Tartan Tech: Microsoft Scotland Insight : Software + Services

BPOS Price drops

SmallCountry — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:34:27 GMT

As more Microsoft Partners are offering Business Productivity Online Services to their customers, the cloud-based Exchange, Sharepoint, Office Communicator and Live Meeting Services have been scaling up in Microsoft datacentres around the world.

These economies of scale have allowed Microsoft to drop the customer price by a massive 40% – so that the BPOS suite is now available to a user at £6.71 per user per month.

BPOS is now truly global: available to purchase in 36 countries (and available to use wherever there is an Internet connection). In an annoucenment earlier this week, the size of an Exchange Online mailbox has also been increased to a whopping 25GB. As the BPOS service improvements are delivered quarterly, BPOS is becoming a compelling offer for small and large enterprises alike.

If you are in a Partner organisation and don’t yet understand how BPOS fits in to your business, take a look at the Quick Start Programme or drop me a line.

Full pricing details for BPOS appended below.

Offer

Original List Price

New UK Price

BPO Standard Suite

£10.04

£6.71

Exchange Online Standard

£6.69

£3.35

SharePoint Online Standard

£4.85

£3.52

Office Communications Online Standard

£1.67

£1.34

Live Meeting Standard

£3.01

£3.02

Partner BPOS Training – 3rd September, Edinburgh

jhenders01 — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 12:30:00 GMT

Given the level of interest in the new Microsoft Online Services offerings from Scottish Partners your local Partner team have arranged for a BPOS Partner Training session to be held at the Microsoft offices, Waverley Gate, Edinburgh on the 3^rd of September from 1000 – 1300. Registration will be available from 0930, and refreshments and lunch will be provided.

The session will be run by Andy Clark, the UK BPOS Sales Lead, with the session covering the following areas:

BPOS Training Agenda

· Microsoft Online Overview and Vision

· BPOS service overview

· Pricing and licensing

· Selling BPOS

· Partner opportunity

· Dealing with BPOS competitors

· Q & A

Click here to go to the Microsoft Online Services(BPOS) free trial site

Places at this event will be limited so If you would like to attend this session next week, can you confirm your attendance to – james.henderson@microsoft.com ASAP.

Andy is also available to Partner 1:1 sessions on the afternoon of 3rd Sept, to discuss in more details Partner specifics re: BPOS, and if you wish to have a 1:1 again please contact James Henderson.

Resources from BPOS Partner Day - Monday 9th FEB

SmallCountry — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:47:56 GMT

Thanks to all who attended the Business Productivity Online Services session on Monday. We hope you found it an informative introduction and are now considering how the Online services opportunity.

The slides and resources from the day are downloadable here.

In addition, there is further 1 day "hands on" training event scheduled in Microsoft Edinburgh. Course 44CO107 - Implementing Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) is free to partners, and is bookable through the UK Partner site.

Thanks to Peter King, Adam Khan for their hard work on the day. Thanks in particular to Ted Shultz who has posted a list of answers to questions raised on the day at the link above - I have included a picture of Ted in dynamic pose off duty enjoying the surf of his native California.

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.

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

Microsoft opens a new Windows in the 'cloud'

SmallCountry — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 18:15:30 GMT

This was the headline which the FT reported Ray Ozzie's announcement of the Azure Services Platform at the Los Angeles PDC earlier in the week. More on why partners should mug up on BPOS and Azure over on the TRUMPET.

Also I notice that the Economist this month ran an article on the behemoth buildings that are housing these cloud computing innovations - "Where the Cloud Meets the Ground". Michael Manos, head of Microsoft Datacenter Group and an enthusiastic supporter of Scotland's nascent mega-datacenter industry, is quoted following the opening of Microsoft's Northlake, Chicago containerised datacenter.

FT.com / Home UK / UK - Microsoft opens a new Windows in the 'cloud'