SharePoint - Terry Stein - It's an IW World, and I'm Just Living In It!

5/20/2008

Developers, developers, developers! SharePoint wants you! (Partial Cross-Post)

In almost every partner meeting I sit in, I hear about the need to gain SharePoint developer knowledge in the partner organization. I am forever being asked if I know anyone who's looking for a new opportunity.

Well, this is your answer for beginning to grow that talent in-house for the cost a little investment in time.

This is a great post from the SharePoint Product Team Blog, so I decided to do a partial cross post it here. The full original post can be found here.

If you're interested in becoming a (better) SharePoint developer, I'd like to call your attention to the opportunity below.

Introduction to SharePoint for .NET Developers Live Webcast

In this 10 part series, you will receive practical technical information from Robert Bogue and Andrew Connell, both SharePoint MVPs, covering 10 fundamental developer topics on SharePoint via Live Meeting webcast.

About the series:

Every Tuesday and Wednesday from May 20 to June 18
Starts at 12:00PM Eastern
Each session is 60 minutes long
Level 200 with intro, demo, and coding

Register today by clicking on the registration links below. In case you miss any, each webcast will be recorded for later viewing via the same respective registration link.

Date	Webcast Topics	Registration Link
May 20	Web Parts	Register today!
May 21	Data Lists	Register today!
May 27	Silverlight and SharePoint	Register today!
May 28	Using Event Handlers	Register today!
Jun 3	Page Branding	Register today!
Jun 4	Workflow	Register today!
Jun 10	Web Services	Register today!
Jun 11	Page Navigation	Register today!
Jun 17	User Management	Register today!
Jun 18	Custom Content Types	Register today!

Posted at 2:12 PM by NORTHAMERICA\terrys | Category: SharePoint | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

Get it Now - The EPM 2007 Demo Virtual Machine

Great news for all our of Project Management partners out there looking for a great way to show off Microsoft's project management tools, technologies, and solutions!

Introducing the Enterprise Project Management 2007 Demo Virtual Machine!

The Enterprise Project Management 2007 Demo VM is designed to allow you to demonstrate the features and functionality of Microsoft Office Project 2007, Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, and Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 in a live environment utilizing a single PC or laptop computer.

The Enterprise Project Management 2007 Demo has the RTM versions of the Project 2007 stack installed and configured plus the new Project Server and Portfolio Server demo databases. Demo scripts are included with this image, more will be posted at a later date. There is an instruction document to describe the role and logins of the users.

The contents of the VM are:

· Windows Server 2003 R2

· Microsoft SQL 2005 SP2

· Microsoft SQL 2005 Analysis Services SP2

· Microsoft SQL 2005 Reporting Services SP2

· Microsoft Office Project Server 2007

· Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007

· Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

· Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007

· Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007

· Microsoft Office Visio 2007

· .Net Framework 3.0

The image is 3.5 GB and we recommend that you have about 13GB of free disk space in order to install and run. We broke the installation into eight pieces to facilitate an easier download.

Interested in getting the VM? Click here to go to the link and get the instructions for downloading.

Posted at 1:46 PM by NORTHAMERICA\terrys | Category: Office Desktop Applications; Project Management; Selling IW to Customers; SharePoint | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

5/14/2008

SharePoint Deployment Planning Services Available to Qualified Customers Worldwide on May 19th!

On May 19th,we will announce the release of SharePoint Deployment Planning Services (SDPS), a new partner and MCS delivered offering designed to help Software Assurance customers successfully plan and deploy SharePoint. SDPS includes a broad range of planning tools and services that help optimize the effectiveness of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server’s core capabilities (Portals & Collaboration, ECM and Search) and help lower the cost of deployment. Reception of this program has been VERY well received by both partners, customers and the field during our 4 month pilot that took place from January – April this year.

SDPS is a packaged service offering that is a benefit for customers with qualifying Software Assurance. Customers now have the flexibility to choose Desktop Deployment Planning and/or SharePoint Deployment planning services as part of their SA investment.

The number of Packaged Service days is determined by a combination of the number of qualifying Office licenses and the number of Core CAL suite and Enterprise CAL suite licenses.

Currently we have over 300 certified consultants that are available to deliver an SDPS engagement.

Over 18,000 Customers can leverage this service starting May 19th.

What does an SDPS engagement entitle customers to receive?

A 1, 3, 5, 10 and 15 day deployment planning engagement will be offered depending on the customer’s SA benefit level.

The types of services delivered will depend on the length of the engagement

1. A Strategy Briefing defines the vision for achieving technical and business goals and is part of all engagements,

2. An Architectural Design Session introduces SharePoint technologies, solutions and concepts is added in a 3 Day Engagement,

3. A Deployment Planning Session covers a specific SharePoint capability in depth is added in a 5 Day Engagement, and

4. A Proof of Concept demonstrates the solution in the customer’s environment is added in a 10 and 15 day engagement.

Where do Customers find information on their SA benefit?

To determine the software assurance the customer has purchased, they must identify who, within the organization, “owns” the contract with Microsoft. This could be a legal resource, a contracting specialist, or an IT executive and is known as the Notices Contact and the Agreement Administrator. This person would receive their entitlement details at http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/sa/default.mspx.

What is the value of SDPS to Customers and Partners?

Customers

§ SDPS enables customers to obtain a roadmap to understand how to effectively deploy SharePoint within their Organization and helps remove the customer-perceived risk and cost of planning for a SharePoint deployment.

§ SDPS offers an engagement that is customized for each customer, addressing their specific business or technical challenges.

§ SDPS enables customers to get more value out of their existing Software Assurance investment, and is available to them at no additional cost.

Partners

§ Partners receive the SDPS tools, training, and support to help customers deploy SharePoint and increase their revenue in the process.

§ SDPS helps minimize the up-front partner investment and pre-sales planning and helps customers get a SharePoint deployment plan in place, opening the door for increased partner service revenue opportunity.

§ Microsoft pays qualified partners to deliver SDPS services.

Where can I find more information?

The external site for partners to register is www.microsoftsdps.com, which will point them to the new partner community center where partners can leverage SDPS selling and engagement materials at www.partnersdps.com.

Customers can understand the opportunity and benefit of SDPS as part of the Software Assurance investment at http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/sa.

What is next?

Get certified to delivery SPDS services and have Microsoft pay your consulting fee for the engagement! www.microsoftsdps.com.

Posted at 2:43 PM by NORTHAMERICA\terrys | Category: SharePoint; Selling IW to Customers; Competencies & Certification | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

5/8/2008

First Look – MicrosoftOnline Review

So yesterday, I got hooked up with access to the beta of the much talked about MicrosoftOnline service. I've been on the service now for less than 24 hours, so consider this to be an initial look/preview into the service, and I'm passing it on directly to you.

First of all, for those unfamiliar with MicrosoftOnline, this is one of Microsoft's solutions in the arena of Software + Services. Beginning in July, customers will be able purchase MicrosoftOnline as a subscription service. This service provides Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and LiveMeeting in its initial release. I fully expect this solution to grow as time passes and more capabilities are brought into the services world.

My first glance at the offering was through the administration tool. I've included a partial screen shot for your viewing.

You'll notice that the screen is laid out in a very easy-to-follow format. I can see quickly that both my Exchange Online and SharePoint Online services are healthy. I also have the ability take action for various tasks for my online Exchange and SharePoint environment. Creating Exchange users, and SharePoint site collections is a snap.

From a user perspective, I had to install a small application for the sign-in utility. Signing into this application allows me to get access to OWA or to my Exchange Online account through the use an additional profile in Outlook. Since a single Outlook profile can only connect to one Exchange Server environment, the sign-in tool creates a new profile for me. OWA looks exactly like it does in every other Exchange 2007 OWA environment.

SharePoint sites look exactly like you'd expect as well. I have the ability to create document libraries, and when I use the Connect to Outlook option in my site, the document library synched directly to my Outlook without incident.

In my production Microsoft user account that I use every day, I'm enabled for LiveMeeting through OCS and our unified communications solution. As part of that solution, I have the Outlook add-in for Conferencing so that I can schedule a LiveMeeting or a Conference Call in OCS directly from Outlook. When the sign-in application created my new Outlook profile, obviously my conferencing add-in stayed attached to Outlook. The downside was that the conferencing add-in for Outlook does not look at specific Outlook profiles, so MicrosoftOnline reconfigured my settings in the add-in so that it maps to the LiveMeeting service on MicrosoftOnline. That's all well and fine as long as I'm using the online account. Later in the day, I was using my real production account and tried to access a LiveMeeting from my Outlook calendar, but couldn't get access because the user account settings were still tied to my online account. A quick reconfiguration of the user settings in the conferencing add-in fixed the problem. I'm not sure how big of an issue this really is because there will probably be few people who connect to multiple OCS environments.

But in the end, it's a very positive experience so far, and the service is very fast. It's easy to use, easy to navigate, and I think customers are going to be extremely interested. Look for me to post more as I continue to navigate the waters of MicrosoftOnline…and if you want to send me a message on the service, you can reach me at terrys@hlapartners1.microsoftonline.com.

Posted at 1:15 PM by NORTHAMERICA\terrys | Category: Exchange ; SharePoint; Microsoft Online | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

4/18/2008

When Disaster Meets a Need for Recovery

Most of us woke up his morning to the news of an earthquake in southern Illinois that measured 5.2 on the Richter Scale. And while I didn't feel anything at my house, the event triggered some thoughts around disaster recovery architecture and planning for our products. I believe that disaster recovery planning is not taken seriously enough when we are building out solutions with our customers, and I thought it would be a fine time to bring that back to the front of your mind. Disaster recovery is a topic of conversation for every customer that we talk to, and if you need help in learning more about how to architect solutions with products like SharePoint and Exchange, I thought it would be worthwhile to provide a consolidated list of links for you to investigate on the topic.

Posted at 1:36 PM by NORTHAMERICA\terrys | Category: Exchange ; SharePoint | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

4/17/2008

What’s the Web 2.0 Story?

Are your customers using or thinking about Web 2.0 technologies? According to this report from The McKinsey Quarterly, many of your customers ARE thinking about it if they haven't already started down the road.

What does this mean for you? Start asking your customers about their vision around social computing for their environment! There are many ways to take advantage of social computing to provide value to a business; whether that's allowing team members to work more efficiently together, getting more enhanced touch with customers, or a myriad of other areas.

So, now maybe you're saying, "Gee, this is an interesting thought but I don't really know where to begin". We have lots of information available to you to get you started down the path of having a great conversation with your customers.

Posted at 10:16 AM by NORTHAMERICA\terrys | Category: SharePoint; Social Networking | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)