My colleague Sol pointed out this article which gives a nice summary of the Quickstart and some of the reasons why this was created and how the Partner Programme will be taking up the mantle from July 07 onwards:

http://mcpmag.com/features/article.asp?EditorialsID=703

The article also alludes to some of the challenges around Quickstart which will be ironed out with the Partner Programme for example Partner Networking.

Top Tip: if you want to be in the Search Specialisation from July onwards then make sure you have all your search specialists registered in Quickstart and that they have taken the courses and material as well as the certification exam :-)

What will this get you:

1. Help position your business for when customers come looking for search trained partners

2. Help us to offer you marketing, incentives and technical training courses

3. Help us to network your business with likeminded companies

Look forward to seeing you in there!

Enjoy!

Really great to see the importance of compute cluster server in Microsoft go right to the top! Check out the article in the April cover story of Wall Street & Technology. It features an interview with Steve Ballmer, in which he “discusses what high-performance computing, Vista and Excel Services 2007 can do for capital markets.” The article takes a broad look at Wall Street firms’ use and assessment of HPC, grid and SOA technologies to enable business operations. In addition to quotes from Microsoft, the article contains quotes from customers, partners and analysts.

Wall Street Journal article

(FYI it took me a couple of goes to get the website to launch - well worth the wait however!)

Enjoy!

You are cordially invited to join Microsoft, industry experts and your peers as Microsoft presents the UK User Group meeting for CCS, 27 April 2007 in Reading.

Are you doing clusters on Windows?

Come and spend a day with the users and developers of Microsoft Compute Cluster Server

On April 27, Microsoft is hosting the first UK user group for High productivity Computing using Microsoft's Compute Cluster Server, Microsoft's cluster operating system.  The day will feature presentations from users and developers, including the Microsoft development team, Microsoft Research and meetings with key Microsoft executives.  Users from engineering, finance, academia and manufacturing will be present.

Come and exchange experience and practices with your peers, and Microsoft. 

This is being organised by the UK Microsoft HPC User Group, chaired by Professor Simon Cox, School of Engineering Sciences, University of Southampton.

Networking:
This is an excellent opportunity for networking among your peers. Several members of the CCS development team will be on hand to discuss their work and receive your feedback, first hand.

Register by April 20^th, at this link:

We look forward to seeing you there! 

Following on from the huge take-up in training mentioned last week: HPC training...free...come and get it! we have laid on the following extra dates for you all:

https://training.Partner.microsoft.com/plc/details.aspx?publisher=12&delivery=229208 - April

https://training.Partner.microsoft.com/plc/details.aspx?publisher=12&delivery=229148 - May

The agenda is the same as before - just more spaces for the crew!

See you there!

Want to freshen your skills and get a reality check - read on! Came across this site a few weeks back and have been meaning to share with you all - Trizle

The whole blog is an interesting one with some really cool advice around lots of areas, I had a scoot around it this morning and came up with my top 7 (no reason why 7, might be lucky!) and grouped them for you:

Team Dynamics:

• How to Keep Your Superstars Rocking
• How to Destroy Your Superstars - 'The ridiculously-cool people want to kick ass if you let them' - love that comment!
• How to Boost Confidence Immediately

Business Dynamics:

• When to Buy Technology (for Startups)
• Why “Better” Products Don’t Sell

Winning:

• How to Find Innovative Business Ideas
• How to rock the competition

Great practical, straight talking advice, if you run teams, run channels or just like winning this is for you!

Enjoy!