UK SBSC : Community

Varvid talks with Birger Steen, VP of SMB & Distribution, Microsoft

UK SBSC — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:38:29 GMT

We saw this on Vijay Riyait’s blog – it’s a video from Varvid, a website that contains videos for VARs and other Microsoft partners.

This video may be interesting as it features and interview with Birger Steen at WPC09. Steen is Microsoft’s newly appointed VP of SMB & Distribution - Worldwide SMS&P. For those worried about the recent announcements of changes to the Microsoft Partner Programme, and what that means to the SBSC, listen from 3.30 minutes in in Part 1. Hopefully Steen will help alleviate any initial concerns.

Overall, per Aaron Booker’s comments, he feels that “Birger is "getting it" about the SMB/VAR Partner space in a major way”. Have a listen and see what you think!

Your feedback has driven change: Unified Messaging now on Windows Essential Business Server 2008

UK SBSC — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:15:06 GMT

Several months ago one or two UK SBSC partners came to Microsoft’s offices in Reading to meet with Nick King, Microsoft’s senior SBS and EBS Product Manager. The aim of the meeting was to share their thoughts and feedback in a roundtable style meeting. Nick has just contacted us to give an update on product changes implemented as a result of this session!

You may recall we received feedback that Unified Communications integration was an important technology for mid market businesses and partners… This week we announced Unified Messaging support on Windows Essential Business Server 2008!

Here is a snippet from the blog article that announces this, but do click here to read the article in full and get all the details.

Hi, my name is Scott Thompson – I'm a Program Manager on the Windows Essential Business Server team working on the messaging features of EBS.

One of the most popular features of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 (included in Essential Business Server 2008) is Unified Messaging. Unified Messaging allows voicemail and faxes to be received into Exchange Server 2007 inboxes, and provides access to those messages via Outlook, Outlook Web Access, and ActiveSync devices. Unified Messaging also includes Outlook Voice Access which allows users to retrieve e-mail messages from their mailbox by using a telephone.

Essential Business Server customers often ask: can Essential Business Server be run as a Unified Messaging server? Great news: Yes, Unified Messaging can be added to the messaging server in Windows Essential Business Server 2008.

This blog walks through things to consider before adding Unified Messaging to the Essential Business Server messaging server: Licensing and Hardware planning, along with how to add the UM role.

The Microsoft EBS Team Blog : Running Unified Messaging on Windows Essential Business Server 2008

Nick has asked that we extend his team’s thanks once again to the UK SBSC partners for giving feedback and for being instrumental in driving key changes to our products. He has also promised to continue to update us as Microsoft brings additional scenarios online, so stay tuned! In addition, please continue to share your constructive feedback – as proven, Microsoft is listening!

More free text books up for grabs…

UK SBSC — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:06:00 GMT

We are continuing our office clear-out and in addition to the ‘Small Business Specialist Primer & 70-282 Exam Preparation Guide!’ books that we offered out to you earlier this week, we also have a few ‘Making it Big in Small Business 2006: Top 15 successful SMB consultants share strategies and lessons learned’ books to give away. Again, this book is part of Harry Brelsford’s SMB Series.

The book is currently available on Amazon for £31.38 new!

If you would like to receive a free copy please email sbscuk@microsoft.com with your full name, company name and postal address. We will only be able to post books to UK addresses and allocation will be on a first come first served basis. We only have a few copies so don’t delay in emailing us.

Vijay Riyait: My Achievements as UK SBSC Partner Area Lead

UK SBSC — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:09:00 GMT

We wanted to share a post from the FY09 UK PAL, Vijay Riyait, who recently published an article about his Achievements as UK SBSC Partner Area Lead. As you know, Vijay held the role of UK PAL for two years. His role has just come to an end – and here’s a short list of the many great things Vijay achieved in his role specifically over the last year:

I was recently asked by Microsoft to highlight my achievements as a PAL, which I was happy to do. These are to be used by Microsoft to be shown to senior executives at Microsoft and I guess highlight the importance and value of having this programme. The things that I highlighted are below :

Supporting the SBS/EBS launch events in the UK with Microsoft

SBS 2008 Migration Workshop with David Overton (only one in the UK)

Online participation/communication for SBSC Partners through blog and online technical communities

Member of the newly formed Microsoft UK PAC

Technical Director of Ardent iSys showing good growth in providing software solutions based on MS Technologies e.g. ASP.NET MVC

Published Case Study for Windows Mobile

Provided free OfficeLive Training to community/charity organisations with great feedback in conjunction with Leicestershire Cares

I have done much more than this in the background in terms of feedback to Microsoft and trying to help SBSC Partners with problems and queries. Probably some of the lesser known things that I achieved were the release of the Demo Showcase VMs and System Centre Virtual Machine Manager (Enterprise Ed) in the SBSC Toolkit.

Microsoft has created a PAL Alumni Page on the Microsoft Portal and we continue to have access to the PAL Groove site. The new Global PALs I am sure will bring new ideas and perspective to things and continue to help build our Community further.

» My Achievements as UK SBSC Partner Area Lead.

Thank you once again to Vijay for the huge contribution he has made the Small Business Specialist Community!

Check out SBSC Partner’s Windows 7 Video case study

UK SBSC — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:22:00 GMT

We had to highlight this Windows 7 Video case study from UK SBSC partner, Netlink IT. This video is focused around Netlink IT and it's client, The Health & Safety Partnership, on how Windows 7 Professional has made an impact on their businesses.

Many thanks to Richard Tubb from Netlink IT for rolling out Windows 7 to his customers and proving the successes it has bought to their business.

If you want to learn more about Windows 7 be sure to visit our Windows 7 Partner Portal pages and listen to the keynote presentations at WPC.

Listen to the Worldwide Partner Conference keynotes digitally now!

UK SBSC — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:17:04 GMT

Whether you are joining us in New Orleans or seeking highlights from your office in the UK, from today you can visit our WPC website for:

Tune in daily as Microsoft executives share their visions and kick off a year of product launches like no other in Microsoft history!

Visit: http://www.digitalwpc.com/

WPC Awards Announced – SBSC Partner of the Year goes to…

UK SBSC — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:05:00 GMT

Microsoft is proud to recognize the winners and finalists in the 2009 WPC (Worldwide Partner Conference) Awards Program. These partners have developed exemplary solutions for their customers during the past year, and demonstrated the ability to optimize their use of Microsoft technologies to meet critical business needs.

In total there were 69 awards this year and nearly 2,000 excellent entries.It’s a little disappointing to see that there were no UK winners for the SBSC Partner of the Year award this year, though we know the entries were all of high calibre and that judging was a difficult task!

For those who are interested, here’s who did win:

Small Business Specialist Partner of the Year

Evolve IT, Australia

When Australian Rules football clubs needed a technology solution for its business, it turned to Evolve IT, Microsoft’s leading Small Business Specialist Community partner in Australia. Evolve IT delivered a solid solution—based on the Microsoft small- to midsize-business stack—that included networking infrastructure deployment with Windows Small Business Server integrated with mobility, productivity, and security solutions from Microsoft. The Evolve IT business motto “we fix business problems, and not computer problems” shows how Evolve IT succeeds in satisfying the technology needs of its small- to midsize-business customers.

Finalist: Bulletproof InfoTech, Canada

Finalist: Quadrasystems.net, India

To learn more about the other categories and winners, click here.

Click here to read Microsoft’s press release about the awards.

A special thanks goes to all of our UK partners who entered, and if your entry was not selected, we look forward to another high-quality entry next year!

Keeping it all together with Windows Mobile – Another SBSC partner is an “Ask the Expert”

UK SBSC — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:23:00 GMT

We thought you might be interested to see where another one of our SBSC partners has acted as an “Ask the Expert” on our Small Business Centre Customer facing website. What’s more, this article was also linked to in the Small Business Customer newsletter which reaches a substantial number of small business customers. Whilst promoting himself, Paul Dadge of PC Paramedics.it has also helped promote the SBSC partner channel – especially visible where he concludes:

“If you have any further questions, I recommend you contact your local Microsoft Small Business Specialist who will be able to advise you further. –Paul”

Here’s a clipping from the article:

Keeping it all together with Windows Mobile

Paul Dadge, Senior Consultant, PC Paramedics.it

Paul Dadge is a Senior Consultant with PC Paramedics.it, a Microsoft Small Business Specialist based in Cannock, South Staffordshire. He has been working with small business customers for 15 years, helping them to ‘go mobile’ and enabling the employees to access company resources remotely.

Question: The current downturn means my colleagues and I are spending a lot more time out on the road chasing business, so we need to pick up messages and keep track of our diaries on the move. Is there a way we can synchronise email, calendar appointments and Outlook contacts between our PCs and mobile phones? - Richard, Brighton

Answer: Hi Richard. You’re absolutely right - staying competitive these days means you really have to be mobile, which in itself can presents challenges – not least staying in touch while you're out and about. That’s never more true than for smaller companies where it’s a case of “all hands on deck”.

The words ‘email’ and ‘mobile phone’ often conjure up the BlackBerry – which is fine if all you need is to send and receive email and texts. But for a small business like yours, there are more cost-effective solutions to help you perform as efficiently away from the office as in it….”

Click here to read more: Keeping it all together with Windows Mobile - Microsoft Small Business Centre

Many thanks to Paul for his input.

If you want to be an “Ask the Expert”, email sbscuk@microsoft.com for more information.

A great example of Microsoft Partners collaborating to deliver value

UK SBSC — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:42:11 GMT

We could not let the opportunity pass-by to showcase a shining example of Microsoft partners collaborating with one another to deliver value to customers as well as drive their own businesses!

Richard Tubb of Netlink IT, an active SBSC partner based in the Midlands, has just written a post on his blog to discuss the value his company gets from collaboration with other partners. He specifically references a recent project his company got involved in which required collaboration with a number of Microsoft partners, including some members of the Small Business Specialist Community!

Aparion IT, an IT Consultancy based in Nottingham, approached Richard for assistance with a project for a large multi-national Transport company operating within the UK. Aparion had recently won a large project based overseas which was keeping them very busy so were under-resourced to tackle the Transport project immediately, but loathe to pass up on the opportunity - hence they approached Richard. Richard took the opportunity onboard and soon realised it also required additional expertise and on-the-ground staff for the various UK site visits that needed to be carried out. Unfortunately Netlink IT were not in a position manage all the workload so Richard therefore called on many of the trusted relationships he had built up with Microsoft partners through networking and the project was successfully completed for the client.

Do take some time to read through Richard’s account on his blog as it is very inspirational and might make you think twice about partnering with others.

Here’s a few quotes we’ve pulled out from Richard’s article:

“As the business grew and I started to face up to the reality that Richard Tubb alone couldn’t work 24x7x365, I turned to some of these trusted partnerships I’d built and we worked together to solve mutual problems – issues such as sickness and holidays started becoming manageable instead of impossible, working with clients in geographical areas outside the standard became logistically possible, and those larger projects we’d previously shied away from as being “too big” started to look possible to tackle. As well as growth through taking on staff, our business naturally evolved to the stage where we treat our trusted partners very much like we would an employee – with induction programs, training plans and shared opportunities for personal and professional growth.”…

“All of this work was delivered on the back of partnerships built between companies delivering similar services that many would traditionally look upon as competitors who shouldn’t, or couldn’t, work together. I personally think it’s the perfect example of how partnerships and collaboration can work at the SMB level and I’m pleased to have been a big part of it!”

If you would like to start networking with other partners why not sign up to the Microsoft Partner Community. The MPC is a business networking platform designed to facilitate UK partner to partner connection, knowledge and information exchange. Sign in with a Windows Live ID (guidance is provided), complete your profile and start connecting!

Another way to network is to join any one of the active SBSC user groups. Find out more about user groups local to you by visiting the “Connecting with Peers” tab on the Community page of the Small Business Specialist partner portal pages: www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/sbsc.

Heartland Technology Groups in the UK

UK SBSC — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 10:52:00 GMT

Have you heard about the Heartland Technology Group (HTG)?

The HTG peer group experience is a unique forum for technology industry resellers who are serious about implementing a model for success in their own businesses through sharing and collaboration of best practices. They network similar companies based on their size, number of employees, relative lines of service, ownership structure, and markets served to find unique solutions to common problems. Because HTG peer groups are national in scope, members are not seen as operating in competing markets. The result is an intimate network where the expectation of confidentiality is an underlying facet of the group’s inherent design. The agenda for each meeting is designed around the felt-needs of the group and toward meeting the concerns and issues that face you in a fast-paced, increasingly complex business.

According to CRN, “VAR consortium the Heartland Technology Group (HTG) is kick-starting its plans for international growth with a UK operation. Announcing its UK group dubbed HTG11 last October with seven members, HTG is on the hunt for more local resellers.”

Microsoft UK has been approached by HTG as they are keen to engage with SBSC partners. In fact, one or two familiar SBSC partners are already signed up to their first UK group, HTG11, and have nothing but good things to say about it. We therefore wanted to highlight what they had to say, and you can make your own decision as to whether or not this may be something that can benefit you and your business:

Success by association
Richard Tubb, IT consultant at Microsoft small business specialist Netlink IT, said: “[We] discovered HTG at Microsoft’s worldwide partner conference in July. We met some other members there too.

“We quickly realised there are a number of benefits to associating successful businesses with other successful businesses. Some members in the group achieve £1m annual turnover.”

Tubb said joining HTG11 has opened the reseller’s eyes to what can be achieved, by discussing things such as the pros and cons of mergers and hiring more staff.

“One idea that has thoroughly helped Netlink IT was based on having a tighter control of our finances. Previously we may have been lacking in certain areas. The other businesses revealed how they conduct weekly reports, which we have taken on board, as well as implementing a system to track overdue invoices,” said Tubb.

Vijay Singh Royait, technical director at software outsourcing firm and HTG11 member Ardent-Isys, said everyone in the group is accountable to everyone else.

“There are many peer-to-peer networking groups in the Microsoft small business community,” he said. “HTG11 offers the next step beyond that. It is a group that focuses on developing and growing your business.”

As with NetlinkIT, Ardent-Isys discovered HTG at Microsoft’s worldwide partner conference last year.

“Microsoft was promoting HTG to its business specialist community,” said Royait. “The group has helped Ardent-Isys organise a structure for its business processes; for example, for its financial management and revenue growth achieved each month. We have rebuilt our business plan around this.”

Hand on your Heartland - 08 May 2009 - CRN

There is a membership fee of $1200 per year plus the prorated cost of the HTG UK group’s meeting expenses each quarter. Membership occurs by unanimous vote following a first time attending. Potential members participate fully and will share in preparation and meeting costs. After the meeting ends, the group will vote on membership.

Here are some other resources you might want to check out:

Link to the HTG website. http://www.htgmembers.com/
February 09 HTG newsletter http://www.htgmembers.com/Newsletter/Feb09_htg.htm This is an example of one of the ways they communicate with their membership and partners.
Link to the latest HTG Summit Agenda. http://www.htgmembers.com/HTGSummit09/Agenda.htm
Arlin Sorensen speaks on the relationship with HTG vendor partners: http://www.varvid.com/2008/10/arlin-sorensen-speaks-with-aaron-booker-of-varvidcom.html
Arlin Sorensen speaks about the HTG member model and what makes it work: http://www.varvid.com/2008/10/arlin-sorensen-from-htg-peer-groups-speaks-with-aaron-booker-of-varvidcom.html
Arlin Sorensen speaks on the value of HTG peer groups: http://www.varvid.com/2009/01/arlin-sorensen-speaks-with-aaron-booker-about-the-value-of-htg-peer-groups.html

If any of this interests you, why not speak directly with Dave Sobel, who leads HTG11 in the UK and find out more or how you might get involved: dave@evolvetech.com.

*Please note that the offer above is provided by a third-party partner and is not under the control of Microsoft. Accordingly Microsoft does not assume any responsibility or liability for the offer and is providing it solely as a convenience, and the inclusion of such content does not imply endorsement by Microsoft of the offer or of the third party advertiser. Individuals may be subject to additional and/or different terms, conditions, and privacy policies when using third party products, services, content, software, or sites.

Warning: New Office counterfeit heading to the UK

UK SBSC — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 15:58:45 GMT

A new type of counterfeit found in Australia is expected to reach the UK soon. It copies the OEM Office 2007 Professional Medialess Licence Kits (MLKs) that use a plastic credit card with the Certificate of Authenticity (COA) attached. You can tell it is fake because there is a volume licence key on the Certificate of Authenticity. View examples of these counterfeits.

For information and guidance around reporting piracy click here.

SMB Partners @ the Worldwide Partner Conference: What’s in Store for you?

UK SBSC — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 18:25:40 GMT

Come to Louisiana July 13-16 for the biggest Microsoft networking event of the year for Microsoft Partners – the 2009 Worldwide Partner Conference! This comprehensive partner event now offers four days of exclusive SMB content and activities for partners who deliver and focus their expertise in the small and midsize marketplace (SMB) including our very own Microsoft Small Business Specialist Community. Read on to find out what’s in store for you!

1. The SMB Track: Monday and Tuesday kick-off critical SMB-focused sessions focusing on key trends for SMBs and hear from other partners about best practices for realizing the opportunities for optimal growth as a partner. You’ll learn how Microsoft can help you capture more market opportunity such as Software plus Services, as well as new SMB incubation products. Hear from other partners how you can expand your customer base to include SMB Public Sector customers to help increase your sales.

2. Partner-Led Community Day: (formerly the SMB Summit pre-day): On Wednesday, hear from your Partner peers about managed services, hosted services, and strategies for a changing economy. Also, partners will present more relevant information on what’s galvanizing the vision for SMBs - through new opportunities, the power of community, staying connected with your customers and the value of social media. A Partner-led multi-session workshop will discuss key plans for your scale to success - including company business plans, personal leadership planning, life planning, and disaster recovery / continuity planning.

3. Event: On Wednesday night, hop aboard the Creole Queen Paddle Wheeler with the Worldwide Partner Group and the Windows 7 launch team for an exciting evening filled with food, fun, and music. You’ll have the opportunity to mingle with other Microsoft partners including Distributors, LARs, Small Business Specialists and the SMB Partner Area Leads. This exclusive event will require pre-registration to obtain a wristband for entry – quantities limited. Invitation details coming soon from your local Microsoft contacts. Stay tuned!

4. Connecting with Peers: the famous Yellow Lounge open to all SMB Partners is back again this year. This is where you can connect with peers, get the latest updates on SMB stack products and technologies and take a moment to relax. More updates on Yellow Lounge activities coming soon!

Register today! Visit the MSPP WPC site to find out everything that’s happening at the 2009 Worldwide Partner Conference. And, get on the fast track for WPC updates with the rest of your peers by joining the WPC Facebook page. We look forward to seeing your there and making this the best Worldwide Partner Conference experience yet!

UK SBSC Partner led Live Meeting - One day left to register!

UK SBSC — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 10:04:19 GMT

There is only one day left to register for the UK SBSC partner led Live meeting...

On the 21st April at 4pm SBS MVP Andy Trish and SBSC PAL Vijay Singh Riyait will be hosting a UK wide Microsoft Live meeting for SBSC partners. This type of meeting is intended to bring together the SBSC user groups, share ideas and problems and to get help from other partners who are experts in their field. Microsoft have invested heavily in the SBSC program and continue to work with user group leads to enhance the program, now it’s your turn to develop the program further.

This series of live meetings are by partners for partners so be prepared for an open and honest discussion. Microsoft’s message to the Partner community is they are listening and adapting, so let’s tell them what we feel.

What do you like or dislike about SBS 2008? Is the new pricing model an issue? Are you finding it reliable, do you know where to go for support issues? How are you finding it selling in the recession and are you aware of current offers? Is the SBSC user group model what you expect and if not how can it be improved. All these subjects and more will be discussed in the first live meeting with all the main issues being fed back to Microsoft for them to consider and act upon.

This live meeting will be held independently from Microsoft, although Microsoft are assisting Andy and Vijay by providing a Live Meeting account and registration.

You can register for the meeting here.
The Invitation Code is: 3AED2A. You will need this in order to access the registration site.

Join your peers for a UK wide SBSC Live meeting - register now!

UK SBSC — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 20:32:59 GMT

This live meeting will be held independently from Microsoft, although Microsoft are assisting Andy and Vijay by providing a Live Meeting account and registration.

You can register for the meeting here.
The Invitation Code is: 3AED2A. You will need this in order to access the registration site.

Pre-Order David Overton's SBS 2008 Book

UK SBSC — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 10:13:32 GMT

As many of you know, David Overton has been busy writing a book on Windows Small Business Server 2008. It's called "Windows Small Business Server 2008- Installation, Migration, and Configuration" and David informs us that it is now available to pre-order.

If you want to ask questions once you have the book, go to http://davidoverton.com/r.ashx?13.

To pre-order the book click http://davidoverton.com/r.ashx?1M

The book covers:

Set up and run your small business server making it deliver big business impact
Step-by-step guidance through the installation and configuration process with numerous pictures
Successfully install SBS 2008 into your business, either as a new installation or by migrating from SBS 2003
Configure hosted web sites for public and secure information exchange using Office Live for Small Business and Office Live Workspaces
An illustrative book for people with basic technical skills and no SBS background