There are some great resources to help partners answer those tricky licensing questions.
UK Licensing and SAM Blog - http://ladylicensing.spaces.live.com/
It’s a brilliant informal forum full of practical tips and know-how, where customers can get direct contact from the UK licensing team. Customers can give us their feedback on licensing and there’s an “Ask Emma” option if they have specific queries. It’s mainly aimed at IT pros and other tech-savvy customers, not business decision makers.
Fundamentals of Microsoft Licensing
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/business/licensing/webcasts.mspx
Education Licensing
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/education/buy/licensing/licences.mspx
https://partner.microsoft.com/UK/40011622?PS=3
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/education/buy/where/reseller-search.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/education/buy/who.mspx
Product Use Rights and Product list
http://www.microsoftvolumelicensing.com/userights/Default.aspx
Academic licensing online training courses:
https://training.partner.microsoft.com/plc/search_adv.aspx?ssid=59C96284DCFC46859510E09BE38B3283
Partner Resource Web Site
https://www.explore.ms/publichome.aspx - main web site for enquiries involving:
Partner Licensing Portal
https://partner.microsoft.com/UK/licensing
Ask Partner - askpartner@microsoft-contact.co.uk
Email alias is for all partners to submit any licensing query or issue and receive a response within 24 hours. Alternatively, call ASKPARTNER Hotline: 0870 60 70 700
MVLS - Microsoft Volume License Services =- https://licensing.microsoft.com/eLicense/L1033/Default.asp
This is a secure, confidential website where an end customer can view information such as agreement details. Orders, download VL products, keys, activate SA benefits, etc
Telephone: 0800 9179016 Email: mvlshelpe@msdirectservices.com
Product Activation Centre - 0800 018 8354
Common licensing queries are updated every month on these pages:
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/licensing/lessthan250/faq.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/licensing/morethan250/faq.mspx
The Academic Licensing Programme Guide with details of School, Campus and Select Agreements, can be found at:
http://cid-2fbbe67743d5177d.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Licensing?uc=3
Today the world’s most popular browser just got a whole lot better.
We launched in English, German, Simplified Chinese and Japanese, and then follow with another 21 languages in mid-September. You can download IE8 Beta 2 now at http://ww.microsoft.com/ie8.
The bottom line is that IE8 is faster, easier and safer. To get a feel for the new IE8 experience, check out the videos here, download the product, and try it out. Here are 5 key features:
· Accelerators - Highlight an address, click the blue button and hover over “Map” or try Right Clicking a Page and Choosing Translate with Windows Live. Check out the new IE Gallery that has cool accelerators and slices from Digg to FaceBook to Ebay
· Web Slices - Visit Live Search, search for “Seattle Weather” (or major city relevant to your region), hover over the rich search result and click the green button. Click it to add a Weather Web Slice to your Favorites Bar.
· Search Suggestions - Go to your Instant Search Box (top right) and type a search to see search suggestions in action.
· Navigation - Use the new Smart Address Bar to quickly find sites you’ve visited before. The Smart Address Bar searches your history, favorites AND feeds for pages that match what you’re typing.
· Security: IE8 has the best security features in the market today from its updated Smartscreen phishing and malware filter to domain highlighting to the industry leading cross-site scripting filter so I feel my machines, my identity and my family will be safer on the Internet.
SLK activity on Codeplex has been quiet recently, but Jay Beavers is back on the case after paternity leave. As a result there is a lot of new information in the discussion threads that are worth checking out. For example, Richard Willis from SalamanderSoft has uploaded a SQL Upgrade script that allows SLK database versions 1.0 & 1.3.0 to be upgraded in place to SLK 1.3.1.
This is great news for the SLK community, it’s the third most user requested feature (behind drop box and firefox) with 21 votes.
To comment on this further, please see: http://www.codeplex.com/SLK/Thread/View.aspx?ThreadId=32451
First there was the snapshot, and then came video. Now there is Microsoft Photosynth, a new service from Microsoft Live Labs that goes far beyond how you now view, experience and share photos.
You can share or relive a holiday destination or explore a distant museum or landmark; with a digital camera and your own creativity and inspiration, you can use Photosynth to transform regular digital photos into a three-dimensional, 360-degree experience. Anybody who sees your “synth” is put right in your shoes, sharing in the same sense of exhilaration and wonder that you did at the time, with detail, clarity and scope impossible to achieve in conventional photos or videos.What could students and educators do with this technology?
How does Photosynth work? Photosynth is a potent mixture of two independent technology breakthroughs: the ability to reconstruct a scene or object from a bunch of flat photographs, and the technology to bring that experience to virtually anyone over the Internet.
Using techniques from the field of computer vision, Photosynth examines images for similarities to each other and uses that information to estimate the shape of the subject and the vantage point the photos were taken from. With this information, we recreate the space and use it as a canvas to display and navigate through the photos.
Now, providing that experience requires viewing a LOT of data—much more than you generally get at any one time by surfing someone’s photo album on the web. That’s where our Seadragon™ technology comes in: delivering just the pixels you need, exactly when you need them. It allows you to browse through dozens of 5, 10, or 100(!) megapixel photos effortlessly, without fiddling with a bunch of thumbnails and waiting around for everything to load.
To create a synth sign in to http://photosynth.com with your Windows Live ID and make a profile. Then download the small synther application and viewer. Now you can start building synths!
A video of how to make a synth is available here: http://photosynth.net/about.aspx
The guide to Photosynth is here: http://photosynth.net/documentation/Photosynth%20Guide%20v6b_CC.pdf
The Photosynth blog is here: http://blogs.msdn.com/photosynth/
The KickStart courses have been so popular with partners, we’ve scheduled even more dates to meet the demand.
“I could have done with this course 12-18 months ago when we first became a gold partner!” Alliance Systems, MBS Gold Partner.
“A very informative and worthwhile training event...I found it extremely useful, making over 5 pages of notes” MidlandHR, Certified Partner
The half-day course covers the following:
Visit www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/kickstart for further details and to register
Intended Audience:
Key partner dedicated administrators/partner managers within the business. Any other personnel who would like to be trained up on the tools and resources we offer on our partner sites. All content will be aimed at Certified and Gold Certified partner levels.
Training Dates for 2008:
25th September
22nd October
27th November
Questions? Contact Dan Langton (danilang@microsoft.com)
Are you starting to wonder what Windows 7 might bring? Maybe you’ve seen some of the recent press articles speculating on the next version of Windows? If so, then Steven Sinofsky’s Blog has the information you need:
http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/
Here’s an extract:
Before diving into the main topic, let’s talk a bit more about what to expect from this blog. First a few words on the comments and emails I’ve received. I’ve received a ton—most of the weekend was spent reading emails and comments. There are definitely some themes. I would say by and large the reception has been very warm and we definitely appreciate that. The most frequent request was to discuss Windows performance and/or just “make Windows faster”. There’s a lot to this topic so we expect to talk about this quite a bit over the next months. There are many specific requests—often representing all possible sides of an issue such as some folks saying “please get rid of (or don’t do) <x>” and then other folks saying “whatever you do it is really important to keep (or do) <x>”. A big part of this blog for me personally is having the discussion about the multiple facets of any given issue. Even something that sounds as binary as performance proves to have many subtle elements. For example, some folks suggested that the best thing for boot performance is to not start anything until idle time and others suggested that the delay loading feels like it slows them down and still others have suggested that the best approach is to provide a startup manager that pushes everyone to choose what to start up. All of these have merit worth discussing and also demonstrate the subtlety and complexity of even the most straight forward request.
There are changes to the Microsoft Partner Programme designed to simplify training and certification. There are now 4 categories:
For full details check out the attached presentation or log onto the partner portal.
There are five Microsoft Digital Literacy courses, available in two versions. The Original Version provides examples from Windows XP and Microsoft Office 2003. Version 2 provides examples from Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007. Both versions have five courses:
Each of the Microsoft Digital Literacy course packages is now available as a snap-in for Web installations. Not-for-profit learning centers and educational institutions participating in approved Microsoft programs and initiatives may download and install these packages for distribution on their secure intranet servers. There are two formats for the packages: SCORM and Non-SCORM.
SCORM The SCORM packages are designed and tested for use with the Microsoft SharePoint Learning Kit. In this environment, the SCORM packages are used as Learning Objects that can be assigned, submitted, marked, and assessed. The SCORM packages are available in the e-learning format or as Microsoft Office Word files.
Find out about the SharePoint Learning Kit
Non-SCORM The non-SCORM packages are designed for use with any type of intranet Web server. You can link to the packages in several ways:
See http://www.microsoft.com/about/corporatecitizenship/citizenship/giving/programs/up/digitalliteracy/webparts.mspx
SharePoint Server 2007 Training, built on the Microsoft SharePoint Learning Kit, is designed for server administrators to install on an Office SharePoint Server site to help end-users learn about Office SharePoint Server
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=673DC932-626A-4E59-9DCA-16D685600A51&displaylang=en
The Training topics lead the learner step-by-step through beginning to advanced features, including Collaboration, Business Processes and Forms, Portals and Personalization, Search, Business Intelligence and Enterprise Content Management.
The Training includes videos, interactive tutorials, and articles. In addition, the material is SCORM compliant. You can easily add or remove training topics to fit your business needs. The Training also includes a reporting function that allows an administrator/trainer to track learners’ completed training topics. You can customize the Training to fit the look and feel of your own Office SharePoint Server site.
If you want to view the training without installing it on an Office SharePoint Server site, please click here for the Standalone Edition.
Event Overview
A one day workshop for sales and marketing teams within Microsoft Education Partners.
23 September 2008
09:30 - 16:30
Location: Thames Valley Park, Building 3
Registration from: 09:00
We recommend that both a sales and marketing contact attends the event.
The briefing will cover Microsoft’s education campaigns for the 2008-09 Academic year, and provide sales and marketing resources for partners’ sales teams. The agenda will cover:
Registration Options
Event ID: 1032386285
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/InviteOnly.aspx?EventID=46-51-45-2C-45-7A-04-3F-68-DC-86-A1-22-19-17-48&Culture=en-GB
Register by Phone: 0870 166 6680 Ref: 6285