Server and Tools Business News Bytes blog : Partner News

Red Hat and Microsoft Expand Virtualization Interoperability Options

mdingle — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:01:00 GMT

Red Hat, the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that customers can now deploy fully supported virtualization environments that combine Microsoft Windows Server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. In response to customer demand for interoperability in their IT environments, Red Hat and Microsoft have completed testing and validation for mutual customers using server virtualization. Joint support from Red Hat and Microsoft for these configurations is available today.

For more information about today’s announcement, please visit the Virtualization Team Blog.

Microsoft Streamlines Its Licensing Structure – Updates Announced at WPC

grantkd — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 22:01:00 GMT

In today’s economic environment, customers are looking for ways to compete in a global marketplace through combined strategic investments in IT innovation and careful cost management. Microsoft Volume Licensing policies and programs keep pace with customer needs and pave the way for new computing models.

Joe Matz, corporate vice president of Worldwide Licensing and Pricing, discusses how Microsoft is advancing the company’s licensing models and policies so that customers achieve greater choice and flexibility in how they purchase and deploy licensed software and services. To learn more about this news, click here.

You can also learn more about other Microsoft news at the WPC 2009 virtual pressroom.

Core Infrastructure at WPC 2009

grantkd — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 07:26:00 GMT

Today begins Microsoft’s annual Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans, and there’s a lot of buzz around what partners can look forward to in the coming year.

Bob Kelly, corporate vice president of Infrastructure Server Marketing, will be giving updates on some of the upcoming innovations and partner opportunities coming out of Core Infrastructure onsite as part of his keynotes July 13 and 14.

As part of sharing the news, Bob has also guest-authored a blog entry on the Windows Server team blog that gives more detail on some of the exciting highlights.

To keep on top of other Core Infrastructure news announcements throughout the event, please visit the following blogs:

o Windows Server team blog

o Virtualization team blog

o Forefront

o System Center

o Small Business Server

o Essential Business Server

o Windows Home Server

o MAP Toolkit

You can also follow Core Infrastructure via the STB News Bytes Twitter feed, or learn more at the WPC 2009 virtual pressroom and the Infrastructure PressPass site.

Microsoft Announces Premier Mission-Critical Support

grantkd — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:20:00 GMT

Today, Microsoft Services announced the global availability of Premier Mission Critical, a new add-on for Premier Support customers that delivers the highest level of responsiveness, service availability and support for Windows Server and SQL Server components of mission-critical solutions.

Through Premier Mission Critical, Microsoft partners with customers to expedite relief, recover application availability and provide reassurance backed by a designated support team familiar with each customer’s environment and with response time guarantees backed by financial credits. Key features include:

· Guaranteed response times within 30 minutes for high-severity system-down situations with SLAs backed by financial credits;

· Round-the-clock support through a dedicated phone line to a select team of experienced Microsoft support engineers familiar with the solution configuration and deployment environment;

· Prioritized access to product development teams to include end-to-end incident management and ensure the fastest possible root cause identification. Support works with product teams to provide critical, on-demand patch production in severe situations.

Please view the press release for additional information.

SMB Partners Convene and Share Experiences

Brittany M. — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:50:00 GMT

Starting tomorrow in Dallas the channel partners who work as IT pros for small and medium-sized businesses gather at the SMB Summit for training and knowledge sharing about Windows Home Server and the Windows Essential Server Solutions family, including Windows Small Business Server 2008 and Windows Essential Business Server 2008.

Many of these partners have been test driving these products and are able to share their initial learnings. These partners are also attending to talk about the business opportunities available by meeting the needs of SMBs and helping these organizations with the issues they face. Microsoft representatives will be in attendance and blogging from the show at the Official SBS Blog, the Essential Business Server Team Blog and the Windows Server Division blog.

Partners and Microsoft representatives will be at the show and available to speak with journalists.

IDC Study: Microsoft security partner programs succeed in making partners more profitable

Brittany M. — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 12:00:00 GMT

IDC and Microsoft released, today, a study that shows that the Microsoft Partner Program is enabling security partners to be more successful compared to programs from other vendors. The study finds that partners participating in Microsoft’s SSA and SSC programs experience over one-third higher profit margins, three times more revenue growth, one to four points lower sales and marketing overheads, and are getting four to five times more customers.

The study, commissioned by Microsoft, attributes partners’ success to Partner Program including the investments and enhancements Microsoft made to its partner ecosystem in July 2007, including a $50 million+ investment in sales, marketing, and training and the SCC program.

Microsoft also announced that, to date, over 6,000 partners have joined its SSA program, and the company is making additional enhancements to the SCC program.

The complete IDC study is available here.

For more on the results of the study and the new program enhancements, visit www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2008/jan08/01-14securitypartners.mspx.

For more on the security partner ecosystem enhancements announced at WPC in July 2007, visit http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2007/jul07/07-11hassallqa.mspx.

Microsoft and Novell Interoperability Lab Opening

grantkd — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 13:10:00 GMT

Microsoft and Novell announced the opening of the Microsoft and Novell Interoperability Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The opening of the lab, led by Tom Hanrahan (Microsoft) and Suzanne Forsberg (Novell), delivers on a joint promise the two companies made last fall as part of their groundbreaking collaboration agreement and is yet another indicator of the high-priority Microsoft and Novell are placing on their collaborative efforts. Microsoft and Novell technical experts at the joint development facility will work together to architect and test new software solutions and work with customers and the community to build and support these technologies. More information on today’s news is available at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/sep07/09-11MSNovellLabsPR.mspx

Microsoft and Citrix Integration

grantkd — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 12:40:00 GMT

Today at VMworld 2007, Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq “MSFT”) and Citrix Systems Inc. (Nasdaq “CTXS”) announced that they have strengthened their longtime integration alliance in the desktop and application delivery market by standardizing on the Microsoft^® Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) format as a common runtime environment for both virtualized operating systems and applications. This collaboration will result in future versions of Citrix’s Desktop Server and virtual application solutions adopting the Microsoft VHD format. At the same time, Microsoft plans to adapt a future version of Microsoft SoftGrid Application Virtualization for both the desktop and Terminal Services to the VHD format. Microsoft and Citrix will also collaborate on emerging virtualization technologies and virtual infrastructure management tools to help ensure interoperability and simplified administration for end users.