Arpan Shah's Blog

Office 365 : Continuous Innovation

ArpanS — Sun, 06 May 2012 16:40:40 GMT

One of the great things about Office 365 is that we can continuously innovate and improve our service. And that’s exactly what we’ve been doing. You can learn all about our updates @ http://community.office365.com/en-us/w/office_365_service_updates/default.aspx. I encourage you to sign up for a trial of Office 365 if you haven’t already and experience it yourself! All you need to do is go to http://www.office365.com and within minutes you’ll be up and running.

To The Cloud!

ArpanS — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 06:43:13 GMT

I’ve taken a new role in the Microsoft Office Division and I’m excited to say that my new team will be leading core product management for our Office 365 Suites. Our mission is to deliver the best online productivity solution in the industry to our customers. My team will work closely with engineering as well as our outbound channels.

While I am super excited about my new role, I will miss being part of the Project team. The Project team is one of the best teams I’ve been a part of at Microsoft – great people, great technology and great community. It has truly been a pleasure & honor to lead the business for the last 1.5+ years.

Looking forward to an exciting future for Office 365!

Arpan Shah
Director, Office 365 Suites

Project Collaboration with Microsoft Project 2010 and Office 365

ArpanS — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:09:38 GMT

I wanted to call out some really interesting content that highlights the power of Microsoft Project 2010, Office 2010 and Office 365. I definitely recommend reading the article and watching the videos from http://blogs.msdn.com/b/project/archive/2012/01/25/leveraging-office-365-for-project-collaboration-success.aspx

Cell Phone Trends in Asia

ArpanS — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:08:43 GMT

I had a unique opportunity to spend 6 weeks in Asia – specifically in India, Cambodia and Thailand from early November to late December. And while this was a personal trip, I observed technology trends that were quite different from the US. Here are a few that I noticed:

- WiFi is not ubiquitous. Unlike many places in the US where WiFi is present in many homes, coffee shops, airports and city centers, WiFi is not everywhere in India. There are definitely pockets of WiFi access, but even in many homes, it’s not available.

- BlackBerry is a popular smartphone in India. Caveat: while I was in India, Windows Phone was not widely available. BlackBerry was by far the most popular smart phone. And what was most interesting and least obvious was the reason for its popularity – BBM which stands for BlackBerry Messenger. It’s a social messaging system and many consumers are hooked on it. Many people buy the BlackBerry because their friends are on BBM. The most popular non-smartphone choice was by far Nokia – which makes me excited about the opportunity that Windows Phone + Nokia brings to India.

- SMS is king in India. Cell phone data connections are not nearly as popular as SMS. This has been the case for many years now but it’s still surprising to see. Any technology venture in India needs to think about having some kind of SMS strategy and keep in mind that not everyone has cell phone data plans and WiFi access – but everyone has and loves SMS.

- Custom Ring tones are popular. If you hear the tune to a popular song in a café, more likely than not, it’s someone’s cell phone ringing.

Well that’s my last post for 2011. Happy 2012 to all of you!

Project Conference 2012 – Register now!

ArpanS — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 10:56:08 GMT

The Project Conference 2012 is less than 4 months away! It’s an opportunity to see the Microsoft Project team and share ideas & experiences with the greater Microsoft Project community. This conference is ideal for Business owners, Project Managers, partners, developers and IT Managers – check out the tracks at http://msprojectconference.com/pages/tracks.aspx. You can also register now at http://www.msprojectconference.com

I’m looking forward to meeting you in Phoenix, AZ, next March!

My Netbook, OneNote and Phone

ArpanS — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 16:29:56 GMT

Over the next few weeks, I’m traveling around the world spending time with friends and family. I plan to stay unplugged from work the entire time. But unplugged from work doesn’t mean unplugged from technology. :-)

Here’s how I’m balancing the art of staying unplugged from work and still remaining connected for surfing, email, photos and Skype – of course:

1. Shut down the work laptop and boot up the netbook. The easiest way to leave work behind is to leave the work laptop behind. I booted up my netbook, upgraded the netbook memory to 2GB and installed the latest updates including IE 9.0 and Windows 7 SP1. I also installed Windows Live Essentials to manage photos and write blog entries (like this one). And of course, I have my favorite software installed: Office 2010. I wrote an earlier blog entry on how I used Project 2010 as well – worth checking out if you haven’t.

2. OneNote Everywhere. OneNote is really useful for work and home. It’s the perfect way to keep a journal, track things I have to do, take notes and track important information such as hotels, tickets and pictures. What’s really special is that I can use OneNote from my netbook, Phone and any browser. Not only that, but my wife can do the same. It makes it really easy for the two of us to have one single OneNote notebook. I’m also lucky enough to be on the latest Windows Phone 7.5 (“Mango”) – and WP7.5 + OneNote is pure magic. Let me give you my real life example: I have OneNote installed on my netbook and I’ve created a Notebook (“Personal Diary”) that is stored in Skydrive (free cloud service). I have two sections right now – one for “Diary” and one for “Information”. In the “Diary” section, each page represents a day; Information has pages for Hotel and Flights. And because the Notebook is stored in the cloud, I can access it seamlessly from my Phone through the Skydrive integration in WP7.5 (if you haven’t tried it out – amazing) as well as any browser on any computer. Absolutely killer. The more I think about it, I’m surprised more people aren’t doing this for their blog. Much richer and easier to author and access.

3. Windows Phone 7.5. I removed the work Outlook tile and unchecked email sync. Here are some of the features I’ve been using on a daily basis:

- Hotmail. Conversation view with WP 7.5 makes it easier to read and manage email.

- Zune Music Pass. I’m the biggest fan of the Zune Music Pass. I have a large music collection on my phone that I really enjoy and I’ve been able to easily find great english and hindi music.

- People Groups. I have a family group tile where I can easily keep in touch with family and see what’s going on with them – for example, mass e-mail and SMS. I really like the ability to view “What’s new" that aggregates Facebook information.

- Task List. In the calendar hub, there’s a native To-Do list/app that can sync with an email service like Exchange or Hotmail. Very convenient and great for work and home.

- OneNote/Skydrive as I mentioned above. I’ve created a tile that takes me right to my “Personal Diary” from the Start screen with one click. Once I’m in the notebook, I can take notes, pictures and even record audio.

- Pictures and one click upload to Facebook. Makes it easy to share pictures and videos with family.

- Deeper integration with social networks like FB, Twitter and LinkedIn. Not only is aggregation a key service, but the ability to post natively from the phone to FB and Twitter is really cool and convenient.

- My favorite apps like Yelp, IMDB, Amazon, MSN News, etc.

- And a lot more features like Bing Scout, maps, etc.

Using Microsoft Project 2010 to Plan My Trip

ArpanS — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 19:34:13 GMT

I’m taking a sabbatical from October 7th to January 2nd. It’s an award I was given at my 10 year Microsoft anniversary. It’s an opportunity to unplug, relax and come back recharged for 2012 – specifically Project Conference 2012 in March! There’s never a great time to take time off, but this window turns out to be a pretty good time. I plan to write a blog post reflecting on my 10 years at Microsoft – stay tuned for that!

Now back to the topic. With 12 weeks time off, my wife and I discussed many different ways to spend the time. We wanted to spend time with family, visit Europe and also go to South Asia for some warm weather. We started planning with paper and pen and very quickly we realized that we needed a lot of rewriting and paper. :–) Some of the reasons why this was the case:

- We needed visas for a few of the places we wanted to visit and visas need processing time, have restrictions, etc.

- We wanted to spend time with both of our extended families. Family dates kept moving.

- We were flexible in our travel dates and could adjust our schedule based on ticket/hotel prices.

- We had a preference on the trip order.

So what did I do? I think most people would have tried using Excel – which would have helped but not solve the problem. I went right into Project Professional 2010 to schedule my trip! And it has proved to be very helpful in planning and communicating my trip details to family members – thanks to the power of scheduling and the timeline view!

Here are two simple steps I took before I started planning:

1. Change Working Time. I changed the default calendar to a 24 Hour calendar. Be sure to go into Options and change hours per day/week values. Vacation is a 24-hour “job”! :–)

2. Change Project Information. Apply the 24-hour calendar to your Project.

That’s it. I was ready to go! Very easy to plan, to change and communicate. And most importantly, I’m excited about my time off and I feel confident that we’ve put together a solid plan! Below is a high-level timeline – I’ve cleaned it up for privacy reasons but should give you a good idea of how I am communicating my trip schedule with my family and friends.

Project 2010 and SharePoint 2010 Training

ArpanS — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 06:50:07 GMT

With Project 2010 and SharePoint 2010 deployment on the rise, it’s important to think about end user adoption and education. End user training is important to improve business processes and get value out of your software. As Dux often says when people blame the tool, “the tool isn’t the problem”.

Project 2010. When it comes to Microsoft Project 2010, there are many partners that provide training for Project Server as well as Project desktop. Many of these partners support the Microsoft Project 2010 exams. You can find a list of them at http://www.microsoft.com/project/en/us/find-training.aspx. Partners like:

· Versatile Company

· ILL

· MS Project Experts

· Innovative-e .

SharePoint 2010. There are many partners that offer developer and administrator training. But it’s equally important to think about SharePoint 2010 end user training given it’s a new user experience from previous versions. I recommend looking at the following solutions that I’ve actually tried and previously blogged about:

· Point8020 ShowMe for SharePoint

· How to Do Everything Microsoft SharePoint 2010 (Book)

· The SharePoint Shepherd's Guide for End Users (Book)

Good luck with driving adoption of Microsoft Project and SharePoint! There are many other training options out there, I just thought I’d list a few!

Transforming your Enterprise Business

ArpanS — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 23:16:11 GMT

One of the best parts of my job is the opportunity I have to talk with our partners. The Microsoft Project partner ecosystem is dedicated, vast and highly skilled! They provide a great deal of insight on deployment, adoption and overall feedback which is important to us for business and product planning.

With many of our Project partners’ businesses doing really well given the industry Project Management demand, it gives us an opportunity to talk about the future. A common discussion topic is how partners should think about their business over the next few years with the explosion of devices, democratization of IT, shift to the cloud and constant desire for change and innovation with tight budgets. These factors aren’t Project or Microsoft specific rather they are relevant to the software industry.

In our discussions, two themes that generally emerge are Cloud and Partner-to-Partner opportunities. These incidentally were also the focus at WPC this year.

The Cloud. The word “cloud” is overloaded – it could mean Public Cloud (for eg. Office 365, Azure, Salesforce) or Private Cloud (for eg. Hyper-V, VMWare). And each one of these can be sub-segmented even further: Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service, Infrastructure as a Service, etc. In any case, the reality is that the cloud is an important business consideration and a current technology trend. Microsoft is leading with the cloud and uniquely positioned to offer services for On-Premises and the Cloud. And whether you are a System Integrator (SI) or Independent Software Vendor (ISV), the cloud is something that you should consider for your product and business strategies. Here is one way to think about your business if you’re a partner that is enterprise focused today:

- Enterprise market. The cloud offers a new way for enterprises to deploy (eg. don’t have to install software, manage hardware, etc) and purchase software (eg. pay subscription fee, don’t have to buy server hardware, etc). As a partner, this means you want to focus on business scenarios, adoption, interoperability, migration and customization. There’s a lot of opportunity in this space and an opportunity to engage your existing customers and help them move to the cloud.

- Small & Medium Business (SMB) market. The cloud offers a unique way to reach new customers that weren’t able to install and manage “enterprise” software in the past. In this case, these are potential new customers to the industry. And while this represents an entirely new opportunity space, the partner engagement and business model is quite different. SMB customers are not necessarily looking for deep engagements; rather, they are interested in lighter involvement to get their solution up and running. The number of users are much smaller than enterprise customers and in this space, you’re potentially looking at a larger volume of customers with less users each. If you’re a partner that’s traditionally focused on enterprise customers, the questions are 1) are you interested in the SMB market and 2) if you are, how will you transform your business to have lighter touch, higher volume engagements that are similar in nature to the SaaS business model of subscription payments?

Partner-to-Partner. Think about how you can offer additional services and scale your business by partnering with other partners. Before you start reaching out to partners, think about the types of partnerships you need to be successful and then recruit and invest in select partners. Be thoughtful on what your business drivers are and which partnerships will help you build your business. For example, do you need to partner with a hoster? Do you need resellers? A training company? An outsourcing company? Or even someone in the same space as you with broader global reach? And while these questions seem very straightforward, many partners don’t invest the time to think about their own partner strategy. It’s important for someone on your leadership team to be thinking about P2P opportunities.

Worldwide Partner Conference

ArpanS — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 23:35:51 GMT

It’s always exciting to have an opportunity to spend time with partners. It’s been a little more than one year since we launched Project 2010, and I’m looking forward to meeting many of our partners in Los Angeles this week. WPC is an opportunity for me to get feedback on our products and learn more about our partners’ businesses. Along with meetings, I’m also looking forward to our annual Project Breakfast that we host for our PPM partners every WPC. It’s a very early morning start if you haven’t been to it – but definitely one of the highlights of my WPC agenda. I’ll also be co-presenting a breakout session that is targeted at SharePoint Partners around the PPM business opportunity.

Looking forward to seeing some of you this week!

Microsoft is Rated in the Gartner Project and Portfolio Applications MarketScope

ArpanS — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 17:18:46 GMT

[Cross-posted at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/project/archive/2011/06/20/microsoft-is-rated-in-the-gartner-project-and-portfolio-applications-marketscope.aspx]

For those of you who don’t follow the official Project Team Blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/project:

It’s my pleasure to announce that Microsoft received the highest rating possible in the recently released Gartner Project and Portfolio Applications MarketScope. This report is an evolution of the 2010 Gartner Magic Quadrant for IT Project and Portfolio Management (PPM). Specifically, Microsoft received a “Strong Positive” rating. You can see the full rating table at the bottom of this blog post and download the report at http://www.gartner.com/technology/media-products/reprints/microsoft/vol14/article21/article21.html.

We listened closely to customer and partner feedback and built a high quality PPM stack with Microsoft Project Professional 2010, SharePoint 2010 and Project Server 2010. It’s been one year since we launched our latest software, and it’s great to see this report recognize us!

I urge you to take a look at the full Gartner report linked above. Microsoft is committed to being a leader in the PPM market through continuous innovation. So if you’re looking to deploy a PPM solution, look no further! I highly recommend learning more about our Microsoft Project & Portfolio Management solution at http://www.microsoft.com/project/en/us/solutions.aspx. There you’ll find pointers to product guides, demos and evaluation software.

Sincerely,
Arpan

The MarketScope is copyrighted 2011 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The MarketScope is an evaluation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner's analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the MarketScope, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest rating. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. This MarketScope graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research note and should be evaluated in the context of the entire report. The Gartner report is available upon request from Microsoft.

Project 2010 SP1 and more

ArpanS — Mon, 16 May 2011 17:07:19 GMT

A lot of exciting things happening in the world of Microsoft Project! It’s been a year since we launched and we’re seeing great customer and partner momentum with Microsoft Project 2010! I thought I would share just a few of the recent exciting news for Project 2010:

SP1 for Project desktop and Project Server will release at the end of June 2011. You can find more detailed information on the team blog. Beyond fixes, we’re shipping enhancements that include:

Multi-Browser Support for time entry in Project Web App
Improved synchronization of Project tasks to a SharePoint task list on-premises or in Office 365
Time-phased support for manually scheduled tasks
Improvements to project scheduling in Project Web App

eWeek Microsoft Project 2010 Top 10 Features. This is great to see as it highlights features across Project 2010 desktop and Project Server 2010! You can check it out at http://bit.ly/lpQVIY.

New Project 2010 Podcast on PMI. There is a great new podcast on the Project Management Institute’s Knowledge Center site. Margaret Loosemore, a Senior Product Manager on my team, gives an overview of all the great new features in Project 2010. I highly recommend checking it out here.

Microsoft Project for the Masses. A must-read whitepaper written by Innovative-e that outlines how project management can be effectively implemented without the need for complex configuration and/or processes for specific scenarios. It includes a great whitepaper and other great artifacts like videos, templates, etc. You can download from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=53cd717f-939d-4f41-921a-feb3aa9353aa&displaylang=en.

Microsoft Project Conference 2012 on March 19-22, 2012. If there’s one event you have to go to, it’s next year’s Project Conference 2012! The entire team is looking forward to this event where you’ll have an opportunity to meet the team in Redmond, the greater Project customer and partner community and share best practices. Phoenix in March is also a nice touch… nice, warm weather! While registration is not open just yet (it will be soon), you can get on the mailing list at http://www.msprojectconference.com. If you’re a partner looking for sponsorship activities, shoot me a note.

Microsoft Project in Mexico and Brazil

ArpanS — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 22:42:12 GMT

This week, I have an opportunity to meet Microsoft Project customers and partners in Mexico and Brazil. I categorize this trip as a short “long trip” where I’m spending 4 days in productive meetings and about a day traveling!

I’m just wrapping up my trip to Mexico and it’s been an absolute treat hearing from the customers and partners here on their experiences with Project. My next stop is Brazil where I’ll be attending the Project event on April 8th. More information @ http://www.eventosmicrosoft.com.br/project/Conteudo/Evento.aspx

I’ll share more information about my trip later – but for those of you in Brazil, looking forward to seeing you at the event!

SharePoint End User Training Update

ArpanS — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 17:48:56 GMT

I’m enjoying vacation right now and thought I would take a few minutes to update you on some SharePoint End User Training content and information. In my current role, my focus is Microsoft Project, but I continue hearing from friends, MVPs, customers and partners in the SharePoint community so here are a couple must check-outs for SharePoint End User Training. I’m a big believer that end user adoption is critical for a successful SharePoint deployment and end user training plays a big part:

Point8020’s ShowMe for SharePoint 2.0
Point8020 just released version 2.0 of their ShowMe product that is focused on SharePoint end user training and help. Beyond delivering SharePoint 2010 end user training, the new version can be customized and custom training can be added. That’s very useful and something I’ve heard a lot about. It will also work in Office 365 – which is absolutely great to hear! You can check out http://www.point8020.com/software.aspx for more information or watch the videos below:

ShowMe End User Training Video

ShowMe Adding Custom Training Video

SharePoint End User Books

I recommend checking out:

Stephen Cawood’s How to Do Everything Microsoft SharePoint 2010 @ http://www.amazon.com/How-Everything-Microsoft-SharePoint-2010/dp/0071743677
Robert Bogue’s The SharePoint Shepherd's Guide for End Users @ http://www.amazon.com/SharePoint-Shepherds-Guide-End-Users/dp/0615194494

CapGemini Posts Review of Project 2010

ArpanS — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 17:15:00 GMT

CapGemini recently posted a comprehensive review of Project & Project Server 2010 that you can download and read. You can find the pointer along with excerpts from the review at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/project/archive/2011/02/17/capgemini-posts-review-of-project-2010.aspx.

Microsoft is a leader in Enterprise IT PPM and ALM

ArpanS — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 16:00:00 GMT

In IDC’s most recent PPM MarketScape, Microsoft was listed as a leader in the Enterprise IT PPM and ALM views. This is in line with what we’re hearing from our customer and partner communities. We’re seeing customers and partners deploying Project & Project Server 2010 and realizing business benefit!

You can read more about it on the Project team blog @ http://blogs.msdn.com/b/project/archive/2011/01/27/microsoft-positioned-as-a-leader-in-it-ppm-and-alm.aspx.

Managing all your projects

ArpanS — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 17:05:00 GMT

No matter what your day job is, you’re involved in projects every day: testing a product, writing a whitepaper/book, running an event or even home “projects” like buying groceries, building a home extension or raising money for a charity. Simply put, a project is a set of tasks that accomplish an objective. We tend to use the phrase Project Management when these “projects” reach a certain level of complexity. But truth be told, whether you are managing a simple project or complex project, they have similar characteristics. In each and every case, you’re managing resources (includes budget), time & scope.

For simple projects, I’ve seen many people use sticky notes to jot down tasks and check them off. When more than one person is involved in a home project, email & Facebook are popular mediums to communicate plans and status .And when the number of tasks & people increase and status tracking is even more critical, Excel is a popular choice at work and home. Some power users even use SharePoint lists for project management at he work place. And while all these tools are effective in their own way, they weren’t built to be Project Management tools. Most people use these tools because they are familiar and address one of their requirements.

So at what point should folks consider using Microsoft Project vs. email, notepad, Excel or even SharePoint? If you have one or more of the following needs, chances are that you should be considering Microsoft Project 2010. It’s as familiar as Excel except it was built to be a Project Management tool. In fact, I recently built a Windows Phone 7 Application over the holidays & used Project 2010 to manage my project.

More people are involved than you. When there are multiple people (resources) involved in a Project, it’s important to be able to optimally allocate tasks, see how everyone’s work is impacting the overall project and provide an easy way to update status.

In Project 2010, it’s easy to assign tasks to different people, manage these people (resource pool) and get insightful views. For example, here’s the Team Planner view that shows all the people on the project and the tasks assigned to them. Very quickly, I can see who has bandwidth to take on additional tasks. In this simple real world example where I am developing a Windows Phone 7 application, I’ve assigned some tasks to Spandan Mehta & Ashok Shah. I can very easily see who has bandwidth and who doesn’t. I could also opt to use SharePoint to store relevant documents and let Spandan & Ashok update their tasks. New in Project 2010, is the Project and SharePoint bi-directional task synchronization.

Multiple milestones. Whether it’s one person or multiple people, a multi-milestone project can have a lot of moving parts. And chances are, if you’re day job isn’t Project Management, you likely have multiple projects you are managing and it’s important to be able to effectively track & report progress.

In Project 2010, you can easily define, track & report on various milestones. You can also very easily create tasks that lead up to a milestone. The ribbon makes it really easy to do this! In my real world example, even though the primary project contributor was me, I had multiple milestones: Defining Requirements, Design, Development, Test & Release.

Dependencies/Scheduling. When you have a project that has many dependencies (tasks, people, other projects), it’s important to be able to manage delays and see how it impacts your schedule. For example, not completing a specific task on time can lead to an overall Project delay if there are tasks and/or people waiting for a specific deliverable.

Project 2010 has powerful scheduling capabilities that are easy to use. Some people who don’t want Project to “auto-schedule” can also set the Project to “manual schedule” – a new feature in Project 2010. When I was working on my personal project, if a particular task took longer than it should have, I saw the schedule get shifted and impact my release date.

Reporting. It’s really important to be able to report on a project’s progress. Whether it’s to yourself, a group of individuals or an executive, it’s an important activity. I’ve seen people spend a countless number of hours creating visually appealing charts and graphs; in fact, as much time doing that as managing the project.

Project 2010 has a number of visual reports that are out-of-the-box. A new visualization in Project 2010 that also helps communicate details of your project is the timeline view. A personal favorite of mine! Project creates a timeline view and you can customize it to look the way you want! You can then use this in your email or PowerPoint presentation.

So if you find yourself managing projects that have at least one of these characteristics, I recommend checking out Project 2010!

Poker Analyzer Windows Phone 7 Application

ArpanS — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 16:00:00 GMT

If you’re a poker enthusiast and have a Windows Phone 7, I encourage you to check out an application I recently published: Poker Analyzer.

Poker Analyzer is for poker enthusiasts who want to improve their poker skills. Poker Analyzer gives accurate winning probabilities for any Texas Hold'em situation up to 12 players. With Poker Analyzer, you can choose specific cards and immediately see how the odds change - just like you see on TV!

This is an ideal application for anyone looking to play online poker, analyze various scenarios or just gain more insight into Texas Hold'em!

Features include:
- A simple user experience to choose cards with touch
- Ability to choose up to 12 player hands and 5 board cards; player hands can be known or unknown
- Accurate win, tie, straight and flush probabilities
- Tips on how to bet and play different hands
- Ability to fold a hand to see how odds change

A few things to note:

- This application does not require a data/Internet connection.
- The application takes into account all known player hands when providing odds making it more accurate. When hands are not known, it assumes random hands.
- When all player hands are known, for example when analyzing poker situations, the odds are meant to be 100% accurate.

It’s priced at $1.99 and proceeds will go to charity. Feedback always welcome!

Icon

Here are some screenshots:

A look back at 2010

ArpanS — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 19:52:45 GMT

With the year coming to an end, I want to thank everyone for their support & wish everyone a very happy new year! 2010 was a busy & exciting year for Microsoft! As I mentioned in a previous post, we saw some great exciting technology on the consumer and the enterprise side: Kinect, Office 2010 (including Project 2010 & SharePoint 2010), Windows Phone 7, IE 9.0 beta, Office 365 beta just to name a few. It was nice to see some recognition – for example the article from TheStreet @ http://www.thestreet.com/story/10953596/1/10-top-innovative-companies.html that lists Microsoft as the most innovate company.

As for me, I had the pleasure to be very involved in the Office 2010 release and use/evangelize the other technologies. I thought I’d share just a few of my personal highlights on the Office side of the house with a special focus on Project:

- Project Conference 2009 & SharePoint Conference 2009. I’m cheating here since both these events happened in the second half of 2009, but they were critical to a successful launch in May 2010. Both of these conferences brought together thousands of people who shaped the 2010 products. Early exposure and interaction with the product led to incredible community feedback on the beta releases which in turn led to high quality RTM versions of Project 2010 & SharePoint 2010. You can check out the SharePoint Conference keynotes @ http://blogs.msdn.com/b/arpans/archive/2009/10/20/sharepoint-conference-keynotes.aspx.

- Office 2010 Launch. In May, we launched Office 2010. What made the 2010 launch special was that unlike typical launches, this one had a physical & virtual presence. I also don’t see “launch” as a point in time – we had regional events all over the world leading up to launch as well as after launch. I had an opportunity to meet customers & partners all over the world including India (as part of Ignite), Russia and Australia – three beautiful counties with vibrant Project & SharePoint communities!

- Worldwide Partner Conference. It was just around this time that I took on the role of Director of Product Management for Microsoft Project. This event was personally a great opportunity for me to connect with WW Project partners. While I was on the road, I also took the opportunity to draft an article on Project & SharePoint integration @ http://blogs.msdn.com/b/arpans/archive/2010/07/26/microsoft-project-2010-and-sharepoint-foundation-2010.aspx

- PMI Global Congress. One of the key tenets of our team is customer & partner connection. We want to have an opportunity to learn from the greater Project community so we can build great software. Events, such as PMI Global Congress, are one way we connect with customers & partners. PMI was a great opportunity to connect with Project Managers and show them Project 2010 as well as get their feedback. It was great to see the excitement around the latest release. You can find the event recap @ http://blogs.msdn.com/b/arpans/archive/2010/10/14/microsoft-project-at-the-pmi-global-congress.aspx

- Office 365 Announcement. On October 19th, which happens to be exactly one year after the SharePoint Conference, we announced Office 365. A very exciting milestone and some great integration scenarios with Project 2010. You can find more information @ http://blogs.msdn.com/b/project/archive/2010/10/19/enabling-better-collaborative-project-management-with-office-365-and-project-professional-2010.aspx

- ALM with Visual Studio Team Foundation & Project Server Integration. Over the last few months, we’ve made several announcements that highlight how Project Server 2010 is a holistic Project Management solution for the Enterprise. An example of such an announcement is the beta availability of Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server Integration Feature Pack. You can get more information @ http://blogs.msdn.com/b/project/archive/2010/12/07/announcing-visual-studio-team-foundation-server-2010-and-project-server-integration-feature-pack-beta.aspx

- Project Momentum Conference. Last month, the Project team hosted Project Momentum 2010 EMEA in Barcelona, Spain. It was a great opportunity for us to learn from the Project community as well as an opportunity for the community to share best practices with each other. You can read more information about it as well as get access to the event content @ http://blogs.msdn.com/b/project/archive/2010/12/15/project-momentum-2010-emea.aspx

The one thing that’s not on the list that I’ll write about next week is how I had an opportunity to use Project to plan, develop & release a Windows Phone 7 application (named Poker Analyzer) that just got published to the marketplace today!

I hope everyone has good health & happiness in 2011.

MPUG Interview at the PMI Global Congress

ArpanS — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 16:55:14 GMT

At the PMI Global Congress, Melanie Cosklo (President of MPUG) interviewed me right on the show floor! She asked some great questions albeit in a very crowded, noisy area – check it out! The one thing I couldn’t do was show Project 2010 in the video – so if you’re interested in seeing the latest version, check out our online demos @ http://www.microsoft.com/project/en/us/demos.aspx

Project Momentum–here we come!

ArpanS — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 20:53:32 GMT

My team and I, along with our engineering partners, are excited to be heading out for Project Momentum EMEA from November 16-18 in Barcelona! It gives us an opportunity to connect with our customers and partners in EMEA.

Some of the key highlights (taken from this blog post on the Project team blog) include:

Obtain unique insights from customers and partners into how Project 2010 delivers flexible work management solutions
Learn about innovative capabilities in Project 2010 that solve your organization's unique and specific needs
Share best practices and learn new ways to win in challenging business scenarios
Understand how to leverage your investments across related Microsoft technologies
Attend 15+ in-depth breakout sessions across business and technical tracks, see the agenda at Agenda
Participate in Hands on labs and see live product demonstrations
Hear thought provoking keynotes and guest speakers, to review the speaker see the Speaker list
Come see, hear and interact with our Microsoft Project & Portfolio Management certified partners. Visit their exciting virtual booths now on Virtual showcase and meet them in person at the event.

If you’re a Project customer in EMEA, I highly recommend attending – there’s limited space. Registration for this event is $75.00 (USD).

Microsoft Consumer Innovation

ArpanS — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 04:33:26 GMT

I recently came across an article on CNN Money titled “Microsoft is a dying consumer brand”. There are people out there that aren’t fans of Microsoft but what’s interesting about this article is that it was written days before Kinect and Windows Phone 7 general availability. And yes, of course I’m a little biased, but I personally think that Microsoft has never been more consumer focused and is releasing some exciting technology! I thought I’d share my top five products that highlight Microsoft’s commitment to consumers:

1. Windows 7. I haven’t found one person who hasn’t liked Windows 7. It’s fast, intuitive and beautiful to use. I have a handful of friends who moved from Mac OS to Windows 7. At first, they partitioned their HD and installed Windows 7 alongside Mac OS; eventually they moved completely to Windows 7. Besides Office 2010, which I consider the killer application for Windows, the other application suite that works great with Windows 7, is free and doesn’t get a lot of air time is Windows Live Essentials 2011. I highly recommend it! The latest version of Messenger, for example, integrates with Facebook allowing you to chat with your friends through Messenger while they are chatting through Facebook. Very cool!

2. Internet Explorer 9 beta. This is the release of Internet Explorer I’ve been waiting for! IE 8.0 was a good release; IE 9.0 beta is a fantastic release. It’s fast, clean and intuitive. For a beta product, it’s remarkably stable (like Windows 7 beta was) and I’ve installed it on all my home computers and my work laptop. You can learn more about and download IE 9.0 beta here.

3. Windows Phone 7. I’m counting the days until I get my own Windows Phone 7! I’ve played with it but still have a few days left before I get to buy one. Based on early reviews, it’s not just Microsoft employees who think it offers a unique, compelling user experience that’s different from other smart phones out there – and that includes the iPhone. What makes the Windows Phone 7 special and different from other smartphones, beyond the user experience, is its intuitive integration with Facebook, availability through different carriers beyond AT&T and unlimited Zune music subscription. And while other smartphones tout a great mobile search experience, I think the integrated Bing experience is better than iPhone’s.

Critics have commented on the lack of specific features like copy & paste and lack of 100s of thousands of applications. And while both are true, copy & paste will be available as an update in a matter of weeks (early 2011) and as for applications, it’s just a matter of time. Developing Windows Phone 7 apps is as easy as developing any .NET/Silverlight application. In fact, I’m developing a Poker Calculator Windows mobile app right now on my free time that I’m looking to publish in the next few weeks. I’ll blog when it’s complete!

4. Bing. I’m a big fan of Bing. More people still use Google, but using Bing is a great experience. It has as good relevancy as Google, but goes a step beyond in certain areas like user experience (great pictures), social search and booking travel. If you’re like me and enjoy the new Bing pictures every day, learn how you can make them your Windows wallpaper here.

5. Kinect. This is innovation at its best. And while some critics argue this is similar to the Wii, this is at a whole different level. I had a chance to check it out – and even though I’m not a gamer, I enjoyed the experience tremendously! This will definitely be a big hit with casual gamers and kids. I’ve seen some critics complain about the “space” requirement, but if that’s the biggest complaint, I don’t think it’s a big deal whatsoever. And looking into the future, in my opinion, the research behind the Kinect hardware & software motion sensors has the potential to lead to all sorts of new scenarios beyond gaming. Wouldn’t it be great if this became the next natural interface with your TV?

So is Microsoft a dying consumer brand? I think these 5 examples demonstrate it clearly isn’t; in fact, I think it’s on the rise. As for my opinion on Microsoft’s response to the iPad, I’m confident that Microsoft will respond with a great experience for everyone that will deliver a great tablet user experience with the power of a PC at an affordable price. I can wait for that!

Enabling Better Collaborative Project Management with Office 365 and Project Professional 2010

ArpanS — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 02:36:59 GMT

[Cross-posted @ http://blogs.msdn.com/b/project/archive/2010/10/19/enabling-better-collaborative-project-management-with-office-365-and-project-professional-2010.aspx]

Today, Kurt DelBene announced Office 365, which we believe will define the future of productivity. Office 365 is a new cloud service that brings enterprise-grade productivity to everyone. This is an important announcement for the industry and Microsoft. I encourage you to watch today’s global press conference about Office 365 on the Microsoft News Center (www.microsoft.com/presspass).

I wanted to blog about this news to explain what it means for Microsoft Project 2010. As many of you know, we offer Project Server 2010 cloud hosting through numerous partners that many customers are already taking advantage of today. With SharePoint Online as part of Office 365, we now deliver great collaborative project management in the cloud through the Project Professional synchronization to SharePoint just as we do today for our on-premise customers.

		SharePoint Online as part of Office 365

The Project Professional 2010 ability to publish plans to SharePoint allows project teams to share and update Project tasks through SharePoint lists. Project plans can beeasily updated by team members and quickly communicated to executive stakeholders.

Highlighted features of Project Professional synchronization to SharePoint Online as part of Office 365 include:

Publishing your Microsoft Project Professional 2010 project plans to SharePoint task lists in Office 365 allows team members to view and update task status. This allows project managers to then automatically synchronize updates directly into the Project Professional project plan. Project managers also have the choice to extend the number of additional fields to synchronize between SharePoint and Project.
The synchronization feature will help resolve any conflicts in task information that are identified during workspace synchronization.
SharePoint task lists in Office 365 can be converted to Project Professional 2010 project plans.

For a demo of the Project Professional 2010 collaborative capability see Microsoft Project Professional 2010 SharePoint Synchronization

For more details on Microsoft Project Professional 2010 see Microsoft Project Professional 2010

Download a free trial of Microsoft Project Professional 2010 at Download Center Microsoft Project Professional 2010

A Great Week at the PMI Global Congress

ArpanS — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 20:46:32 GMT

I just got back from the PMI Global Congress in Washington DC. It was a really great conference for our team where we had an opportunity to connect with a lot of Microsoft Project customers and partners! It’s always great being able to talk to customers, learn about their experiences and show them the new product. Beyond having the standard demo pod stations, we really tried to up the customer experience with a fishbowl where customers could sign up for a hands-on experience and a theater area where customers & partners talked about their experience with Project 2010. The traffic at our booth was absolutely fantastic, and my team was delighted that we could connect with so many people.

Here are some of my highlights from this past week:

- Innovative-e hosted a fantastic customer event the on October 8th, Executive Insights, where they invited me to speak. Here’s a copy of the deck I presented. In a separate blog post, I’ll share my thoughts on Work Management and Project 2010 specifically.

- I had the honor to meet President Bill Clinton and introduce him on stage as a sponsor of the conference. President Clinton started his speech by thanking Microsoft for all the work they’ve done to support charities and different global causes. That was a nice unsolicited vote of confidence for Microsoft!

- The Dynamics team announced the forthcoming availability of Microsoft Dynamics SL 2011 and its integration with Project Server. SharkPro, a Project partner, launched SharkPro Projects – a “ready to go” project & portfolio management solution powered by Project Server 2010.

- I had an opportunity to have several 1:1 customer, partner & analyst meetings. In fact, one of the meetings was an onsite video interview with MPUG. I’ll share the link when it’s available.

- On the personal side, I got to enjoy an evening in DC with my friend Vishwas Lele who is a Microsoft Regional Director and CTO of Applied Information Sciences (AIS).

- The Microsoft Project booth was constantly busy! The picture below does a nice job highlighting the traffic & passion we witnessed. Other booths, unfortunately, didn’t have the same experience. ;-)

Microsoft Project at PMI Global Congress

ArpanS — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 02:45:28 GMT

I, along with a few folks from my team, will be at the PMI Global Congress in DC where we’ll have an opportunity to connect with customers, partners and the larger Project Management community! We’re one of the key sponsors for the event and we’re excited to be there! Definitely stop by our booth to learn about the latest release of Microsoft Project 2010.

I’m actually heading out a little early to speak at the Executive Insights event. There’s a solid agenda of real stories of customers and partners who are deploying work management solutions.