NZ SBSC Update

Australian Partner Conference

Hi All,

Attending the Worldwide Partner Conference is often not an option for the majority of New Zealand Partners due to cost and time constraints.

One option you may like to consider though is the Australian partner conference.

This years conference is being run from the 1st to the 4th of September at Broadbeach on the Gold Coast.

There are four key focus areas:

SBS 2008 Certification offers

Hi all,

Now is a great time to update your certification to Small Business Server 2008 and Essential Business Server 2008. Auldhouse and Ace Training both have some great offers to help you upgrade your certification and have courses in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch.

Offers below:

Attend Auldhouse’s 2-day workshops covering the necessary knowledge to plan and implement SBS 2008 or EBS 2008, including migrating from Windows Server 2003 or Windows Small Business Server 2003. Workshops also prepare you sit the Microsoft Certified Professional exam free of charge on day two of workshop. Limited spaces available for workshops commencing early June 2009.

To register or for more information visit the Auldhouse website or contact Leigh Richardson on 0800 835 835.

Attend Ace’s 1-day workshop for IT professionals with experience in the design and implementation of Windows SBS 2000 or SBS 2003 to upgrade your skills to Windows SBS 2008. Covers the new technology in Windows Small Business Server 2008 and includes exam. Commencing in June.

To register or for more information visit the ACE website or contact Lettie Dalton on 09 378 0411

Cheers,

Brad

Tech.Ed 2009 Early Bird Tickets Sold out!

Hi All,

Earlybird tickets to Tech.Ed 2009 have now sold out! Regular tickets are still selling fast so if you are planning on going please consider getting your ticket asap to avoid disappointment!

For information and to register visit www.microsoft.co.nz/teched

Also if you want to what all the fuss is about and what you can expect at a Tech.Ed event go to www.microsoft.co.nz/teched

To follow Tech.Ed on Twitter: www.twitter.com/techedlive

Cheers,

Brad

NZ Tech.Ed 2009 Early Bird Tickets on sale Monday 18th May!

Hi All,

Planning is underway for Tech.Ed 2009, New Zealand’s biggest conference for the ICT technical community. This year’s Tech.Ed is shaping up to be bigger and better than ever before, and will showcase exciting new technologies including Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Visual Studio 2010, plus much more.

For the last few years, Tech.Ed has sold out. In 2008 all tickets were sold within 3 weeks of registration opening. Registration this year opens on 18 May (this coming Monday). If you or your colleagues are considering attending, I encourage you to register early to avoid disappointment.

There are some changes to ticket prices for Tech.Ed 2009, including reduced prices for individual registrations. Significant discounts for group registrations remain, and there are also a limited number of discounted Early Bird tickets. There are still opportunities for sponsoring and exhibiting at Tech.Ed 2009 available, please visit www.microsoft.co.nz/teched for further information.

Once again, I encourage you to register early for Tech.Ed 2009 to avoid disappointment!!

From 9am, 18 May 2009 please visit www.microsoft.co.nz/teched to register!!

Cheers,

Brad

EBS 2008 & IBM Customer Briefing

Hi All,

Microsoft and IBM are running 3 customer briefing sessions around the country next week. These sessions are a great opportunity for you to bring customers along to. The sessions will cover:

• IBM’s new flagship System x rack and blade servers
• Performance and cost savings from from the new server range
• Windows Server 2008 Virtualisation Technologies
• Essential Business Server 2008

The session is designed to show customers how these solutions will help them save money while increasing their ability to compete in an extremely demanding market.

Event details:

Wellington: 19th May, 7:30 am-9:30am, Lambton Room One – Level One, Intercontinental Hotel, 2 Grey St, Wellington

Auckland: 20th May, 11:45am-2pm, Raffles Room – Ground Floor, Stamford Plaza Hotel, 22 Albert St, Auckland

Christchurch: 21st May, 7:30am-9:30am, Level One Conference Centre – Rydges Hotel, 170 Oxford Terrace, Christchurch

To register call 0800 426 778 or email ibm@nz.ibm.com

Please note: This is an event for partners to bring customers along to, not a partner specific event

Cheers,

Brad

Windows 7 RC available for download!

Hi all,

As many of you may be aware the Windows 7 RC is now available for download!

The RC features a couple of great new features added since the beta version:

1. Windows XP Mode: Allows Windows 7 professional users to run many Windows XP productivity applications in Windows 7. Utilizing Windows Virtual PC, Windows XP applications can be launched with a single click directly from the Windows 7 desktop. The Windows XP Mode feature is specifically designed to help small businesses still using older XP applications move to Windows 7. Please note that Windows XP Mode is currently not included at the time of downloading Windows 7 RC.  Install the Windows XP Mode Beta.

2. Remote Media Streaming: Remote streaming enables you to securely access your home-based digital media libraries over the Internet from another Windows 7 PC outside the home.  Simply associate two Windows 7 PCs with the way you connect to the Internet and allow Internet access to your media on both of them. Windows Media Player displays and plays the media libraries from those remote PCs in the same manner as other shared media libraries on a home network.

For more information and to download the Windows 7 RC click the link below

Install Windows 7 RC

Cheers,

Brad

Windows 7 Roadshow!

Hi All,

The Unplugged guys are doing a roadshow starting later this month, covers Windows 7 & Server 2008 R2, definately not to be missed! Details below.

UNPLUGGED Roadshow: Windows 7 Special - 25 May to 5 June 2009

Join us for the May - June 2009 UNPLUGGED Roadshow as we visit locations around New Zealand presenting technical sessions for Developers and IT Pros. Choose from either the MSDN Stream for Developers or TechNet Stream for IT Pros.


MSDN Stream: Developing for Windows 7 and Silverlight 3
Find out how to get started developing rich applications for Windows 7 and Silverlight 3. Two sessions, presented by Microsoft New Zealand Developer Advisors, Mike Zeff and Nigel Parker. More information and details.

 
TechNet Stream: Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2
Join Microsoft IT Pro Advisor, Nathan Mercer as he presents these technical sessions demonstrating the essential features of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. More information and details.

Dates and Location
25 May: Palmerston North
26 May: Tauranga
27 May: Hamilton
28 May: Auckland
3 June: Christchurch
4 June: Dunedin
5 June: Wellington

Sessions 9 - 12.30pm. Level 300 for IT Pros and Developers. Register on the Microsoft UNPLUGGED website.

Cheers,

2009 New Zealand Partner Awards!

Hi All 

The New Zealand Microsoft Partner Awards are back for the third year running. Again we’re looking to honour those Microsoft Gold partners, Certified partners and Small Business Specialist partners who have delivered exemplary, innovative solutions for their customers.

To ensure you’re all in the know regarding the awards – arm yourself with the following:

• The Awards site and call for nominations opens 1^st of May
• All entries my reach us by 5pm Friday 26 June 2009
• 19 award categories for 2009 (see below)
• We have introduced a number of new categories, and some categories from last year have evolved. Entry forms will be available on this site after midday on Thursday May 7th.
• We urge you to start promoting this to your partners. 
• Click here to let us know the category or categories you wish to enter and we will send the forms when they are available.
• For category descriptions go here.
• The 2009 Partner Awards Black Tie Dinner will be held on the 27^th of August at the Auckland Museum
• Partner Awards Black Tie Dinner tickets will go on sale 1^st of July

Cheers,

Brad

Microsoft New Zealand Licensing Toolkit!

Hi all,

We have recently created the Microsoft Licensing Toolkit, a kit which contains a number of one page licensing documents that are both partner and customer ready.

Included is information on:

• Different Licensing Programs available
• Pricing
• License Administration

To access these excellant resources and even provide feedback on what you would like to see in the toolkit visit https://www.microsoft.com/nz/licensing/toolkit.mspx

This is a great tool if you are stuck on a licensing question or you have a customer who would like easy to understand licensing resources.

Brad

TechNet UNPLUGGED: Windows 7 Technical Overview and Installfest! April 2009

Note: If you are unable to make it to a session in Auckland, Wellington, or Christchurch please attend the Live Meeting Session online on the 21st of April

Event - Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite with Lee Hickin

Hi all,

Play a key role in bringing together powerful technology with domain expertise, innovative capabilities, and value added services to New Zealand customers with Microsoft Online Services. By offering and building on Microsoft Online Services, you are able to easily develop and deliver customer fit solutions that help your customers to realise their full potential, while generating predictable and recurring revenue for your organisation.

Join Lee Hickin, Senior Technology Specialist for Microsoft Online Services, for an overview of the newly released Microsoft Online Services strategy and offering, and let him show you how to partner with Microsoft in offering this productivity solution to your customers.

Presentation Agenda

Partner Conference 2009 – New Orleans

MS WPC is scheduled for July 13-16 2009, in New Orleans, Louisiana.  These are amazing events with thousands of geeks descending on a poor unsuspecting city for Learning, Discussion and fun.  If you haven't been before, you should make every effort to get up there and check it out.  This is not something to be missed.

https://partner.microsoft.com/40018508?msp_id=wpc

- Ben

LicenseWise

As a way to combat the issue of people not understanding licenses, Microsoft has released LicenseWise for Volume Licensing.  Check it out!

http://partner.microsoft.com/licensewise

- Ben

April 2009 S.B. Specialist Toolkit on its way

Keep an eye out for the courier with your box of goodies.  One big item is that they were going to get everyone a copy of Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Workgroup.  This has been upgraded to Enterprise (yeah baby).

Also included will be various sales tools, current offers, huge discounts on e-Learning and details on the upcoming Worldwide Partner Conference.

- Ben

SBS 2003 Cert’s Expiring

The SBS & EBS 2008 (70-653, 70-654) exams are available, and according to the guys + gals who wrote the exams they are “a lot harder to pass by design”.  They have been written so that the S.B. Specialist program truly reflects those that have committed to the program & products.  They estimate you will need around one years experience with the product to pass the exams.

The current SBS 2003 certification (70-282) is due to expire in October 2010.  Please ensure you have upgraded your skills & certifications before this date.  There was discussion around perhaps running an instructor-led exam cram session up at Partner Conference in New Orleans (you are going up right?!) this year, run by the guys who wrote the exams, so let me know if you would be interested in this.

- Ben

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/Exams/70-653.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/Exams/70-654.aspx