If you are interested in getting some deep technical SharePoint training for Enterprise Search then get yourself on this course asap - we only have 22 places that we have subsidised...so book now! There is a cost for Certified and Gold partners but as I said we have pretty much halved this for you ('cos we are nice like that!)

If it gets full we can run another so please comment away if need be!

A $1.7 Billion Enterprise Search opportunity is waiting to be found – Are you ready to discover yours?

IDC estimates that information workers spend 48% of their time searching for and analysing the information they need to make the right decisions – At a cost of more than $28,000 per worker per year.

Businesses need to harness the growth of information within their organisation, so that their people can find the right information on their desktop, on their network, on the web, and on time.

With Microsoft Enterprise Search, Microsoft believe we are the organisation best positioned to provide businesses with the tools they need to find, use, and share information within their applications, data, and people.

The demand for search is immediate – and by 2009, the demand for search solutions worldwide will grow to $1.7 Billion.   The answer is easy - Are you ready to lead the search?

2007 Microsoft Office System Enterprise Search Workshop

Date:                                        24^th – 26^th September 2007

Course:                                    Implementing & Managing an Enterprise Search Solution (see attached)

Location:                      Global Knowledge Training Centre, Wokingham http://www.globalknowledge.co.uk/about_us/training_locations/wokingham.aspx).

Audience:                               Intended for SI implementers who are competent in WSS v3 and MOSS                        2007 products and technologies.

Format:                                    Instructor-Led

Enrollment                                https://training.Partner.microsoft.com/plc/details.aspx?publisher=12&delivery=233236

Note:                            This course is subsidised by Microsoft, the cost for the course is £100 per person per day for Gold and Certified partners, and £150 per person per day for registered please note this is a three day course.

Travel & accommodation is the responsibility of attendees.

Contact: If you need additional information please feel free to contact Debra Kelly debrak@microsoft.com

© 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

So you may have noticed a slight absence from me over the last few weeks whilst I have been at the Worldwide Partner Conference at which we had a significant attendance from UK Partners in HPC and 400 others from the UK. I followed that up with the Microsoft Global Briefing we hold for our staff each year - both great events with lots of content which will find it's way here over the coming weeks as stories become actionable locally.

If you want to get your hands on the slides from the Worldwide Partner Conference then you just have to look here:

http://members.microsoft.com/partner/digitalwpc/

Check out the great slides from Ballmer, Kevin Turner and some of the cool Enterprise Search decks up there from yours truly :-)

Enjoy!

Just a quick link to a nice video on Microsoft and OpenSource, you may remember Ryan from a couple of interviews we did a while back when he visited the HPC team in the UK. Just click on the picture of Ryan to go straight to the interview!

Interviewers: Scott Swigart, and Sean Campbell

Interviewee: Ryan Waite

Ryan Waite

In this interview, we talk with Ryan Waite, Group Program Manager for High-Performance Computing at Microsoft.  We talk about:

Microsoft’s entry into the High Performance Computing area.

Microsoft’s support of the open source Message Passing Interface (MPI).

MPI has become bloated, and there’s no usability data (like there is with Microsoft Office) to indicate what should be deprecated.

At Microsoft, select customers help shape the features for the next product release.

Microsoft has always focused on ease of use, simplified administration, and uncomplicated setup. HPC is no different.

Instrumentation helps find reliability issues. If partners are affecting reliability (with unstable drivers, for example) certification helps raise the bar.

Parallel programming is now the only way to do more computation in the same amount of time. Processors just are getting faster like they used to.

It’s easier for open source to be incremental. Proprietary software has to make radical changes.

Hard drives + overnight shipping = really high bandwidth.

Enjoy!

Nice article here on ECM Connection, I have cut and paste a specific quote below but the bits I like are:

1. ...perhaps what’s been most striking is the number of customers that are inquiring and taking serious interest in understanding SharePoint and its ECM capabilities...
2. ...especially intrigued at how quickly this interest level appears to be initially moving downstream into the mid-market at such an early stage of the introduction...
3. ...if you have personally seen or experienced the integration (and investment) that Microsoft has placed into SharePoint 2007 and the Office 2007 suite, the value proposition and the appeal of SharePoint to any organization using the classic Microsoft Office products is quickly understood...

Hmmm so I guess if I was working in this market I would do the following:

1. Look wider than the traditional ECM markets to deploy MOSS 07 especially at Midmarket customers
2. Investigate the wider stack of products around MOSS 07 due to their value when working in collaboration with MOSS 07

Nice article - read the rest here:

http://www.ecmconnection.com/content/news/article.asp?DocID=%7BCECC2F8F-4EB6-4C8F-8A5F-1844F68024B5%7D&Bucket=Current+Headlines&VNETCOOKIE=NO

Marvellous!

So this week I am over at the Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver and will be presenting with my colleagues on Enterprise Search and how to work with Microsoft to be successful.

During the presentation we will mention some work from Verus Research that we want to share with you all. It's available here to download and you can see a snapshot below

Enjoy!