News & Views for Irish SBSC Partners

SMB Nation is coming this October!

sinead o' grada — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:30:16 GMT

Get Your Geek On – SMB Nation 2008, October 4-6, 2008, Seattle

Join hundreds of Small Business Specialists to learn more about Windows Small Business Server 2008, Essential Business Server and Microsoft Response Point plus many other technologies. BusinessSpeak track features sales activation content, issues sensitive to owners and much more. How To track provides practical hands-on business knowledge that you can apply immediately.

Visit www.smbnation.com to sign up.

New SBS Promotions!

sinead o' grada — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:55:01 GMT

Hi Guys,

We have just announced 2 new SBS promotions that you can check out on the Promotions page on the Irish Partner Portal by clicking here.

If you have any questions about availing of these promotions please drop me a line on sinog@microsoft.com.

Thanks!

Sinead

SBS Software Assurance Offer

An extended offering for partners deploying Windows® Small Business Server 2003 R2 with Software Assurance. Click here to avail of this offer.

Dates: Applies to SBS deployment and SA purchase between May 1, 2008 – October 31, 2008 (Participants have until November 15, 2008 to submit claims)

Offer Summary

· $200 services rebate on deployment services for SBS 2003 R2 Premium Edition with Software Assurance OR

· $100 services rebate on deployment services for SBS 2003 R2 Standard Edition with Software Assurance

SBS Rebate Offer

SBS Services Rebate Offer. Click here to avail of this offer.

Dates: SBS services delivered b/n January 1, 2008 – June 30, 2008 (Participants have until July 31, 2008 to submit claims)

Offer Summary

· $225 services rebate on deployment services for SBS 2003 R2 Premium Edition OR

· $100 services rebate on deployment services for SBS 2003 R2 Standard Edition OR

· 5 CALs for deployment services for SBS 2003 R2 Premium or Standard Editions

Connect with Customers Today!!

sinead o' grada — Wed, 21 May 2008 19:18:33 GMT

Hi Guys,

You have most likely heard us speaking about the importance of profiling your solution in Solution Profiler before! So here's a reminder of how you can better connect with customer's by ensuring your company has profiled it's solution!

With Solution Profiler you can promote your product and solutions online every hour of every day – FOR FREE!

It is an online tool in which you can profile one or more of your solutions. This feeds into our customer facing solution finder web site. Everyday thousands of customers search here for products and solutions to fit their needs. Why not make some of these customers yours?

All you have to do is go to Solution Profiler, create your profile and wait for the leads to arrive. It is really simple. You will also find plenty of resources on the site to help you make your profile a success.

Extend your Reach. Profile your Microsoft Solution today.

If you have any questions in relation to this please send me a mail on sinog@microsof.com.

Thanks,

Sinead

New Technical Exam for SBSC Qualification!

sinead o' grada — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:54:36 GMT

Hi Guys,

I am delighted to announce that a new technical exam focused on configuring Exchange Server 2007 has been added to the choice of exams required to qualify for the SBSC Program.

You can find out more about the exam here and learn how to get signed up to the program here.

Thanks,

Sinead

Microsoft Partner Conference - SBSC Discounted Registration!

sinead o' grada — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:41:11 GMT

Hi Guys,

I am contacting you in relation to the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference. Hopefully you received a communication from either Colin Cassidy or I during April in relation to this.

As Small Business Specialists you can avail of a DISCOUNTED registration fee ($1395 vs full fee of $1795). You can avail of this discounted fee by clicking here. Also when booking your hotel accommodation I would recommend selecting the Westin Oaks hotel if possible.

For Small Business Specialist partners the conference highlights will include the pre conference Small and Medium Partner Forum, a specific Small Business track at the main conference and a great schedule of Microsoft Ireland specific events at the conference (with a mix of business and pleasure).

It would be great to see our local Irish Small Business Specialist partners attending the conference this year given the significant local investments we have made in the program and the investments we plan to make in the coming year. Last year a number of Irish SBSC partners attended the conference and the following are some of their thoughts around the benefits of attending..........

“Attending the Worldwide Partner event was excellent and I will be adding it to my calendar as a “yearly must”. It was great as a Small Business Specialist to have the focused Small Business Symposium pre event and there were some excellent sessions between this event and the main conference. It’s a great chance to think about your business as well as new technologies. The part I didn’t realise was going to be as good as it was – the networking with other Irish partners, as well as great fun it’s a opportunity to share stories and a few beers. You need to go once to understand why it’s a must every year.”

Keith McHale – Managing Director - Itomic

“I would have to say the Microsoft conference was a real eye opener with regards to our continued education into new products. Sometimes we can all sit on the fence and continue doing what we know and what we are comfortable with. Stepping out of my comfort zone meant going to Denver and what it has done for my outlook and business is fantastic. What I really liked was the focus on how to develop our services around Microsoft’s new products. I really learned where Microsoft is heading which lets me make a few changes in my company that will keep us in line.One of the most beneficial outcomes for me was to meet with the other Partners in Ireland in a very open forum where we could discuss the new innovations and products which are emerging on the market, but also where Managed Services are headed and how we should all get there.”

Kevin O’ Loughlin – Managing Director – Nostra Systems

If you have any questions in relation to this please do not hesitate to contact me on sinog@microsoft.com or on 00353 87 9805473.

We look forward to hosting you in Houston.

Thanks,

Sinead

Mark Mulvany - Recent Microsoft Partner Clinic

sinead o' grada — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:31:17 GMT

Hi Guys,

Thought you might find the content that Mark Mulvany covered in a recent partner clinic in Cork useful.

Mark discussed areas such as Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Business Contact Manager and Hyper V Virtaulization.

You can access the content here.

Enjoy :)

Thanks,

Sinead

Microsoft Ireland Partner Training for Windows Server 2008!!

sinead o' grada — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:02:22 GMT

Hi Guys,

Following on the exciting Launch Showcase event which took place on March 11th in Tripod we are delighted to offer you the following Sales and Technical Training on Windows Server 2008.

Places for these courses are filling up fast so sign up today to secure your place and avoid disappointment!

You can also keep up to date on the other local activities around launch here.

Thanks,

Sinead

Sales Training - Selling Windows Server 2008

This 1 day workshop is designed for members of the partner community who sell and implement infrastructure solutions. This workshop is focused on selling the business value of Windows Server 2008 and so would be most applicable to sales and pre-sales consultants as well as those involved in bids and licensing administration.

Module 1: The Windows Server 2008 Opportunity

Module 2: Understanding Windows Server 2008

Module 3: Selling Windows Server 2008

Module 4: Licensing Windows Server 2008 and Next Steps

Location: Dublin European Product Development Centre 2; South County Business Park, Leopardstown, Dublin 18

Date: April 23rd 2008

Registration: Register Now

Cost: No Cost

Sales Training - Selling Microsoft Virtualization Technologies and Solutions

If you already have – or you are currently setting up a practice delivering consulting and implementation services around Systems’ & Applications’ Virtualization to your customers. The “Selling Microsoft Virtualization Technologies and Solution” training will enable your company to sell more services with solutions based on the Microsoft Virtualization offering. By attending this sales training you will:

o Quantify the financial opportunity of Microsoft’s virtualization technologies and solutions for your company.

o Understand the benefits of the Microsoft Virtualization offering for your customers.

o Position Microsoft’s virtualization technologies and solutions effectively.

o Help your customers understand the long-term value of the Dynamic Systems Initiative and Microsoft roadmap for virtualization technologies and products.

o Win deals faster and more profitably.

o Build a strategy for increasing revenue leveraging the Microsoft Virtualization offering.

Location: Dublin European Product Development Centre 2; South County Business Park, Leopardstown, Dublin 18

Date: May 1 2008

Registration: Register Now

Cost: No Cost

Technical Training - Automating Windows Server 2008 Administration with Microsoft Windows PowerShell

This three-day instructor-led course provides students with the knowledge and skills to utilize Windows PowerShell for administering and automating administration of Windows Server 2008. The course focuses on cmdlets, script structure and flow control, language syntax, and implementation details of scripting administrative tasks using COM, WMI, and .NET foundations.

Location: Dublin Global Knowledge, Millennium Walkway, Dublin 1

Date: April 1-3 2008

Registration: Register Now

Cost: €475 per person with Microsoft Ireland invested subsidies

Upcoming Community Events: April - Dublin/May - Galway

sinead o' grada — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:38:16 GMT

Hi Guys,

Thought you might find these Community Event of interest.

There is a really great line up for both events in Dublin and Galway.

More information and registration details are below.

Any questions on this please give me a shout.

Thanks,

Sinead

Community Events

We are happy to recommend two excellent community events coming up in April and May where you can hear expert speakers on the three launch products and many more Microsoft technologies:

The Irish Microsoft Technology Conference 2008 (April 3rd,4th - Dublin) - Now in its third year, the multi-day, multi-track IMTC 2008 features over 40 technolgy-packed sessions for developers and IT Pros. Register online now to experience a host of technical experts including world-renouned speakers from Microsoft developer groups, MVPs and certified partners. The IMTC is one of the largest tech conferences in Ireland and this year each delegate will receive a free DVD containing all the sessions - one not to miss! Fee: 189 euros.

Developer Developer Developer Ireland (May 3rd - Galway) - for the first time, the UK's popular day-long DDD event is coming to Ireland. DDD is focused on .NET development, with many TechEd and DevWeek regulars included in the speaker line-up. This is your chance to get hands-on with the technologies in Galway! This is a free event.

Agenda for the IMTC

IMTC - April 3rd

Track 1
10:00 - Silverlight 2.0 (Richard Costall)
11:30 - LINQ: Change the way you code (Oliver Sturm)
13:45 - Live Meeting (Chris Dalby)
15:15 - Securing Communications using WCF (Chris Seary)
16:45 - Online Experiments For Optimizing Customer Experience (Randy Henne)

Track 2
10:00 - A Lap Around Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 (Doug Seven)
11:30 - Test-Driven Development and Code Coverage using Visual Studio 2008 Pro (Craig Murphy)
13:45 - VSTS (Martin Woodward)
15:15 - Improving Team Development with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 (Doug Seven)
16:45 - Functional Programming in C# 3 (Oliver Sturm)

Track 3
10:00 - Sharepoint (Stephen Cummins)
11:30 - SBS (Nick Whittome)
13:45 - System Centre (Duncan McAlynn)
15:15 - Systems Centre Mobile Device Manager (Mark Mulvany)
16:45 - Sponsor Session (Speaker TBC)

Track 4
10:00 - The 64-bit question: Which platform? (Richard Heiges)
11:30 - What is new in SQL Server 2008 (Niall Flanagan)
13:45 - BI in SQL 08 (Richard Fennell)
15:15 - LINQ to SQL - An Introduction (Ronan Geraghty)
16:45 - Express Yourself (Richard Heiges)

IMTC - April 4th

Track 1
10:00 - Web 2.0 (Ben Sykes)
11:30 - Mix 08 (Phil Winstanley)
13:45 - Using the Web Client Software Factory (Gary Short)
15:15 - Reach End Users With Next Generation Web Applications (Doug Seven)
16:45 - Silverlight 2 Deepdive (Martha Rotter)

Track 2
10:00 - What's New in VSTO and Visual Studio 2008 (Michelle Clarke)
11:30 - Breakthrough Software Development Challenges with Visual Studio 2008 (Doug Seven)
13:45 - XNA Ireland: The Challenge (Phil Bourke)
15:15 - Top 10 SQL Keywords (Dave McMahon)
16:45 - Sponsor Session

Track 3
10:00 - Biztalk and ESB (Robert Hogg)
11:30 - Microsoft IO/Exchange (Paddy Baxter)
13:45 - Using XML Web Services to manage external SQL data interfaces (Alan Crowley)
15:15 - Information Card - Beyond the HTML Page (Barry Dorrans)
16:45 - OCS - An Architectural Overview (Thomas Lee)

Track 4
10:00 - Microsoft's Virtualisation Strategy (Dave Northey)
11:30 - Internet Information Services 7.0 for ASP.Net Developers (Andrew Westgarth)
13:45 - PowerShell and WMI (Thomas Lee)
15:15 - Windows Server 2008 and Branch Office Infratructure (Aidan Finn)
16:45 - Hyper-V (Dave Northey)

Customer Satisfaction Index Update now available for SBSC Partners!

sinead o' grada — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 18:58:07 GMT

Hi Guys,

I know attracting and retaining customers is a constant challenge for all business owners so I am delighted to let you know that the newly launched CSAT Index portal has now been extended as a Partner Program benefit for SBSC partners.

This portal has lots of resources and tools to help you to retain existing customers and strengthen your business relationships!

Hope you find this useful and if you have any feedback on using the tool please let me know.

Thanks,

Sinead

Office Live Workplace Launches in Ireland!

sinead o' grada — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 21:20:29 GMT

Hi Guys,

Yesterday Microsoft announced the availability of Office Live Workspaces in International English, which will open up the service to Irish users. So, if you have a Windows Live ID with an Irish address, you can now register at www.officelive.com/workspace and start using the service!

You can use the service to store, edit and share Office documents and other information “in the cloud” and access them from virtually any web browser (including Firefox and Safari as well as IE). The service is being regularly upgraded but it is already very powerful, with tools to allow people to collaborate with friends to share information for organising sports teams, social events as well as conventional business-related tasks and information.

You can also download a small add-on to Office (for 2007, 2003 and XP) after registration which allows you to open and save documents to your Office Live Workspace from within Office applications. Below are some screengrabs of the new service and a snapshot of the Office menu with the new Office Live options installed.

You will have the opportunity to meet with the Microsoft Ireland Office team at the Community Event on the 11th next week where you will have the opportunity to ask them any questions you may have around this exciting opportunity!

Thanks,

Sinead

SMB Nation Article on SBS 2008!

sinead o' grada — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 18:04:18 GMT

Hi Guys,

Thought you might find this SMB Nation article on SBS 2008 interesting reading - the graphics are not very clear but should give you an idea!!

For more on SMB Nation click here.

Also watch out for the very FIRST local Irish presentation on SBS 2008 from Mark Mulvany at the upcoming SBSC Partner Community Event on March 11th. You can register for the event here.

Thanks!

SBS 2008: BusinessSpeak Viewpoint

Perhaps you know about the announcement in recent days about SBS 2008 from the Windows Server team in Building 43 in Redmond and their PR partners WagEd out of Portland. You might have read some of the technical community blogs echoing the announcement and adding sophisticated commentary to provide richer technical context. All good.

I want to use this article for a different spin with a BusinessSpeak bent. First of all - the upgrade is welcome relief for SMB Nation tribal members seeking to upgrade their customers with the latest technology. It will be nearly five calendar years since the release of SBS 2003 by the time you get the new SBS 2008 bits to your customers.

For the record, the customer has the same choice (even more) with the SBS 2008 release. There are two editions: Standard and Premium. The details are displayed in the figure below and I point you to some resources to get more techie info. But what I want to emphasize as a small business owner is the second Windows Server 2008 license with SQL running on a second server. I am a line of business (LOB) kinda guy (as I write this, my capable operations director Cyndi Moody worked till nearly dawn updating our CRM database) and this attitude adjustment in the SBS product line reflects real world LOB thinking.

The other BusinessSpeak-ism I want to highlight is the integration with Microsoft Office Live - Small Business. This marriage between hosted and on-site SBS resources completes the dream first imagined by one of the original SBS product managers in the 1990s, Brian Jeans. Brian wrote an article in the first issue of this newsletter in July 2001. This newsletter was released at the Microsoft Fusion conference in Anaheim, CA (now the Worldwide Partner Conference) at a session led by another SBS program manager, Jerome Stewart who was touting the newly released SBS 2000 product. We started with a whopping 48 readers that day; we now have 15,000 readers. Brian Jeans wrote about his move to the bCentral team after four years of service on the SBS product team. He imagined a time when SBS and bCentral would intersect and interact. Fast forward seven years and you have the reality of SBS 2008 working with Microsoft Office Live - Small Business. So put that in your peace pipe and smoke it.

WPC AWARD SUBMISSION TOOL OPEN - SBSC Partner of the Year Award 2008!

sinead o' grada — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 19:25:22 GMT

Hi Guys,

The submission tool for the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference Awards is open until April 8th.

I would encourage you to consider entering for the Small Business Specialist Partner of the Year Award which honours those partners who are using Microsoft technology to deploy innovative small-business solutions. Winners will be announced and recognized at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Houston taking place from July 7-10, 2008. This award is only for partners actively enrolled in the Microsoft Small Business Specialist Community.

You can click here for full details on the award application process and program details.

Best of luck with your submissions!

Thanks,

Sinead

REGISTER TODAY! Microsoft Ireland SBSC Partner Community Event

sinead o' grada — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 20:57:03 GMT

Hi Folks,

The Small Business team at Microsoft Ireland are delighted to invite you to attend our upcoming SBSC Partner Community Event on March 11^th 2008 which will feature a taster on Cougar, details on local promotions and incentives, an opportunity to hear from and network with your peers, Windows Vista SP1, the exciting Launch Showcase experience to celebrate the launch of Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 and lots more!!

All the information you need for the event is as follows:

When? March 11^th 2008

Where? Main Auditorium, Microsoft EPDC2, South County Business Park, Leopardstown, Dublin 18. Click here for directions

Timing? Community Event: 8:30am-4:30pm Launch Showcase:18:00pm-20:00pm

Relevant Audience? Managing Directors, Sales, Business Development, Pre-Sales

REGISTRATION : To register for the event please click here. Please note you need to register for BOTH the Community Event and the Launch Showcase as part of the registration link! Places at the Launch Showcase are limited and will be allocated on a first come, first served basis so please ensure that you register separately for the Launch Showcase to secure your place.

Also if there are other colleagues or individuals within your organisation that you feel this event is relevant for please feel free to pass on the invitation.

If you have any questions on the event please do not hesitate to contact me on sinog@microsoft.com

We look forward to seeing you on the 11^th!

Thanks,

Sinead

Windows Server 2008 - released to manufacture February 4th!!

sinead o' grada — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:22:52 GMT

Hi Folks,

Just wanted to share the exciting news with you about Windows Server 2008 being released to manufacture yesterday!!

It will be available to purchase through Volume Licensing on March 1st 2008.

You can get involved in the local Launch activities through the local launch site here. You will also be invited to attend the Dublin Launch Showcase experience on the evening of March 11th as part of the upcoming SBSC Partner Community Event - watch out for your invitation for the event this week!

There will also be a Launch event in Belfast on April 8th.

If you have any questions on the launch please do not hesitate to contact me.

Watch this space for more info!

Thanks,

Sinead

New Deployment Guide for SBS 2003 & Windows Mobile 6!

sinead o' grada — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:57:53 GMT

Hi Guys,

I hope you will find this new Deployment Guide for SBS 2003 and Windows Mobile 6 useful.

You can access the guide here.

Thanks,

Sinead