Office Clients with Group Policy labcast

3/23/2009 1:00 PM CST

4/06/2009 8:30 AM CST

4/20/2009 1:00 PM PST

5/04/2009 8:30 AM PST

5/18/2009 1:00 PM CST

6/01/2009 8:30 AM CST

6/15/2009 1:00 PM PST

6/29/2009 8:30 AM PST

© 2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft is a registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Gartner: Don't Wait for Windows 7 SP1

cmross — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:17:25 GMT

Michael Silver has come out with an analysis that already has the blogsphere buzzing with even more excitement about Windows 7.

In it, he proclaims that “The first Service Pack for Windows 7 is not necessary for the operating system's stability and security readiness.” He also states what I have found in talking about Windows 7 with our customers, and that is that many of you may not be prepared to deploy today. That is something we are very focused on changing, through our focus on The Optimized Desktop.

In his view, it will take customers 12-18 months to prepare for the OS, which would make SP1 the release they will deploy. I don’t agree with his timeline assertion, as I believe that we can significantly decrease that planning and piloting time if we are diligent in taking action now:

It’s about desktop optimization and the benefits it returns to the business. As good as Windows 7 RTM will be, we know that it’s not about the OS alone. Know the IT benefits (compatibility, performance, security) and ROI (energy savings, virtualization) and factor those into your decisions.

Pilot Windows 7. Assess your hardware profile and PC refresh plans against the hardware requirements for Vista/Win7. If you own the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP), ask your Microsoft account team or Partner for assistance in piloting MED-V and APP-V as ways to decrease deployment and management costs while addressing compatibility concerncs.

Technorati Tags: Gartner,Windows 7,MDOP,MED-Vista,APP-V

http://mediaproducts.gartner.com/reprints/microsoft/vol5/article2/article2.html

See you at WPC09

cmross — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 19:08:47 GMT

I’ll tell you right now. I love our Partner community! That’s right. When I look at the success our customers have in deploying and managing our software platforms, and how they’ve adopted it through solutions and out-of-the-box capabilities I know that many times Partners make the difference between just licensing software and realizing value. So I always look forward to WPC as a way to meet up with a lot of great Partners that I frequently only know through emails and conference calls :)

If you are a Microsoft Partner you need to be at WPC this year. In addition to meeting me (!!) you’ll experience the best sessions, the best networking and the best all-around Thank You experience Microsoft can give.

As soon as the networking is turned on, I’ll let everyone know. If you have service offerings related to deployment or adoption, I’d love to meet you and at least exchange cards and promise to look for opportunities to work together. I’ll also have my Twitter account going (you have one, don’t you?) so maybe I can figure out a cool scavenger hunt or game of tag to play with everyone.

Microsoft Business Value Planning Services

cmross — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:40:58 GMT

Recently, I’ve been hearing more from customers looking for Microsoft’s help in quantifying the ROI that deploying the 2007 Microsoft Office System will support. We’ve been fortunate to have both a consulting arm, field sales and Partners that can help customers with this, through offerings such as the Rapid Economic Justification. Last November, we added a benefit to our Software Assurance licensing agreement to make this a paid-for service, the Business Value Planning Service.

What it is

Microsoft Business Value Planning Services (BVPS) is a Software Assurance (SA) benefit through which Microsoft pays Partners to deliver and engagement through which a certified BVPS consultant helps customers develop a plan for improving business process through the use of the Microsoft Office System. Depending upon the specifics of your SA benefit, this may be funded for 3-15 days of engagement. During that time, the consultant follows a proven agenda that includes identifying a business process improvement scenario from the following list:

Automated Forms: Reduce costs and streamline form driven business processes.
Automated Performance Reporting: Improve decision making through near-real time creation and access to performance reports.
Budgeting: Improve accuracy of creation and tracking of departmental budgets.
Collaborative Document Development: Improve a company’s ability to develop and review documents across teams and improve content reuse.
Content Search and Reuse: Improve a company’s ability to organize and find information through online repositories.
Merging Project Plans: Integrate multiple project planning efforts for better resource planning and tracking.
Performance Management: Improve a company’s performance management processes through more efficient and effective planning, forecasting, analysis, and reporting.
Project Portfolio Management: Improve a company’s project prioritization and selection, and the project portfolio’s overall strategic alignment.
Remote Training: Reduce costs and streamline a company’s training processes through virtual / remote training.
Routing Communications: Improve communication and speed issue resolution through new and integrated communications – email, telephone, instant messaging.
Sensitive Records Management: Improve a company’s current process for creating, managing and deleting sensitive records such as legal, financial, medical and HR.

How to get it

If you have Software Assurance, you’re halfway there! The next step is to choose a Partner to help you, from the list of Packaged Service Providers found here. You can also check with your preferred Partner, to see if they are already certified (if not, point them to www.MicrosoftBVPS.com for more information). The consultant assigned will contact you and explain the agenda, find out a little more about your business and discuss the scenarios you would like to know more about.

In summary, I really like this benefit because it gets to the heart of what customers need today in justifying IT spend and valuating ROI. If you have any questions about this benefit, you can contact Microsoft directly from bvpshelp@microsoft.com

Deploy Windows Vista or Wait for Windows 7?

cmross — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 02:36:14 GMT

Hey! Have you heard of Windows 7? LOL. Yeah, even my 13yr old is quizzing me on the date. Which is kinda funny, seeing that he’s the IT guy in the house. Well, Windows 7 is on the minds of our customers and Partners; I’m sure that most (all) of you are running the Beta too on some machine. The interest has been amazing (Circa Windows 95 maybe?) and it’s something we’re really happy and proud about. But the #2 question I hear from customers (after “When is it being released?) is “What should I be doing?” I’ll share with you the same guidance I’ve given to our field sales teams, customer’s I’ve met and our Partners. It’s framed around 3 statements:

Windows 7 is not a panacea for bad IT. Many of the customers I speak with are running Windows XP with a mix of Basic or Standard-optimized capabilities. That’s concerning; not because they aren’t running Windows Vista, but because they haven’t used the time to optimize their infrastructure. Windows 7 could be the next best thing to sliced bread, but if you don’t have the ability to build 2 images max, deploy without touching the desktop, leverage virtualization technologies, etc. it doesn’t really matter does it? I love technology just as much as the next techie, but make sure you have your priorities in the right order: training the staff, improving the server infrastructure and having a solid PC lifecycle plan. Which brings me to my next point, which is…

There are no stop signs on the road to Windows 7. If there is one consistent behavior I’ve seen over the past 2 client OS releases, it’s a hesitance to pull the trigger on deployment before SP1. Why is that? 2 reasons: confidence in the RTM quality and preparedness. Hopefully, we’re earning your trust and the interest in Windows 7 beta has proven to be a worthwhile consideration of early adoption. But if it were to RTM today are you ready to deploy? In most cases, the answer is probably not. And that’s too bad, because with Windows XP going into Extended Support, many of you may be in a reactive mode rather than proactively managing your desktop. So how can an IT shop plan for Windows 7? There are 4 resources you should be considering, as a way to keep your foot on the gas:

Desktop Deployment Planning Services. This is a free services engagement for customer with Software Assurance. It will pay for either a Partner or Microsoft Consulting Services to come on site for anywhere from 3-15 days and help you plan & pilot your deployment of Office 2007, Windows Vista or Windows 7.

Microsoft App Compat Toolkit. Most applications written for Windows Vista will run stock on Windows 7, so do your testing on Windows Vista. By doing so, you’ll be able to set a baseline with Windows Vista and return to it, rather than Windows XP, should an application not be immediately supported at RTM.

Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack. This subscription service has everything a band of IT rock stars could hope for, including:

Asset Inventory Service. Wouldn’t it be great to know exactly how many applications are in your Enterprise? Who is running them? What version? Many customers have work to do in understanding the scope of effort necessary to manage their applications. With AIS, this is something that can be started today, and likely decrease licensing costs and time spent building images, while increasing manageability.
Microsoft Application Virtualization. Pick your flavor: VPC, MED-V, APP-V, VDI. Never has there been so many ways to decrease the challenges of application compatibility, the time and cost of deploying and managing the desktop. Read the full Microsoft virtualization story here.
Advanced Group Policy Management. Managing multiple client OSes is the reality. AGPM gives that added level of flexibility and manageability to the desktop experience.

And finally the Springboard Series, chock-full of Windows client training resources.

It’s not about Windows Vista vs Windows 7. It’s about Desktop Optimization.

Your IT vision is probably less about what version of Windows to deploy, and more about optimizing your IT infrastructure and desktops. The Microsoft platform can help you do that, and I encourage you to expect the support of your account team and technology Partners to make that a reality. So without further ado, here’s what to do:

If you are deploying Windows Vista today, keep deploying Windows Vista. Take advantage of your MDOP subscription to begin exploring virtualization technologies.
If you are running Windows NT/2000 (or older). Deploy Windows Vista now. Seriously. Virtualize OS-dependent applications and get on a supported operating system.

If you are running Windows XP, begin your planning and infrastructure preparation now. When you are ready to being deploying, target Windows 7 but have Windows Vista as a fall-back if ISV support or appcompat issues are a blocker. You will be in the best position, with the agility and lower costs you’ve always hoped for.

So what do you think? I hope this gives everyone guidance they can take and make their own. It’s important that you use the announcement of Windows 7 as the opportunity to solidify your IT vision and make it a reality.

Now Available: Windows Optimized Desktop Scenarios

cmross — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:49:31 GMT

The Windows Optimized Desktop Scenarios is a Solution Accelerator for matching IT and business user requirements to 5 standard user scenarios. This is a great resource for planning a cost-effective strategy around Microsoft technologies. Freely available, you can download it from the Microsoft Download Center: http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/B/C/5BC966BC-47D8-41DF-95F2-FA9A2D816258/Windows_Optimized_Desktop_Scenarios.zip

The scenarios covered are: Office Worker, Mobile Worker, Task Worker, Contract/Offshore Worker, and workers who need to Access from Home. Each scenario puts a different emphasis on applications, security, and networking. In this way, these scenarios provide a flexible, adaptable desktop experience that meets the business requirements of each of these users.

In the download, you will find the following components: The Windows Optimized Desktop Scenarios Assessment guide and the Windows Optimized Desktop Scenario Selection Tool.

The Windows Optimized Desktop Scenarios Assessment Guide:
The Windows Optimized Desktop Scenarios Assessment describes the five user scenarios defined for the Windows Optimized Desktop and further describes the Microsoft products and technologies that underpin each scenario solution. Additionally, this document guides you through an assessment of the user profiles in your organization to identify which scenario or scenarios best meets their needs.

Windows Optimized Desktop Scenario Selection Tool:
The Windows Optimized Desktop Scenario Selection Tool is designed to help you identify applicable scenarios, based on user and business requirements, for each user segment within your organization.

This is the latest Infrastructure Planning and Design (IPD) guide in a growing popular series which cover deployment, product integration and virtualization among other IT Pro subjects. Read more about the IPD series here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/solutionaccelerators/dd408383.aspx

Additional Resources

Solution Accelerators on TechNet: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/solutionaccelerators/default.aspx
Infrastructure Planning and Design, Windows Optimized Desktop Scenarios, Executive Overview: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd334417.aspx
Windows Optimized Desktop: Overview on MS.COM: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/optimized-desktop/default.aspx

Slow news day at InformationWeek results in dumb Windows 7 article

cmross — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:04:46 GMT

Paul McDougall should be ashamed of himself. Basically he creates an article and ambiguous headline about the fact that Georgetown University doesn’t want Windows 7 Beta installed on school-owned computers.

Duh!

He’s getting pummeled in the comments, and rightly so – this was just grade-school, sensationalistic journalism.

Let me give you the skinny:

1. Do evaluate Windows 7 Beta. It’s the bomb,and a great follow-on to Windows Vista in my humble (albeit biased) opinion :)

2. Don’t put Windows 7 Beta on anything other than test machines, and only with the permission of your IT department.

Stick with me, I’ll always give you the 411.

Windows 7 Beta Flunks Out Of Georgetown -- InformationWeek

IE8 Release Candidate Available

cmross — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 00:19:00 GMT

We’re getting closer to launch with IE8 with the release of IE8 Release Candidate. If you’ve not begun your evaluation, now is a good opportunity to begin that planning now.

Here are some additional resources you can refer to during the RC1 installation:

System requirements for RC1 are the same as Beta1 and Beta2.
Release notes for RC1 outline a few scenarios you should watch out for when installing IE8 RC1.
Troubleshooting guide is a great resource if you run into any problems during your installation.
Dynamic updates article summarizes which updates get installed with IE8 to keep your experience reliable and secure.
Technet Edge interview which Brandod did that covers many install topics.

You can read more in the IE8 blog here.