The TechNet Australia Blog

Download Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta and Office Web Apps Beta

2009-11-19T23:58:16Z

Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 empowers your people to do their best work from more places – whether they’re using a PC, phone or web browser. It can maximize existing investments and help people accomplish more by bringing server capabilities to everyone through familiar and intuitive applications. Office Professional Plus 2010 provides smart, simple, time-saving tools to help everyone do more with less.

See Microsoft Office 2010 for yourself

We are inviting IT professionals around the world to work with the Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta in your lab environments, with your secondary PCs, and with your Microsoft Office enthusiasts, in order to help ensure smooth adoption when the final product is available and to gather feedback from real-world settings.

Download the Beta here
Participate in the TechNet Office 2010 Forum
Keep up to date by reading the Office Team Blog and follow them on Twitter

Office Web Apps
Microsoft Office Web Apps are new web-based tools that extend the Microsoft Office 2010 experience to your browser. Office Web Apps enable you to view, do light editing, and share your Office documents from virtually anywhere. With these online companions to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote you’ll always have the tools you need, wherever you are. Get on the beta for Office Web Apps.

Monthly Security Bulletin Webcast - November 2009

2009-11-16T01:41:08Z

The Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) holds a monthly webcast to discuss the security bulletins that we released on the second Tuesday of that month. To attend live and ask questions, register at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security.

In this edition, Jerry Bryant and Adrian Stone present information about the November 2009 Security Bulletins and answer customer questions live. See the MSRC blog for a transcript of the questions and answers that were addressed during the live session: http://blogs.technet.com/msrc

For more information about the MSRC, please visit:
http://www.microsoft.com/security/msrc/default.mspx

Make sure you subscribe to the Microsoft Security newsletter if you already haven't done so.

TechEd Europe Keynote Recap

2009-11-11T23:46:59Z

Stephen Elop closed out day 1 of TechEd Europe with the announcement of General Availability of Exchange 2010. In the keynote, he talked about some of the new features in 2010, like the new protection and management capabilities.
He also talked about Cloud Computing, and how we're putting the choice in the hands of IT Pros - you can decide which parts, and how much of your environment you want to move to the cloud.
The Windows Server team also showed off some of the stuff they're doing around management and provisioning - really good stuff!

Exchange Server 2010 is now available

2009-11-09T22:53:52Z

Information from the Microsoft Exchange Team Blog:

It is my distinct pleasure to announce today the global availability of Exchange Server 2010. This has been an amazing journey from conception to launch, and the team has delivered an unprecedented line up of innovations in this release. I am incredibly proud of the team and our product.

The dedication of the Exchange community working side by side with us to deliver Exchange 2010 has been inspiring for me. I want to thank you for your commitment over the past 3 years helping us develop new ideas, make product enhancements and test pre-release bits to ensure our final product is rock solid. I believe Exchange has the most impressive IT Pro and Developer community in the world today. We could not have shipped this product without you!

In return, I hope you realize the full value of everything Exchange 2010 offers. We are all working in a very challenging economic environment today. Being cost conscious has never been more important - but also helping your organizations differentiate themselves and compete effectively is just as critical. I am delighted to see how Exchange 2010 is helping early adopters accomplish these goals. I want to share just a sampling of their stories, so you can see for yourself.

Organizations are cutting costs and simplifying administration with Exchange 2010.

"Performance with large mailboxes greatly exceeds our expectations. With the growing amount of data that needs to be retained, it is not uncommon for us to have 30-gigabyte plus mailboxes, making these performance improvements crucial to our business. I have been using Exchange 2010 and Outlook 2010 for e-mail since June and have been extremely satisfied with the performance and the user experience. It is a robust, very stable platform. And, we found RBAC to be a huge benefit. That is something I have needed for a long time-to have more granular rights for administrators and lower-level IT staff to do targeted tasks." - Alexander Diaz, CIO, Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP

"The cost savings from switching from fiber channel to SATA disks is about 70 percent. The I/O system of Exchange Server 2010 is really optimized. If you look at Exchange Server 2007, it's good; but Exchange Server 2010 is really great. You can significantly reduce the disk costs when you run Exchange Server 2010." - Thomas Keck, CIO, Elabs

"We're always moving users around. We've been doing that with custom scripts in Exchange Server 2003, but we will definitely be using the Online Move Mailbox feature in 2010. Now we can move them without taking the mailbox offline." - Allan Tagg, SVP, Global Messaging Exec, Bank of America

Organizations are improving everyday productivity and meeting the expectations of a new generation of workers with Exchange 2010.

"Our salespeople need to respond quickly to dealer concerns. With Exchange Server 2010 and voice-to-text conversion, within 20 seconds after a dealer leaves a voice-mail message, our users see an e-mail preview on their cell phone. Our mobile employees might check voice mail anywhere from 5 to 10 times a day, at 5 to 10 minutes a session. By using Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and taking advantage of the voice-mail preview feature in Exchange Server 2010, they can increase their responsiveness while saving more than 15 minutes a day. From a business perspective, that's an incredibly valuable productivity increase." - George Hamin, Director of E-Business and Information Systems, Subaru Canada

"Having Conversation View on the new mobile client is really nice. It provides an extremely fast and efficient means of surveying my inbox and taking needed actions on the go." - Steven Schafer, Director of Collaboration and Network Services, Global Crossing

"By taking advantage of Outlook Web App, employees can start being productive from new locations almost immediately. As soon as they get their workstation and network connectivity, administrators can quickly provide them with access to e-mail and IM at a moment's notice without having to manage a lot of logistics. That's tremendous. Just simplifying the process of giving our remote employees access to e-mail and IM with Exchange Server 2010 will increase the productivity of our IT administrators by at least 20 to 30 percent." - Dan Evans, Manager of Messaging and Collaboration, Morgan Keegan & Company

Organizations of all sizes are better managing risk and the cost of compliance with Exchange 2010.

"With Exchange Server 2010, we can give the auditors permission to pull mail out of mailboxes themselves, rather than having me pull the data and ship it to them in a PST file. Now the nine hours a month I spend on compliance will be cut down to zero. Getting rid of PST files using Exchange Server 2010 solves a whole series of nightmares that I'm sure every Exchange Server administrator has had" - Andrew McNair, Wintel Infrastructure Manager, Cell C

"By using the compliance features in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, we can save about $400,000 in hardware and software costs. That's a big savings." - Joseph Nguyen, Systems Architect at a large U.S. university.

"With Exchange Server 2010, we can set up transport protection rules for things like social security numbers to comply with HIPAA and for voice mails to ensure that they can't be forwarded outside the company." - Thomas Dechmann, Senior Principal IT Technologist, Medtronic

I'm also particularly proud of the work the team has done delivering Exchange as a server and a service. This has been an incredible engineering endeavor that no one else in the industry comes close to delivering. Today, we've successfully scaled Exchange 2010 to more than 15 million Outlook Live accounts around the world and, moving forward, to millions more with Exchange Online. Our promise to deliver a seamless Exchange experience on premises with the server, in the cloud as a service or a combination of the two truly gives customers choice and peace of mind.

You can see more customer results from the case studies published today, read about the launch in press coverage, hear from MBD President Stephen Elop in his TechEd Europe keynote launching Exchange 2010 and this evening at the Exchange Connections conference in Las Vegas in my keynote.

I know many of you are already underway with your Exchange 2010 deployments and many more will be starting today. The Exchange Server 2010 bits are available for download now. As always, keep the feedback coming. Listening to customers and partners is how the team has made Exchange the premier e-mail solution across the globe and that's the way we intend to keep it.

Thank you!

- Rajesh Jha

Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR) v7

2009-11-04T22:46:39Z

The Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR) is a comprehensive and wide-ranging study of the evolving threat landscape, and addresses such topics as software vulnerability disclosures and exploits, malicious software (malware), and potentially unwanted software.

Volume 7 of the Security Intelligence Report (SIR v7) covers the first half of 2009 (January through June). It includes data derived from more than 450 million computers worldwide, each running Windows. It also draws data from some of the busiest services on the Internet, such as Windows Live Hotmail and Bing.

The research is extensive and we encourage you to download the report.

System Center Essentials (SCE) 2010 beta preview

2009-11-01T23:08:22Z

Adam Bomb from the TechNet Edge team recently sat down with David Mills and Edwin Yuen, who got together for a brief discussion of Microsoft’s IT management and virtualization solution for midsize businesses. With the release of public betas for System Center Essentials 2010 and Data Protection Manager 2010, customers will have the capability to easily manage, backup and restore their physical and virtual servers in an integrated way.

After discussing the benefits of using Hyper-v, SCE 2010 and DPM 2010, Edwin gives us a quick demo of SCE 2010’s integrated virtual and physical management capabilities.

Download System Center Essentials 2010 beta today

System Center and Windows 7

2009-10-28T23:37:56Z

In this episode of Brad and Jeff's periodic chats about the management business at Microsoft, they talk about how System Center fits in the constellation of platform and server releases in the fall of 2009.

In part 2, Brad and Jeff talk about all the improvements in System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 and R3 that make deployment and management of Windows 7 clients far more energy efficient and cost effective than ever before.
Also in this episode:

Part 1: Driving Manageability Across Microsoft
Part 3: System Center and Windows Server 2008 R2 (forthcoming)
Part 4: System Center and Microsoft Exchange (forthcoming)

Latest Evaluation downloads – Forefront and System Center

2009-10-26T22:56:48Z

The following System Center and Forefront products are available for download as evaluation.

Forefront Identity Manager 2010

Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server

Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010

System Center Essentials 2010

System Center Service Manager

Windows 7 resources

2009-10-26T00:19:38Z

Windows 7 was launched last week! We had our launch event at the Australian National Maritime Museum. Media, technology enthusiasts and PC makers were present. There are some amazing looking PC’s running Windows 7 which were on display, my favourite one was the new and amazingly thin Sony Vaio X Series.

For more photos check out the Microsoft Australia Flickr Photostream

You may have already seen some of the ads on TV:

To check out more ads visit the official Windows 7 Australia youtube channel

Here are also some great TechNet Edge videos:
Microsoft Deployment Toolkit - building install media for Windows 7

Windows XP mode for Windows 7

Branch Cache in Windows 7

Check out TechNet Edge for more Windows 7 videos

Some fun facts about Windows 7

More than a billion people around the world use Windows every day, and millions have provided input on what they want to see in an operating system. This feedback was built into the product.
Windows 7 saw the largest beta testing program in the history of the industry, with 8 million testers worldwide.
People from more than 113 countries downloaded the Windows 7 beta.
We conducted more than 16,000 online interviews directly aimed at helping us identity, test and validate scenarios and features for Windows 7.
More than 2,600 customers participated in user research and usability studies for Windows 7.
More than 40,000 hours of Windows 7 usage was logged from external user research field trials (through our Living with Windows program in which users were recruited to provide an understanding of how they use Windows 7).
We received product instrumentation and usage data from millions of PCs in more than 200 countries and regions around the world that help Microsoft Corp. better understand how its customers use its software. Windows 7 includes input from more than a billion user sessions.
More than 600 new feature ideas for Windows 7 were tested through global quantitative research early in the engineering process, helping Microsoft determine the features that best address its customers’ top needs. These features were tested through extensive online research survey fielded in five global markets.
More than 15 million people participated in the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) —across Windows Vista and Windows 7 prereleases.
Tens of thousands of people have signed up to host a Windows 7 Launch Party, a grassroots gathering of friends and family to show off the product and share their enthusiasm.
Twenty-seven new TV ads were developed for Windows 7 across the U.S., Canada, U.K., France, Germany and Australia.
Weight reduction of new Genesis Windows 7 packaging versus Windows Vista Longform packaging: 56 percent
Percent improvement in Windows 7 Ecometrics score over Windows Vista: 50 percent
There are 50 new fonts in Windows 7.
Number of languages that are available as of October 2009: 34
49 Indian-language fonts are supported in Windows 7.
Wallpaper: 12 backgrounds, seven Windows Aero themes, six character wallpapers, six scenes and unlimited downloads
Windows 7 is available at more than 45,000 retailers around the world.

Windows 7 Twitter’s
MSWindows
MSSpringboard
Windows7AU

Have a look at the Windows 7 Australian Pricing

Deployment Tools, Windows XP to Windows 7 Migration

2009-10-21T02:24:21Z

Deployment Tools, Windows XP to Windows 7 Migration

Windows 7 Deployment Technologies

2009-10-20T03:54:51Z

Windows 7 Deployment Technologies

October 2009 Security Bulletin Overview

2009-10-14T05:39:48Z

This is a basic overview of the security bulletins released by the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) in October 2009. For bulletin details, please visit:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security
or
http://www.microsoft.com/security
Other resources mentioned in the video:
Microsoft Update: http://update.microsoft.com

Video on how to install updates on Vista >>
This video is brought to you by the Trustworthy Computing security response communications team.

Microsoft MVPs review Windows 7 on a HP Mini 2140

2009-10-12T06:16:43Z

At TechEd Australia 2009, 2500 attendees were given a HP netbook as part of their admission deal. We asked 2 of the presenters at the event, who are also Windows MVPs, to talk about the netbooks, and why Windows 7 is the best operating system (OS) for netbooks.

Check out the video below

TechNet Virtual Conference October

2009-10-02T01:55:00Z

TechNet Virtual Conference Friday 30 October
10.00am-11.00am IT Manager Session: Office and Exchange 2010
10.00am-11.00am IT Manager Session: Delivering the NextGen Desktop – Windows 7 (Citrix guest speaker)
11.30am-12.30pm Desktop/End User Specialist Session: Windows 7 – Improved Network Access
1.00pm-2.00pm LOB/Applications Specialist Session: Managing your storage for SQL Server 2008
2.30pm-3.30pm Infrastructure Specialist Session: Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2: Technical Overview

If you missed the Virtual Conference in September you can still view the sessions On-Demand.

Daylight Savings changes in Western Australia – prepare now!

2009-09-30T03:16:39Z

Daylight Savings time changes can have a significant impact on business performance if not dealt with proactively. Effects can range from the incorrect time display on the clock, to calendaring problems, to changes in business critical services that are time dependent. This year, Western Australians rejected by referendum a proposal to extend their trial of daylight savings. As a result there will be no daylight savings in WA this year or for the foreseeable future. The time change was scheduled for 25 October, but will no longer occur.

We encourage customers to review their preparedness for these changes. See the Australia 2009 Daylight Saving Planning Guide.