Tartan Tech: Microsoft Scotland Insight : Product News

Windows 7 Partner Training Courses – Scottish Dates

jhenders01 — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 11:37:57 GMT

The Partner Readiness team are running a series of Partner Training courses focussed around Windows 7 over the next few months, with a Scottish date(s) for each course confirmed.

Updating Your Technology Knowledge of Microsoft Windows XP to Windows 7 – Various Dates and Locations

This two-day instructor-led course provides students with the knowledge and skills to work with the new technologies in Windows 7. £100 per delegate. Click here to Register

Glasgow 14^th Sept, Leeds 21^st Sept, Wokingham 24^th Sept, London 5^th Oct, Coventry 19^th Oct, Edinburgh 5^th Nov, Wokingham 23^rd Nov, London 14^th Dec

Installing and Configuring Windows 7 Client – Various Dates and Locations

This 2 day instructor-led course is intended for IT Professional who are interested in expanding their technical knowledge of Windows 7 Client. In this course Students learn to install, upgrade and migrate to Windows7 client. Students then configure Windows7 client for network connectivity, security, maintenance and mobile computing. £100 per delegate.

This course will provide knowledge to take Exam 70-680 TS: Windows 7 Configuring. Click Here to Register

London 19^th Oct, Edinburgh 28^th Oct, Altrincham 3^rd Nov, Birmingham 4^th Nov, London 9^th Nov, Edinburgh 18^th Nov, London 2^nd Dec

Windows 7 Application Compatibility Briefings for ISVs – Various Dates and Locations

This 1 Day briefing will discuss and demonstrate the remediation techniques for Windows 7 compatibility issues, the common symptoms, how to test and debug them, and best practices for developing Windows 7 applications. FREE

Click Here to Register

Manchester 3^rd Sep, Reading 7^th Sep, Edinburgh 23^rd Sept, London 29^th Sept, Reading 12^th Nov, Stockport 17^th Nov, Birmingham 26^th Nov, Edinburgh 3^rd Dec, Reading 10^th Dec, London 17^th Dec, Bristol 11^th Jan, Reading 25^th Jan, Reading 15^th Feb

Partner Training - Windows Small Business Server – 4 days – Edinburgh 31st Aug

jhenders01 — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 16:14:29 GMT

The Partner Readiness team have arranged for a 4 day hands-on workshop which provides Partners with the necessary knowledge to plan, implement and manage Windows Small Business Server 2008. Attendees will gain first-hand knowledge on topics such as installing, migrating, monitoring, securing and backing up data.

This course is intended for technology consultants, system integrators, and in-house technology staff that serve small and medium- sized businesses.

The subsidised costs for this training is £200 per delegate – which works out at £50 a day which is a bargain!

For more information - Implementing and Administering Windows Small Business Server 2008 (4 Days) – Edinburgh 31^st August

Windows 7 – when is it available?

jhenders01 — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:51:57 GMT

As you are all aware the current version of Windows 7 is Release Candidate (RC), with lots of partners
asking when is the product going to RTM ( Release to Manufacture).

At present we cannot announce this date, however it is very close. Below is a copy of the latest Windows
Team Blog, which details when customers and partners will get hold of the RTM version of Windows 7.

http://windowsteamblog.com/Default.aspx

Key Information:

If you’re an ISV or Hardware partner = 6^th Aug
MS Gold Partner then the 16^th Aug for the English edition
OEM 2 days after we announce RTM
VL Customer with Software Assurance (SA) then 7^th Aug
VL without (SA) then 1^st September
Technet - 6^th Aug for English
MSDN Devs – 6^th Aug

Technorati Tags: Windows 7

Virtualisation Assessment and Planning Toolkit Beta Released

jhenders01 — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:19:58 GMT

With Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 becoming available in the very near future, the Solution Accelerators Team is now offering Partners a head start on deployment planning with Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 4.0 Beta.

Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 4.0 is an integrated planning toolkit that makes it easier for Microsoft customers and partners to quickly identify what servers, workstations, and network devices are in their IT environment. This agentless and scalable toolkit has the ability to discover all computers within Active Directory and workgroup environments. It performs key functions that include hardware and device inventory, hardware compatibility analysis, and generation of actionable, environment-specific IT proposals for migration to most major Microsoft technologies.

Get Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 4.0 Beta Bits

Download v4.0 Beta (Live ID Required)

Partner Academy Live dates

SmallCountry — Thu, 14 May 2009 11:43:49 GMT

Need to keep up with technology developments? Struggle to find the time?

Partner Academy is a series of 1 hour overview sessions on topical Microsoft matters, available to all Microsoft partners, and delivered over t’Internet using the wonders of Live Meeting.

The sessions are generally scheduled first thing in the morning Redmond time, meaning that they form an ideal learning opportunity towards the end of the working day in these parts. Details of all these sessions are on the PLC Catalog

The program for the next 3 months has just been announced…keep up with developments by subscribing to the newsletter here..

Coming Partner Acadamy Live sessions:

Azure:

What is Azure?

Forefront:

Building a Safer Web Surfing Experience: Preview Forefront Threat Management Gateway Beta 3

Identity:

Introducing Microsoft Code Name Geneva, a Next Generation Identity and Access Platform

Management:

Client Management Futures

Public Sector:

Connected Health - Common User Interface | Improving Patient Care Through Patient Safe and Clinician Empowered User Interfaces

SAM Webcast Series:

SAM Webcast Series: Conducting a SAM Engagement

Windows Server:

VMware Compete: Why it matters, Where we are and where we are going

Selling Business Value of Windows Server 2008 R2

What's New in Active Directory for Windows Server 2008 R2

VMware Compete: Understanding and winning in the VDI space

Windows Server 2008 Foundation - Addressing Server Needs for Small Businesses

Introducing Windows Server 2008 Foundation-New Product Overview - in Spanish

Windows 7:

Values of Windows 7 Professional + Virtual Windows XP for Partners

An Overview of the Windows Troubleshooting Platform in Windows7

Other Announcements:

Now available for download - Infrastructure Planning & Design (IPD) guide for DPM 2007 SP1

Become a System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) Partner Hero

Windows 7 RC available now

jhenders01 — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:18:00 GMT

Many of the Scottish Partners have already downloaded the Beta for Windows 7, and we are now pleased to announce the availability of Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC), a pre-release version of the next generation operating system from Microsoft. This release will be available to the public on 5 May 2009, but if you are an MSDN or TechNet subscriber you can download it today!

In addition to navigation, taskbar and security enhancements, Windows 7 RC includes:
Windows XP Mode
Windows XP Mode enables Windows 7 Professional users to seamlessly run many Windows XP applications in Windows 7. This feature is designed to help businesses that are still using older Windows XP applications migrate easily to Windows 7. Note: Windows XP Mode is a separate download in addition to Windows 7 RC. Install the Windows XP Mode Beta.
Remote Media Streaming
Remote Media Streaming enables you to securely access your home-based digital media libraries via the Internet from another Windows 7 PC outside the home.

Window 7 Beta and RC Expiration periods
You must rebuild your test machine with a valid version of your previous Windows operating system before the Windows 7 Beta and RC software expires. Windows will notify you that the expiration date is approaching. Two weeks after the expiration date, your PC will shut down every two hours.

The Beta will expire 1 August 2009 with two-hourly shutdowns beginning 1 July 2009. The Windows RC will expire 1 June 2010 with two-hourly shutdowns beginning 1 March 2010.
In both cases, you will need to rebuild your test PC to install a new operating system and reinstall all your programmes and data.

Windows Server 2008 Foundation is coming

jhenders01 — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 15:58:00 GMT

Microsoft has just announced a new members of the Windows Server family - Windows Server 2008 Foundation.

This is a server aimed at small businesses of 15 users or less who do not necessarily require the whole suite of features supplied with Windows Small Business Server (SBS) or Essential Business Server (EBS). We are yet to officially launch this in the UK but you can join a Live Meeting on 30 April 2009 at 16:00 - 17:00 here.

At the end of the Live Meeting Partners will:

Be familiar with the low end Server market
Understand Windows Server 2008 Foundation
Be able to sell Windows Server 2008 Foundation in this New Market

There will also be opportunity to ask questions directly to the Corporate Product Management team.

Link: Click here to register for the Live Meeting

Power through the Downturn - Campaign

jhenders01 — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 22:39:00 GMT

A lot of Scottish Partners have been asking the Partner Team based in Edinburgh, what is Microsoft doing to help them generate business in the current tough economic climate. Microsoft recognises the challenges this downturn is having on our Partners and the impact on sales and margins, and the Microsoft UK Partner team have developed a new campaign - " Power through the Downturn", to help partners win business in the market conditions of 2009. This campaign is targeted at mid-sized companies with 30 – 250 PCs, and focuses on core Microsoft products that deliver real savings and productivity gains now. They include:

Microsoft Unified Communications solutions – help reduce travel, office and telephony costs.
Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007 and Windows® SharePoint Services 3.0 – speed up the sharing of businesscritical data, enabling companies to improve their employee efficiency and free up their time to work in the most productive way.
Windows Server® 2008 – delivers direct capital savings on hardware, with operating cost savings on power and IT management.

Within this campaign Partners will find supporting literature that concisely highlights the business and cost-reduction benefits of these products for their customers, supported by facts, figures and real world case studies.

In addition to the above messages, we are making your selling proposition even stronger with a great financial offer to help Partners close business.

Up to 10% discount on selected core products through Open Licensing until 27 March 2009.

By combining this great offer with the cost-reduction benefits of the software, Partners will be able to offer their customers a compelling business case for taking action now.

For more information visit : www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/power

Gearup - Online Version now available via Silverlight!

jhenders01 — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 13:36:05 GMT

Many Partners make great use of the Gear Up Sales Toolkit - aka the MS Product Bible, which is the Microsoft sales reference guide for all products, licensing and services. This tool is invaluable in providing key product information, plus great FAQs for information needed in customer meetings.

The downside to Gearup is that the hard copy edition resembles an encylopedia, and takes a small forest of trees to produce each one. The good news is that a new online version is now available for Partners to access, and makes use of Silverlight technology to produce stunning graphics, and the ability to search within the document.

So as long as you can access the Internet, you can get to Gear Up, and save carrying another 3lbs in your laptop case.

For more information go to: http://www.partnersalesresources.com/GearUp/default.aspx

Software, Services and BPOS

SmallCountry — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 21:39:16 GMT

If you enjoy this twee but informative 3 minute film on the business benefits of a Software + Services strategy below then you might want to join us for a detailed partner intro to BPOS on the 9th Feb.

YouTube - Software + Services Customer Video

There's a less entertaining, but highly informative BPOS demo online.

This training session in Edinburgh should be excellent prep for Partners keen to sign up their customers to Microsoft's Exchange and Sharepoint Online following the UK launch of BPOS this March.

Speaking of which, there were raised eyebrows in Waverley Gate this morning when we heard the UK customer pricing for the BPOS service - the User Subscription is priced very competitively at £10/user/month!

We can still squeeze a few more in on the training, so drop me a mail at pferry@microsoft.com if you would like an invite. In the meantime check out the DiscoverOnlineServices partner site to get a head start.

Hyper-V Licensing Changes

jhenders01 — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:42:00 GMT

Over the past 6 months, we have seen a lot of Scottish Partners want information and training on the Microsoft Virtualisation strategy, with some great customer wins.

A number of Partners have provided feedback on the challenge of the need for CALs to access Windows Servers running Hyper-V, and whilst the model of if runs on Windows it needs a CAL make sense, for certain virtualisation project scenarios, this can make it expensive for a customer if they do not have Windows Server 2008 CALs.

With this in mind, Microsoft has just announced changes, to the product use rights, which simplifies the CAL requirements for virtualised scenarios, and we will be in communication to all our Volume Licence customers in the coming weeks - an extract from this communication is below:

Currently, if your physical server environment is running Windows Server 2003, matching version CALs are required for all users (i.e. Windows Server 2003 CALs). However, if you move your physical Windows Server 2003 Operating System Environments (OSE) to run as virtual machines hosted by Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Windows Server 2008 CALs are required. This is per the current use rights. With the change in our licensing policy, Windows Server 2008 CALs are no longer required if you are using Windows Server 2008 solely as a virtualization host. The only exception to this is if you are running Windows Server 2008 virtual machines, which would require Windows Server 2008 CALs.

To help demonstrate the effect of the licensing change, I have included three scenarios below and the resulting requirements.

If you would like more in depth information on this change, please read the updated Volume Licensing Brief

Exchange 14 and Exchange Labs Preview

jhenders01 — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 11:10:00 GMT

A number of Scottish Partners have been asking the MS Scotland team about what is happening with the next version of Exchange. Well the good news is that earlier this week, Microsoft published a limited preview video and blog post regarding the next version of Exchange Server, code-named Exchange ‘14’, via a video posted on the Exchange Team Blog and. In the video and interviews Microsoft discusses that it is building the next version of Exchange, code-named Exchange 14, and it will be designed, built, and tested for Software-plus-Services. More than 3.5 million people and more than 1,500 schools and universities worldwide are using Exchange 14 as a service through Exchange Labs, a program begun in late 2007. Next month Microsoft is releasing the latest code to Exchange Labs users. For more information, visit the Exchange Team Blog.

Some really good information on this Blog and well worth adding to your RSS feeds. Given the current economic climate within Scotland, it may be worth looking at the work done by Ferris Research around reduction of costs by implementing Exchange 2007 - in a survey of several enterprise customers, they found that the cost of running Exchange 2007 was roughly half that of running Exchange 2003. Any more importantly Microsoft anticipates that E14 will bring that cost down by a similar margin yet again. Just make sure your customers have Software Assurance!

Technorati Tags: Software + Servces,Exchange

Windows 2008 R2 Beta - now available

jhenders01 — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:41:00 GMT

At the end of last week, Microsoft announced availability, through MSDN and TechNet (non-MSDN/TechNet subscribers can download them from, Friday 9th January), of the beta’s of Windows 7 client, and Windows Server 2008 R2.

Of interest to Partners who are investing in the Microsoft virtualisation strategy, are a number of key new features provided with Server 2008 R2 - Partners can read all about the new features here on the legendary Matt McSpirit’s Blog, key Virtualisation features include:

· Live Migration!

· Power Management Improvements

· Support for 32 logical Processors

· RDS (Remote Desktop Services) – Terminal Services improvements

See the overview presentation for more detail

Devweek 2009 - March 09, London

jhenders01 — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 22:19:26 GMT

I know a handful of Scottish partners ventured over to Los Angeles last month for the 2008 Professional Development Conference (PDC), and found it an extremely useful investment of their time. For all the Scottish developers who did not make it, the good news is that the agenda for the Professional Developer's Day in London has now been set, and this is your opportunity to get an early preview of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework v4.0 as unveiled at (PDC) in Los Angeles. The Early bird offer of £169 + Vat to attend the event ends 12 December 2008.

This event will be delivering lots of code and lots of demos using the very latest technologies from Microsoft, including samples and more for attendees to take away. With so much new technology to choose from the event is split into 10 self-contained sessions, each digging surprisingly deeply into what we believe are the most relevant changes in the .NET Framework and Visual Studio. The goal of the event is to ensure attendees finish the day able to identify which technologies will help them deliver better solutions in the future and hence focus their own research time in the right areas. And to add to the fun, we’ll be showcasing a range of ‘after hours’ technologies in the Expo area, including XNA, robotics, and Photosynth.

The Microsoft Professional Developers’ Day takes place on Monday 23 March at The Barbican and forms part of the DevWeek 2009 pre-conference sessions. You can choose to attend just the PDD or you may also register for all or part of the DevWeek 2009 conference.

Agenda:

09:30 – 09:45 Introduction

09:45 – 10:15 The New IDE and CLR Changes Mike Ormond

10:15 – 10:45 C# 4 and VB10 Language Changes Mike Taulty

10:45 – 11:15 Break

11:15 – 11:45 Parallel Extensions to the .NET Framework Eric Nelson

11:45 – 12:15 ASP.Net and Web Development Mike Ormond

12:15 – 13:15 Lunch

13:15 – 13:45 Windows Presentation Foundation Mike Taulty

13:45 – 14.15 Office Development Mike Ormond

14:15 – 14:45 Workflow Foundation V4 Eric Nelson

14:45 – 15:15 Break

15:15 – 15:45 Windows Communication Foundation V4 Mike Taulty

15:45 – 16:15 ADO.Net Entity Framework V2 Eric Nelson

16:15 – 16:45 Visual Studio Team System “Rosario” TBC

16:45 – 17:15 Close

For full details and to register for PDD please visit www.devweek.com/pdd/

Technet Event - Microsoft Virtualisation and Management Technologies - 11 September - Edinburgh

jhenders01 — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 10:36:00 GMT

Without doubt there is a lot of interest in both the Partner Community and our customers right now around the topic of Virtualisation.

The Technet team are back in Scotland once again running a Virtualisation and Mangement Technologies event in Edinburgh at the Corn Exchange on 11 September, and there are still some places available, so if you wish to attend, please register ASAP.

Event Overview

Timings
09:30 Keynote: System Center and GreenIT

10:00 Building, clustering and managing Hyper-v

11:00 Break

11:15 How to manage Microsoft and VMWare estates

12:45 Lunch

13:30 Delivering applications virtually – part 1 (MDOP & VECD)

15:00 Break

15:15 Delivering applications virtually – part 2 (Terminal Services)

16:00 Ask the experts

16:30 Close