From the Windows 7 Australia Blog

Microsoft Celebrates Christmas with Windows 7 Family Pack Limited Pilot in Australia

Microsoft is making available limited stock of Family Pack in Australia – entitling consumers to three upgrade licenses for Windows 7 Home Premium for $249 (RRP)

Sydney, Australia, 30 November, 2009 - Microsoft is making Christmas shopping for the family easier this year with a limited pilot of Windows 7 Family Pack beginning 1 December 2009, only while stocks last. The Family Pack provides three licenses for Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade in 32-bit or 64-bit for a recommended retail price (RRP) of AUD$249*.

“We listened to the feedback from our customers and we are very pleased to announce that we are piloting Family Pack in Australia as part of our Christmas offers,” said Jeff Putt, Windows Consumer Lead, Microsoft Australia. “Windows 7 makes it easier for people to do the things they want on their PC, so we’re excited to make it even easier for our customers to upgrade their PC’s at home to Windows 7 by providing this fantastic offer.”

Windows 7 Home Premium provides a great entertainment experience on your PC. Customers will find easier ways to connect to other PCs and devices, all in a visually rich environment that makes everyday use simpler and more engaging.

Glenn O’Neil, Head of Buying and Marketing, Dick Smith Australian and New Zealand said, “Family Pack offers a new level of value and we’re delighted to be part of the limited pilot – we feel our customers will respond well to the offer. Because Family Pack lets you upgrade three home PCs to Windows 7 Home Premium, customers will be able to unlock the easier networking features of Windows 7 and move the family to the latest Microsoft technology, while also getting a great deal.”

With Windows 7 Home Premium you can create a HomeGroup to share all of your favourite photos, videos and music with other PCs running Windows 7. Through HomeGroup, PCs running Windows 7 can automatically identify and connect with each other. Once a HomeGroup is established, sharing devices and media throughout your home is easy. For example, the printer in your study is shared automatically with the other PCs in your home, and digital photos stored on a computer in your family room can be easily accessed from a laptop anywhere in your home.

In addition, Windows 7 Home Premium features advanced window navigation and personalisation with several new improvements to Microsoft Aero® desktop. Finally, customers will benefit from Remote Media Streaming and improved options for different media formats.

Microsoft is also announcing a limited offer for customers who may have already purchased three upgrade licenses to Windows 7 Home Premium prior to 30 November. Eligible customers will qualify for three complimentary Wireless Comfort Desktops, each featuring a wireless keyboard and mouse set. To see if they qualify**, customers should contact Microsoft Customer Service on 13 20 58.

Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade Family Pack will only be available at the following participating Australian retailers, while stocks last: Betta Electrical, Bing Lee, David Jones, Dick Smith, Harvey Norman, JB Hi Fi, Myer, Officeworks, Retravision, The Good Guys, WOW Sight and Sound.

Jeff Putt, Windows Consumer Lead, Microsoft Australia

* Recommended Retail Price. Actual retail price is set by the retailer.

**Acceptable proof of purchase to qualify for the three complimentary Wireless Comfort Desktops will be a single receipt showing the purchase of three Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade licenses in a single transaction or up to three receipts showing the purchase of separate Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade licenses that were transacted on the same credit card. Receipts must be dated prior to November 30, 2009.

Windows Server 2008 R2 (i.e. "Windows 7 Server") introduced significant advancements in Server Power Management capabilities. You may never win a Nobel prize for building an application that plays well with Server Power Management policies nor by configuring a power-optimized data-center, but you'll gain lots of respect for returning real green cash savings for your customers. We think that makes lots of of sense for both Developers and IT Professionals.



Gain insight into new and future power management features and learn more about Windows system Power Management via additional resources listed at MSDN Code Gallery.

We are pleased to invite you to hear from one of the founders of x86 virtualisation. Our keynote is Kenon Owens, Technical Product Manager, Microsoft Corp. He has worked in the computer industry for over 15 years as an email and virtualisation specialist. During that time, Kenon was employed by other industry virtualisation vendors for over 9 years as a corporate technical specialist.

Australia is a strong adopter of virtualisation. In this market, there is a lot of information about Microsoft virtualisation technologies and it can be hard to know what’s true and what’s not. In this session we will discuss what each of the virtualisation vendors are delivering.

You will learn about:

• The future vision of virtualisation, not just in the next generation of products, but also in what direction virtualisation is heading.
• The evolution of integration components for this multi-vendor environment.
• The functionality to manager a multi-vendor environment that many customers are adopting.

Sydney
Date: 3 December, 2009
Time: 9:30am registration, session: 10:00-11:30am
Location: Microsoft, 1 Epping Road, North Ryde NSW
Click here to register

Melbourne
Date: 4 December, 2009
Time: 9:30am registration, session: 10:00-11:30am
Location: Microsoft, Level 5, 4 Freshwater Place, Southbank VIC
Click here to register

Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 empowers your people to do their best work from more places – whether they’re using a PC, phone or web browser. It can maximize existing investments and help people accomplish more by bringing server capabilities to everyone through familiar and intuitive applications. Office Professional Plus 2010 provides smart, simple, time-saving tools to help everyone do more with less. 

See Microsoft Office 2010 for yourself

We are inviting IT professionals around the world to work with the Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta in your lab environments, with your secondary PCs, and with your Microsoft Office enthusiasts, in order to help ensure smooth adoption when the final product is available and to gather feedback from real-world settings.

Download the Beta here
Participate in the TechNet Office 2010 Forum
Keep up to date by reading the Office Team Blog and follow them on Twitter

Office Web Apps
Microsoft Office Web Apps are new web-based tools that extend the Microsoft Office 2010 experience to your browser. Office Web Apps enable you to view, do light editing, and share your Office documents from virtually anywhere. With these online companions to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote you’ll always have the tools you need, wherever you are.  Get on the beta for Office Web Apps.

The Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) holds a monthly webcast to discuss the security bulletins that we released on the second Tuesday of that month. To attend live and ask questions, register at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security. 

In this edition, Jerry Bryant and Adrian Stone present information about the November 2009 Security Bulletins and answer customer questions live. See the MSRC blog for a transcript of the questions and answers that were addressed during the live session: http://blogs.technet.com/msrc

For more information about the MSRC, please visit:
http://www.microsoft.com/security/msrc/default.mspx

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