Microsoft Online Services Team Blog : Announcements

Mac Sign-In Application Released, Available for Download

paulenglis — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:42:00 GMT

The Mac Sign-In application has been released and is now available for download from the Microsoft Download Center.

The Sign-In Application provides a convenient way for users with computers using the Apple Macintosh operating system to access their e-mail and data on the Microsoft Online Services platform. The Mac Sign-In application was announced with the October Service Update as part of the expanded Mac support for the Business Productivity Online Suite, and the application was made available as part of a preview program for early adoption and testing.

More information about the expanded support for Mac can be found in the Microsoft Online Services Macintosh Support Service Description, which also can be downloaded from the Microsoft Download Center.

Microsoft Online Services at TechEd Europe

paulenglis — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:48:00 GMT

TechEd Europe kicks off Monday, Nov. 9 at the Messe Berlin Convention Center in Berlin, Germany. More than 5,600 IT Pros and Developers are expected to attend, and the event is sold out.

The Microsoft Online Services team is partnering with the Windows Azure group to deliver conference sessions in the Cloud Computing and Online Services virtual track.

Following are the planned sessions for Microsoft Online Services technologies:

Monday, Nov. 9
Timeslot	Code	Room	Session Title	Speaker	Session Type
09:00-10:15	UNC203	New York 1 – Hall 71a	Implementing and Administering Microsoft Online Services	Cyril Sultan	Breakout Session
Tuesday, Nov. 9
17:00-18:15	OFS209	Europa 2 - Hall 7-3b	Microsoft SharePoint Online Overview: Today's World	Kimmo Forss	Breakout Session
Wednesday, Nov. 11
10:45-12:00	SIA08-IS	Interactive Theatre 6	Security Services in the Cloud	Mike Chan	Interactive Theatre
17:00-18:45	UNC205	Berlin 2 – Hall 7-3a	Tips and Tricks for Planning, Deploying and Troubleshooting the Microsoft Office Live Meeting Service	Cyril Sultan	Breakout Session
Thursday Nov. 12
13:30-14:45	UNC310	London 3- Hall 7-1b	Migrating Data, Co-Existence, and Directory Synchronization with Microsoft Online Services	David Anderson	Breakout Session
17:00-18:15	ITS213	Europa 1 - Hall 7-3b	Critical Infrastructure and Operations for Delivering Secure, Enterprise-Class Software Services	Gail Warren	Breakout Session

Visit Microsoft Online Services in the TLC

The Technical Learning Centers provide the heartbeat of TechEd events, where attendees have one-on-one interaction with speakers and subject matter experts and get personal product demonstrations.

If you’re attending TechEd Europe, make sure you visit the Microsoft Online Services pavilion. The Windows Azure and Microsoft Online Services teams will be providing product demonstrations. Plus, attendees can sign up for 30-day trial accounts of the Business Productivity Online Suite.

Follow us on Twitter

Those not attending TechEd Europe can follow activities at the conference via the Microsoft Online Services account on Twitter. The @msonline account will have regular updates from Berlin.

Service Update: November 2009 Release Availability, Features Announced

paulenglis — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:08:00 GMT

The Microsoft Online Services Service Update for November 2009 is currently being deployed into production data centers and is scheduled to be available to all customers in early December. Updates to the deployment status will be posted to the comments section of this blog post.

Upgrades and Enhancements
The following features and capabilities are included in this Service Update:

Mailbox Access Permissions

PowerShell commandlets will be added to provide a range of mailbox permission setting, including granting Full Mailbox Access permissions plus Delegate Send As and Send on Behalf permissions. These mailbox permissions provide administrators a range of capabilities, such as setting up shared mailboxes, granting “send as” permissions for administrative assistants, and enabling full mailbox access for third party applications, such as archiving applications and fax servers.

Previously, granting these permissions required opening a ticket with Microsoft Online Services Technical Support.

Mailbox permission commandlets added in this Service Update are:

· Add-MSOnlineMailPermission

· Remove-MSOnlineMailPermission

The mailbox permission commandlets require an update to the Microsoft Online Services Transporter Tools (aka Microsoft Online Services Migration Tools), which will be made will be available for download at the Microsoft Download Center upon completion of the deployment of this Service Update into production data centers for all regions. Please watch this Team Blog for the availability of the updated Transporter Tools.

Bulk User Management

Adding and removing users is streamlined with the addition of another set of PowerShell commandlets. The bulk user management commandlets give administrators a new option for adding groups of users. Together with the bulk activation commandlets provided in the previous Service Update, administrators have a rich set of tools for automating user management.

Bulk user management commandlets added in this Service Update are:

· Add-MSOnlineUser

· Set-MSOnlineUser

· Remove-MSOnlineUser

· Get-MSOnlineUser

The bulk user management commandlets require an update to the Microsoft Online Services Transporter Tools, which will be made will be available for download at the Microsoft Download Center upon completion of the deployment of this Service Update into production data centers for all regions. Please watch this Team Blog for the availability of the updated Transporter Tools.

SharePoint Auditing

The SharePoint Auditing feature is being enabled for SharePoint Online. This feature gives administrators the ability to view data and report about activities occurring within a site collection, such as items added to a shared documents list, changes to permissions, and documents that have been viewed and read.

Partner Name on Microsoft Online Services Invoice

Customers that have a relationship with a Microsoft Online Services Partner and have designated that partner as their “partner of record” will now see the name of their partner on their subscription invoice. Partners are technical and business professionals who specialize in Microsoft products, and they are an important part of Microsoft’s delivery of your software services.

New countries for trials and commercial availability

As was announced earlier this week, customers in the following 14 countries can sign up for Microsoft Online Services trial accounts: Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, Puerto Rico, Romania, Taiwan.

In addition, customers Singapore can purchase Microsoft Online Services subscriptions.

Microsoft Online Services Expands Globally, Adds New Customers, Reduces Pricing

paulenglis — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:20:00 GMT

Today, Microsoft announced the availability of the Business Productivity Online Standard Suite for trial in 14 additional countries and the commercial availability of the suite in Singapore coming later this week.

In addition to the geographic expansion of Microsoft Online Services, today’s announcement highlighted key customers adopting and transitioning to the services, expansion in the Microsoft Online Services partner eco-system, and new reduced pricing for the Business Productivity Online Suite and its components.

Starting Nov. 7, organizations in the following countries and regions will be able to set up trial accounts: Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, Puerto Rico, Romania, Taiwan. In addition, Singapore, which has been offering BPOS trials for months, will launch the service commercially.

Today’s news was highlighted by the announcement of the following new Microsoft Online Services customers as well as this video Q&A with Tony DeGregorio, CIO of Tyco Flow Control:

Organizations including Aon Corporation, Aviva PLC, Hofstra University, Lions Gate Entertainment, McDonald’s Corporation, Rexel Group, SkyTeam Alliance, Swedish Red Cross, Tyco Flow Control, the University System of Ohio and hundreds of others have chosen the Business Productivity Online Suite in recent months.

Reduced pricing for the Business Productivity Online Suite is now US$10 per user per month, with a five seat minimum purchase. In addition to new pricing for the Suite, pricing for Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Office Communications Online is also reduced when purchased individually. Details of the new pricing can be found here.

Read the full announcement, view a recording of Stephen Elop's call with media, and find related materials on Microsoft Press Pass. Also, check out these customer case studies:

· Credit Immobilier de France

· GlaxoSmithKline

· REEDS Jewelers

Microsoft Online Services at SharePoint Conference

paulenglis — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 01:58:00 GMT

More than 7,500 attendees descend upon Las Vegas this week for the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2009. The conference, Oct 19-22 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, will feature numerous opportunities to learn about Microsoft Online Services, including these SharePoint Online breakout sessions:

· SPC 200: Overview of SharePoint 2010 Online

David Gorbet and Charles Ofori

Tuesday, Oct. 20, 10:30 AM; Room Islander G

· SPC 201: SharePoint 2010 Online Standard, Everything you Need to Know!

Jason Cahill and Troy Hopwood

Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2:45 PM; Room Mandalay Bay J

· The Sky’s the Limit, the Journey to the Cloud

Brett Kirkland, Collaboration Architect, Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE)

Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2:45 PM; Room Breakers E

· SPC 202: SharePoint 2010 Online Dedicated, Why Get Dedicated!

Scott St. Jean and Charles Ofori

Thursday, Oct. 22, 9:00 AM; Room Mandalay Bay J

In addition to SharePoint Online content in the conference curriculum, attendees can visit the SharePoint Online booth at the conference exhibit hall. The team will be providing demos of the current SharePoint Online service as well as the SharePoint Online Community Technical Preview (CTP), based on SharePoint Server 2010 code.

The SharePoint Conference Ask the Experts Night, 5:45 to 7:00 PM, Wednesday, Oct. 21, will include a SharePoint Online table, where attendees can interact one-on-one with the SharePoint Online team.

Service Update: October 2009 Release Availability, Features Announced

paulenglis — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:36:00 GMT

The Microsoft Online Services Service Update for October 2009 is currently being deployed into production data centers and is scheduled to be available to all customers before the end of October. Updates to the deployment status will be posted to the comments section of this blog post.

Upgrades and Enhancements
The following features and capabilities are included in this Service Update:

Bulk Activation of Users
PowerShell commandlets will be added to streamline the activation process, enabling administrators to easily automate the activation of a set of users. Most commonly, these commandlets will be used to activate a set of users that have been migrated from an Active Directory forest to Microsoft Online Services via the Directory Synchronization Tool. Previously, administrators were required to activate users one-by-one with the User Administration tools in the Microsoft Online Services Administration Center.

Commandlets added in this Service Update are:

· Enable-MSOnlineUser

· Get-MSOnlineSubscription

· Set-MSOnlineUserPassword

A new version of the Microsoft Online Services Transporter Tool supporting these commandlets will be available for download at the Microsoft Download Center upon completion of the deployment of the October Service Update into production data centers for all regions. Please watch this Team Blog for the availability of the updated Transporter Tool.

POP Mail Clients
Supported e-mail clients for Exchange Online are being expanded to include POP-based clients. Previously, Exchange Online supported only Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 and 2007.

To enable POP e-mail client support for your organization, administrators should contact Microsoft Online Services Technical Support to open a Service Request.

Please note: Service Requests for POP enablement will be accepted upon completion of the deployment of the October Service Update into production data centers for all regions. Please watch this for deployment updates. Additionally, POP e-mail access cannot be enabled for Deskless Worker accounts.

Support for 30,000 Users

The Microsoft Online Services Administration Center will support as many as 30,000 users, improving management and administration for larger organizations. Previously, Microsoft Online Services supported up to 10,000 users.

Please note that SharePoint Online will retain previously established limits (e.g., 20 site collections per company, 50 gigabytes (GB) per site, and 1 terabyte (TB) per company).

Enhanced Support for Mac OS
The Service Update includes several enhancements that will provide a more efficient communication and collaboration experience for organizations with Mac users.

A new Sign-In Client for the Mac OS provides a single sign-in experience and auto-configuration of Office for Mac applications and the Safari browser for use with Microsoft Online Services.

Other Mac features in this Service Update include:

· Support for Entourage 2008 Exchange Web Services (EWS), including Global Address List (GAL), Calendar Free/Busy Lookup, and Out-of-Office notifications

· Global Address List support for Entourage 2004 and 2008 when using the Sign-In Client for Mac

· SharePoint Online support for Document Connection for Mac to improve the collaboration experience for users

· Improved Firefox and Safari support for My Company Portal

The Sign-In Client for Mac will be available for download at the Microsoft Download Center in early November. Please watch this Team Blog for the availability of the Sign-In Client for Mac.

Timeline
Deployment of the October Service Update into production data centers has started, with deployment to all regions anticipated to be complete before the end of October.

The deployment schedule is subject to change. Updates to the deployment schedule will be announced via the comments section of this blog post.

Notes from the Cloud: Oct. 13

paulenglis — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 21:03:00 GMT

Notes from the Cloud is a new series for the Microsoft Online Services Team Blog bringing you a summary of news and blog posts related to Microsoft Online Services, cloud computing, and our competitors published by partners, blog writers, and news sources across our online community.

· InformationWeek’s Mary Hayes Weier writes about Microsoft’s movement toward cloud computing, including an interview with our own Ron Markezich, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Online Services.

In May, 2004, Markezich was Microsoft's CIO, and doing very CIO-type stuff, like overseeing HR and ERP applications, and running the overall IT Infrastructure. That was, until Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer called him into a meeting. They told him there was a major new strategy in place, and his experience in operational IT was critical to make it happen. "They said that the future of the company is not selling a license, but selling our software over the Internet as a service," Markezich recalls.

· More from Mary Hayes Weier in an InformationWeek cover story. Weier writes about the changing attitudes of CIOs toward cloud computing. Bill Louv, GlaxoSmithKline CIO and Microsoft Online Services customer, is quoted in the article:

Louv bristles at any notion that he's chasing a trend. "The evolution here isn't, 'Gee, let's do something in the cloud or SaaS,'" he says. "Our Lotus Notes platform was getting to end of life. The question came up innocently that, given we'll have to spend a lot of money here, is there something we can do that's smarter?" What he decided is to move all 115,000 employees worldwide to the online, monthly subscription Exchange and SharePoint offerings that Microsoft made available in April.

· In another post in the run up to the SharePoint Conference, Oct. 19-22 in Las Vegas, Jeff Teper, Corporate Vice President, SharePoint Server, writes about the process of designing and building SharePoint, including this nugget about the impact of SharePoint Online on the engineering process:

In the last couple of posts I mentioned that SharePoint Online is big part of our development cycle. It is a way to reach many new customers. It also gives us a much larger scale environment than our own SharePoint intranet, extranet and internet apps to analyze and tune. This release, we created a dedicated team called “The Grid” team to analyze and optimize in great detail the total costs, time, reliability and other factors of a SharePoint deployment we hope to reach 10s and eventually 100s of millions of users. Almost all of what we learn there helps make the product more reliable for customers and partners hosting their own servers from a small company to a 250,000 employee enterprise.

· UK-based Microsoft Online Services partner The BPOS Business has posted a video with instructions for synchronizing your Apple iPhone with an Exchange Online email account.

· Microsoft and Germany-based T-Systems announced an agreement for T-Systems to sell the Business Productivity Online Suite Dedicated solution in Germany.

· A French-language blog dedicated to the Business Productivity Online Suite is now online and included in our blogroll. The blog is edited and managed by our friends on the Microsoft Online Services team in the Microsoft France subsidiary. Bonjour!

Scheduled Downtime: Microsoft Online Customer Portal for October 10

paulenglis — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:28:00 GMT

The Microsoft Online Customer Portal is scheduled to be offline for upgrades and planned maintenance.

The portal will be offline on Saturday, October 10 from 10:00 to 11:00 Pacific Daylight Time (17:00 to 18:00 GMT). During this downtime, organizations will not be able to set up trial accounts, buy subscriptions, or modify current subscriptions. This downtime will not affect the availability of an organization's online services, such as Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Office Communications Online, so users can continue to access these services as normal.

Watch the comments section of this blog post for updates on the availability of the Microsoft Online Customer Portal.

Notes from the Cloud: Oct. 6

paulenglis — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:54:00 GMT

· From Redmond Channel Partner Online, Stephen Swoyer writes Making the Most of BPOS, a profile of PointBridge, a Chicago-based Microsoft Online Services Partner and the 2009 Microsoft Online Services Partner of the Year.

· With the SharePoint Conference set for Oct. 19-22 in Las Vegas, Jeff Teper, Corporate Vice President, SharePoint Server, looks at the history of SharePoint and provides an interesting retrospective on Microsoft’s collaboration standard bearer, including this hat tip to Microsoft Online Services:

Based on the SharePoint 2007 codebase, we released both a Dedicated (single tenant) version of SharePoint Online as well as a Standard (multi-tenant) version of SharePoint Online. This is all part of our Business Productivity Online Suite including SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, Office Communications Online and Live Meeting. The response to both the dedicated and multi-tenant offering has been outstanding. Customers have told us they like getting access to the most comprehensive and flexible set of collaboration and communication tools with the reliability, security and manageability they need.

· The editors at Computerworld give their opinion on the Technical Preview of Microsoft Office Web Apps, important work that our colleagues on the Office team are doing to move these powerful productivity applications to the cloud.

· The University System of Ohio and Microsoft announced an Education Alliance Agreement that will bring cloud-based messaging and collaboration solutions, including Exchange Online, to Ohio’s higher education and K-12 communities. Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Eric D. Fingerhut is quoted in the announcement:

"The Education Alliance Agreement provides the University System of Ohio with major cost savings for messaging and collaboration products," said Chancellor Fingerhut. "This agreement advances Ohio's 10-year Strategic Plan for Higher Education by supporting a common technology infrastructure through collaboration and group purchasing, which makes the University System of Ohio more efficient."

· ZDNet’s Mary-Jo Foley does some oranges-to-oranges comparison by measuring the Microsoft Online Services Deskless Worker Suite against IBM's LotusLive iNotes. Mary-Jo notes that most analysts are comparing LotusLive iNotes to Google Apps:

IBM’s announcement of a new hosted entry-level communications offering has led to lots of punditry around how it compares to Google Apps. But I’m not sure that’s IBM’s main competition here.

· In his post SharePoint in the Cloud – A Real World Experience Using BPOS, Philip Plimmer, at New Zealand-based partner Intergen, writes about recommending SharePoint Online for an organization needing a collaboration solution that extends to partners and potential partners. Philip provides this explanation of BPOS and cloud computing:

The BPOS solution is one of a growing number of “cloud” services – that huge cloud of connected servers called the Internet. Your system is not running in your corporate data centre – it just lives out there in the cloud. In a way cloud computing is nothing different to what you already do if you have a personal email account such as Windows Live Hotmail or Google’s Gmail.

The big difference is instead of talking about personal email, we are now taking the corporate data centre to the cloud.

We want to hear more stories like Philip’s. Do you have a real world BPOS story to tell? Share it with us.

Do you want to use Outlook 2003 with Exchange Online?

JimGlynn — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 04:12:00 GMT

In response to customer feedback, the Microsoft Online Services engineering team is developing the Outlook 2003 Connector. This is an Outlook add-in that will enable customers to use Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 to access all the features of Exchange Online. This includes free/busy information when setting up meetings, and the ability to access your organization’s global address list (GAL) from Outlook when you're offline. The add-in is currently in private beta testing with selected MVPs, Partners, and customers, and we’re ready to broaden the audience.

Help us make sure the Outlook 2003 Connector is ready
If you have purchased Microsoft Online Services, or are currently participating in a trial, and you’d like to use Outlook 2003 to access Exchange Online, navigate to to http://connect.microsoft.com, and provide the invitation ID below to participate in this beta program. Contact bpospb@microsoft.com if you need assistance.

Invitation ID: 2003-8PYX-K72K

If you’re not using Microsoft Online Services, but you’d like to take a look, go to the Microsoft Online Customer Portal and sign up for a free trial.

The Microsoft Online Services Team

Government Requirements for a Secure Cloud

paulenglis — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 02:18:00 GMT

This guest post from Ron Markezich, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Online Services, comments on the U.S federal government’s new cloud-based computing vision and initiatives.

This week, U.S. Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra unveiled the federal government’s vision for cloud computing, beginning with Apps.gov, an online marketplace that will enable federal agencies to find and purchase cloud-based IT services. This is a smart move by the government to streamline procurement for new cloud-based solutions and lower costs. In response, industry vendors are announcing future “dedicated” cloud services designed to meet the government’s security and privacy standards.

While other companies are just now developing – or announcing – their secure cloud strategies, Microsoft has built security and privacy into our offerings from the start. Available since 2006, Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite (a part of Microsoft Online Services) “dedicated” cloud environment has been deployed and in use by a variety of businesses and government organizations with intense security and privacy requirements – such as GlaxoSmithKline and the City of Carlsbad, Calif.

The story doesn’t end there – not even close. We continue to make our customer’s security and privacy a top priority. Here is how…Microsoft’s facilities and operational infrastructure are ISO27001 certified today. The Microsoft Online Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), operated under the same program, is aggressively pursuing ISO certification to be achieved by end 2009. In addition to meeting this International Standard, we anticipate that the Business Productivity Online Suite will achieve FISMA Accreditation in Q1 2010. We understand that all organizations – not just government entities on a dedicated cloud – want a high level of validated security and privacy, so these accreditations will exist for the services we provide all of our customers.

Microsoft isn’t new to government. For more than 25 years we have worked in close partnership with federal agencies, as well as the largest of enterprises, to meet sophisticated security, privacy and compliance expectations. Today, a range of federal, state and local government agencies are using Microsoft cloud-based solutions for mission-critical requirements. As the federal government begins to increasingly explore online tools and services, Microsoft will continue to provide flexible and reliable solutions that meet or exceed government security demands. Microsoft's approach to cloud computing enables government customers to continue to use familiar user interfaces, such as the Microsoft Office system, while allowing customers to quickly move to the cloud, using Microsoft as a partner across all delivery models – cloud and on-premises – in a broad set of solutions, across the PC, mobile phone, and browser.

Apps.gov is a great first step. We look forward to including Microsoft Online Services in that catalog and, with our partners, continuing to be committed to our governments computing needs.

Ron Markezich

Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Online Services

TechEd Australia 2009 : Down Under and Online

paulenglis — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 05:47:00 GMT

This guest post from Lee Hickin, a Microsoft Online Services Technology Specialist based in Australia, provides a preview of next week’s TechEd 2009 Australia Conference and opportunities for attendees to learn and experience Microsoft Online Services.

Next week, TechEd 2009 Australia kicks off at the Gold Coast Convention Centre in sunny Queensland. Running Sept. 8 to 11, attendees at this year’s event receive a free HP Mini 2140 Netbook – pre-loaded with Windows 7 RTM code and a host of other goodies.

For the Microsoft Online Service team – these Netbooks represent another first for TechEd. Every attendee will have the option of enabling a full BPOS account (including Live Meeting, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Office Communication Online) on their Netbook for a full 90-day trial. Just come along to the Microsoft Online Services booth at the conference, or speak to any of the Microsoft staff.

During the event all Microsoft staff and speakers, as well as all attendees who sign up for the BPOS account, will be able to experience presence awareness and communicate with either other using the Office Communicator tied in with Office Communications Online. Think about it. Instead of spending time trying to hunt down a speaker to ask that burning question, attendees can simply look up the speaker with Communicator and send them an instant message.

Attendees can also stop by the Microsoft Online Services booth and register to win one of three HTC Touch HD Smartphones – just for trying BPOS. The phones are provided by our good friends at Telstra – a major partner in the delivery of Microsoft’s online technology in Australia. Attendees can check out T-Suite, the Telstra portal for delivery of all Microsoft Online Services technology.

Other great Microsoft Online activities happening at TechEd Australia include:

· Look out for Microsoft Online Services demos in the keynote session

· Hands-on demonstrations and subject matter experts will be available all week in the Microsoft Online Services booth.

· Don’t forget to bring your Netbook to the booth (or ask any of the volunteers) to get it BPOS-enabled. If you don’t have the Netbook, you can still bring your own laptop, and we can configure BPOS on your machine.

· Two sessions dedicated to Microsoft Online Services are on the agenda:

o OFC250 Collaboration in the Cloud and the Datacentre

Join Lee Hickin and William Cornwill as they discuss in detail the evolution of SharePoint into an online service. See what can be delivered via SharePoint Online and get a glimpse into the future with SharePoint Online 2010.

o UNC308 Migration and Co-existence with Exchange/Non-Exchange and Exchange Online

Lee Hickin digs into the details of the technology and skills you need to smoothly migrate email to Exchange Online. With demos and real world examples, this session walks through the tools and processes involved. Also, we look into the capabilities around co-existence and how Exchange 2010 Online is changing the game in terms of mail structure, deployment and management. Walk away from this session with a new set of skills in the expanding world of Software + Services.

· We will have a number of Hands On Labs designed to give you the skills you need to administer and run Microsoft Online Services, including migration, synchronisation and management of the technology.

Follow TechEd Australia on Twitter here: http://www.twitter.com/auteched

Service Update: August 2009 Release Availability, Features Announced

paulenglis — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:00:00 GMT

The Microsoft Online Services Service Update for August 2009 begins deployment into production data centers this week and is scheduled to be available to all customers by the end of August; updates to the release deployment status will be posted to the comment section of this blog post.

No scheduled downtime is planned for the Microsoft Online Administration Center or the availability of the services in the Business Productivity Online Suite.

The following features are included in this Service Update:

New Language Options for Microsoft Online Administration Center (MOAC)

The Microsoft Online Administration Center is adding eight new language options: Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Italian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish.

SMTP Relay Support

Exchange Online is enabled to support for SMTP relay, allowing SMTP-enabled applications to send e-mail via Exchange Online.

Exchange Online Journaling

Exchange Online journaling is enabled, allowing email to be journaled to third-party archiving solutions, including Exchange Hosted Archive. Journaling can be enabled by contacting Microsoft Online Services support and opening a Service Request.

While Exchange Online journaling allows email to be journaled to third-party archiving solutions, Microsoft Online Services does not support or certify these third-party solutions. It is the customer’s responsibility to configure their archiving solution to work with Exchange Online journaling.

Microsoft Online Services at WPC09

paulenglis — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:05:00 GMT

More than 5,000 partners will descend upon New Orleans next week for the 2009 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC). The conference, July 13-16 at the Ernest Morial Convention Center, will feature numerous Microsoft Online Services activities and sessions.

At WPC, partners can attend six breakout sessions, 27 interactive theater sessions, visit 12 Solution Showcase Partners, and hear Microsoft Online Services discussed in several executive keynote talks. In the following video, Damon Sununtnasuk, Product Manager on the Microsoft Online Services Partner Team, introduces the group’s presence at WPC.

If you’re attending WPC, be sure to stop by the Microsoft Online Services Booth (#445)

Following is a list of the Microsoft Online Services breakout sessions:

Track

· S+S: Bringing it all together across MS Online Services, Partner Hosted and Windows Azure (SS001 | Monday July 13, 3:30- 4:30 PM| Room 217| and Tuesday July 14 , 5pm-6pm | Room 220-222)

Eron Kelly, Michael Maggs, Gretchen O'Hara, John Zanni talk about how partners can earn revenue in the services transformation.

· How to Scale your Business and Grow your Revenue with Microsoft Online Services (SS009 | Tuesday July 14, 2:00 - 3:00 PM | Room 217)

Stephan Schirrecker talks about building new revenue streams and extending reach though offering Microsoft Online Services as an addition to Partners’ existing software business.

· Turning Economic Challenges Into Business Opportunities using Microsoft Online Services (BP010 | Tuesday July 14, 3:30 – 4:00 PM | La Louisiane C)

Sassan Saedi talks about helping customers make the right choice and grow Partner business with Microsoft Online Services during this tough economic time.

· Online Services – Opportunities in the Enterprise (EPG 001 | Wednesday July 15, 5:00 – 6:00 PM | Auditorium B)

Peter Wihman, Daniel Bohm talk about building a business model with Business Productivity Online Services and the value to Enterprise customers.

· Finished Goods and OEM Authorized Distributor Strategy and Programs for the Next Year (LDS006 | Thursday July 16, 3:00 – 4:00 PM | Room 215-216 )

John Case, Dana Manciagli, Kenneth Rankin talk about Microsoft's vision and strategies, and discuss the innovations and programs coming to Partners in the coming year.

· Game Changing Technologies for ISVs (ISV002 | Thursday July 16 , 3:00 - 4:00 PM | Room 220-222)

Join Rob Craft to understand the business upside of Windows 7, the impact of Software-plus-Services on the Microsoft platform, and how Microsoft's developer tools, servers, and databases drive innovation and profitability.

Scheduled Downtime: Microsoft Online Customer Portal

paulenglis — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:26:00 GMT

As announced in the July Service Update, the Microsoft Online Customer Portal is scheduled to be offline for upgrades and planned maintenance.

The portal will be offline on Friday, July 10 from 14:00 to 17:30 Pacific Daylight Time (21:00 to 00:30 GMT). During this downtime, organizations will not be able to set up trial accounts, buy subscriptions, or modify current subscriptions. This downtime will not affect the availability of an organization's online services, so users can continue to access them as normal.

Watch the comments section of this blog post for updates on the availability of the Microsoft Online Customer Portal.