As you may already know, Tech·Ed Europe 2009 is the premier Microsoft gathering of IT professionals and developers in Europe. It's an amazing opportunity for you to learn, share, and network.
Tech·Ed Europe 2009 will be focused into a single week for both the developer and IT professional communities. The change in format back to a combined event is based on feedback from both our developer and IT professional audiences who in this time of economic uncertainty prefer a single week activity.
And here's the best part: as a technology insider we can help you save money on registration.
The earlier you sign up...the more you save!!
With more than 600 learning opportunities, Tech·Ed Europe 2009 provides the environment for IT professionals to maximise their business potential and get the edge as a strategic driver of change.
Be a part of something big. Don't miss the chance to gain the knowledge of the latest technologies, network with technical experts from Microsoft, partners and the community, as well as sharing experiences with peers
See the website for more information: www.microsoft.com/europe/teched/
We look forward to welcoming you in Berlin
The UK IT Professional team ukitpro@microsoft.com www.twitter.com/asktechnetuk
WCS05PAL: BDM - Commerce Server 2009 Value Propositions and Positioning
Presented by Steven Bergman
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
8:00-9:00am Pacific Time
PLC Registration Link for Partners
Level: 100
Partner Type: Authorized Education Reseller, Enterprise Software Advisor, Independent Software Vendor, Large Account Reseller, Managed (Field Managed Service Partner), Microsoft Employee, Retail, Regional Solution Partner, System Builder, Systems Integrator, Value Added Reseller, Value Added Provider
Partner Role: Developer, Exec/Owner, Implementer, Marketing, Sales, Support
Even in these challenging economic times, leading enterprises are continuing to make investments in e-commerce. This session will offer insight into positioning Commerce Server to various Business Decision Makers (BDM's), such as those in Sales, Marketing, and Merchandizing. We will highlight key Commerce Server 2009 value propositions that address your customer BDM’s e-commerce objectives in today’s economic climate
WCS06PAL: "Example From Zero" - Working With the Commerce Server 2009 Template Pack (Contemporary Site)
Presented by Scott Cairney, Lynnette McLaughlin and Arlene Hall
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Level: 300
Partner Type: Authorized Education Reseller, Enterprise Software Advisor, Independent Software Vendor, Large Account Reseller, Managed (Field Managed Service Partner), Microsoft Employee, System Builder, Systems Integrator, Value Added Reseller
Partner Role: Developer, Implementer, Sales, Support
Commerce Server 2009 helps set a new benchmark for simplicity—it comes with a new, production-ready, out-of-the-box, contemporary Web site that allows businesses to get their stores live and merchandise moving more quickly. Learn how you can use Commerce Server’s next-generation e-commerce solution to deploy and configure an e-commerce website. You will learn how to:
- Deploy the Contemporary site using SharePoint Commerce Services
- Customize the Contemporary Site
- Use the Inline Product Property Editor (IPPE)
- BizTalk integration with Excel
FOR44PAL: Update on Forefront Security for Exchange Server, SharePoint and Antigen 9 Service Pack Releases
Presented by Mike Chan
Monday, June 29, 2009
Level: 200
Partner Type: Authorized Education Reseller, CPLS, Direct Market Reseller, Distributor, Enterprise Software Advisor, Independent Software Vendor, Large Account Reseller, Managed (Field Managed Service Partner), Microsoft Employee, Original Equipment Manufacturer, Regional Solution Partner, System Builder, Systems Integrator, Value Added Reseller, Value Added Provider
Join us in learning about the upcoming service pack releases with Forefront Security for Exchange Server, SharePoint and Antigen 9. Included with deploying the service packs are important changes to the products that will be officially communicated to customers on July 1, 2009. This session will educate you on what you need to know prior to customers communications being released so that you will be able to adequately address any issues or concerns your customers may have.
WVC42PAL: Trigger Start Services
Presented by Vikram Singh
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
9:00-10:00am Pacific Time
Partner Type: Direct Market Reseller, Large Account Reseller, Original Equipment Manufacturer, Retail, Regional Solution Partner, System Builder, Systems Integrator, Value Added Reseller, Value Added Provider
Partner Role: Exec/Owner, Implementer, Marketing, Sales, Support
A number of services were changed to only start when required, or triggered to do so by an event (such as a device being plugged in). This capability is called Trigger Start Services. This session covers the infrastructure and investments made to enable the “Trigger Start Services” feature in Windows 7, its advantages, and overview of how Microsoft’s partners can take advantage of it.
Announcements:
Now available for download - Infrastructure Planning & Design (IPD) guide for DPM 2007 SP1
The DPM Team has been working with the Microsoft Solution Accelerators group to develop this IPD, which goes into beta this week. Open Beta for IPD Guide-Now Available for Download and tell us what you think.
This guide leads the reader through the process of planning a Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2007 SP1 infrastructure. Work through the infrastructure design process in a logical, sequential order. This IPD guide enables the reader to quickly identify what types of data will be protected, what the recovery goals are, and the protection strategy to achieve those goals. Other benefits of using this guide include best practice design guidance from the product group and an optimized infrastructure to best meet the business requirements.
Please tell us what you think! Download the beta guide and send us your honest feedback. We appreciate your input and will work to make each guide as helpful and useful as possible.
Get the beta IPD by visiting the Connect Web site at https://connect.microsoft.com/InvitationUse.aspx?ProgramID=1587&InvitationID=TPMB-Q7QK-HF4H&SiteID=14
We've been getting questions about the educational benefits of Windows 7 and why customers should consider upgrading. In conjunction with the OEM team Ray Fleming (thanks Ray) has developed a presentation which partners can use to explain Windows 7 benefits to education customers. There is also a document explaining the different Windows 7 versions and the features/benefits contained within each ...... there's a snapshot below.
The documents are available from my SkyDrive at: http://cid-2fbbe67743d5177d.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Windows%207
Windows 7 Features Comparison
Features
Home Premium
Professional
Ultimate
Enterprise
Retail and OEM Licensing
Volume Licensing
32-Bit and 64-Bit Versions
Yes
Physical Processor Support (Core Processor Support)
2 (Unlimited)
Create and Join a Home Group
Tablet PC Functionality
Multiple Monitor Support
Document Libraries
Fast User Switching
Windows Search
Windows Mobility Center
Windows Aero, Taskbar, & Jump Lists
Live Thumbnail Previews
Multi-Touch
Premium Games Included
Windows Media Center
Create & Play DVDs
Device Stage
Action Center
Encrypting File System
No
Location Aware Printing
Remote Desktop Host
Domain Join & Group Policy Controls
Windows XP Mode
AppLockerTM
BitLockerTM & BitLocker to GoTM
BranchCacheTM
DirectAccessTM
Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications (SUA)
Enterprise Search Scopes
Multilingual User Interface Language Packs (MUI)
License Rights for 4 Windows Virtual Machines
Virtual Hard Disk Booting
Volume Activation
License Rights for Network Booting of Windows
Note: Starter and Home Basic were not included in the comparison chart above due to their limited applicability to enterprise users.
Bing is a powerful new search service that will help you make faster, more informed decisions when searching online. Bing saves you time, improves your search success, and reduces the numbers of pages and clicks to complete complex tasks and help you make decisions.
So what are we trying to accomplish with Bing? We wanted to peel away the layers standing between a user and information. We wanted to remove the element of luck so often required to find what you’re looking for the first time around. And we wanted to help users harness that information and take it to the next level: making informed decisions. While all major search engines can return general results, there are three main areas where Bing is better.
BETTER RESULTS: Only about 25% of queries are satisfied on the first click. Bing is designed to reduce searching time and all the back and forth of searching. It gives you better results faster.
ORGANIZED RESULTS: Categorized search results with the Explorer Pane and Quick Tabs help you find relevant information more quickly. This helps reduce information overload by organizing the millions of links and anticipating your search refinements. You can’t go back once you’ve tried it.
ACCOMPLISH KEY TASKS: Bing is designed to help you with the 40% of queries that involve key decisions and tasks, such as shopping, travel, or local intent. Bing has powerful tools such as filters, Opinion Ranking, Price Predictor, and cashback to help you make important decisions.
Content Filtering
We have received feedback from a number of customers and web filtering vendors about content filtering and enforcement concerns with Bing. Microsoft is committed to providing you with industry leading content filtering and enforcement capabilities and has taken action to address these recent concerns. Our goal is for you, and the firewall and parental control partners you rely on, to fully leverage Bing safe search (or to apply your own custom filtering logic) to meet your needs for web content filtering.
Today, one popular method that content filtering software use is to insert a parameter into the outbound query string to over ride any client side setting and enforce content control. This is a method supported by all major search engines including Bing; however our capability was not clearly publicized and was also not consistently implemented by content control software vendors. The result was that some customers concerned about search safety opted to completely block Bing in their environments.
In addition to safe search enforcement, customers and partners also need a variety of means to filter or block objectionable images and video. Microsoft worked on improving our capabilities in this area based on customer and partner feedback and today, Bing content filtering and enforcement capabilities match or exceed industry best practice. However, success with search safety also involves content filtering partner solutions and we are conducting outreach to these content control vendors, while continuing to improve our capabilities based on feedback.
So how does content filtering and enforcement work with Bing? Here’s a summary of what we are doing to provide a safe search experience with Bing:
Bing Safe Search Setting and Enforcement
Explicit Image and Video Domain and URL Based Content Blocking
With these capabilities, customers and web filtering vendors have all the tools needed to provide and enforce a safe search experience. Thank you to everyone who shared feedback with us on this matter which helped us to quickly develop a solution and get it into production.
To learn more and take a tour, please visit http://www.discoverbing.com OR give it a spin for yourself at http://www.bing.com and tell us what you think. If your experience is good, make Bing your default search by following the instructions here. Bing and Decide!
IDA17PAL: Microsoft Forefront Identity and Security Solutions: Sales Training for Partners
Presented by Joel Sloss
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
8:30-9:30am Pacific Time
Partner Type: CPLS, Direct Market Reseller, Enterprise Software Advisor, Microsoft Employee, System Builder, Value Added Provider
Partner Role: Architect, Exec/Owner, Implementer, Sales
This session will help set the stage for your success in reselling, recommending, implementing, and servicing Microsoft Forefront identity and security solutions, as well as help you understand the opportunities and benefits of attaching Forefront technologies to Microsoft platform infrastructure:
Training session goals:
SQL76PAL: Emerge Stronger with Business Intelligence & SQL Server 2008
Presented by Bryan Von Axelson
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Partner Type: Value Added Reseller; Systems Integrator
Partner Role: Sales
Please join us as we present the partner opportunities on SQL and BI, specifically tailored for the current economic climate. You’ll learn how to Emerge Stronger from the economic downturn by focusing on SQL 2008 upgrades and by helping your customers reduce costs and take advantage of existing systems and data. You’ll learn about how to grow your services business with comprehensive IT offerings and the tangible benefits on BI today. Finally, we’ll close by reviewing all of the available sales and technical resources we’re offering to help you enact these strategies right away.
VEN19PAL: Sell More System Center Virtual Machine Manager and BEAT VMWare with Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V
Presented by Jim Schwartz, Gordon Mangione and Tyler Carter
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Partner Type: Authorized Education Reseller, CPLS, Direct Market Reseller, Enterprise Software Advisor, Independent Software Vendor, Large Account Reseller, Microsoft Employee, Regional Solution Partner, System Builder, Systems Integrator, Value Added Reseller, Value Added Provider
Partner Role: Exec/Owner, Marketing, Sales
This session features a joint presentation by Citrix and Microsoft representatives, explaining in detail how to identify and close sales opportunities that combine Citrix Essentials for Microsoft Hyper-V together with the Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V offering.
Attendees of this session will leave with:
• A clear understanding of the primary use cases for implementing Citrix and Microsoft virtualization offerings together
• An understanding of the key components of a typical deal and how to use Essentials for Hyper-V to expand the overall deal size
• Knowledge of how Essentials for Hyper-V integrates with System Center VMM and other Microsoft management tools
+ Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V Channel Promotions
Presented by Vikram Singh and Chittur Subbaraman
WVC60AL: Demoing Windows 7 in the Enterprise
Presented by Jason Leznek
WVC60AL: Tuesday, June 16, 2009 from 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time
Click here to calculate your local time
PLC Registration Link for Partners - WVC60AL
Partner Type: Authorized Education Reseller, CPLS, Direct Market Reseller, Distributor, Enterprise Software Advisor, Independent Software Vendor, Large Account Reseller, Managed (Field Managed Service Partner), Microsoft Employee, Original Equipment Manufacturer, Retail, Regional Solution Partner, System Builder, Systems Integrator, Value Added Reseller, Value Added Provider
Partner Role: Exec/Owner, Marketing, Sales, Support
This webcast will be offered live at two separate times to accommodate various time zones and busy schedules. The presenters will cover the same topics at each session; please attend the one that best fits your schedule.
Windows 7 was designed to help enterprise customers enable their users to be productive anywhere, manage risks through enhanced security and control, and reduce costs by streamlining PC management. There are many demos designed to show your customers the features and technologies that enable this, and you can show them using the Windows Demo Toolkit (WDT). This session will walk through the demos and answer questions on how to best present them.
This is a live event designed especially for Microsoft Partners. The event will be delivered online using Microsoft Live Meeting 2007 and the audio broadcast over the Internet. It is open to all Certified and Gold Certified partners free of charge.
This is the agenda:
Topic: How DPM Helps Customers Protect Their Data Better
Date and Time:16 June 2009 3.30 PM – 5.00 PM GMT
Agenda:
Audience: Technical Presales/Sales, Marketing, Service, Management
How to register:
To join these events, please fill in the details below and reply to us at tsare@microsoft.com. Please include “DPM 2007 Readiness Events: June 2009 – Partner ID: «PartnerID»” in the subject line. We will respond to your email at the earliest.
Please include the following details
Partner ID: «PartnerID»
Program Level: «TierLevel»
Attendee Name(s): (You can have multiple people attend the session. Please provide us with the names/email addresses as it is required for registration purposes).
E-mail Address:
Phone Number:
Decrease Your Customer's Power Consumption with Windows 7
Discover how the Windows 7 operating system can help your customer decrease power consumption across the enterprise. Download this white paper to learn about the power management enhancements in Windows 7, including improvements that reduce power consumption, enhance user experiences, and enable greater enterprise power management. Plus, see how diagnostic tools give IT professionals and others the ability to better manage and troubleshoot power management issues and extend the battery life for PCs.
What have people been saying about Windows 7 RC?
Jeremy Kaplan of PC Magazine wrote:
“Bottom line is that Windows 7 Release Candidate is more polished than the beta; seems to be better optimized for operating speed, responsiveness and improves user experience.”
Windows have taken the solution to speed, responsiveness and user experience to a whole new level. This has been one of the main focus’s during the redevelopment of Windows and it will now start up, shut down, resume from standby, and respond quicker. You’ll have fewer interruptions and can recover more quickly from problems when they do occur because Windows 7 will help you fix them when you want. You’ll see fewer notifications and icons popping up because Action Center consolidates alerts from 10 Windows features, including Security Center and Windows Defender. To learn more about this and other new features of Windows 7, please visit http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows7/Whats-Coming-Windows-7.
Matt Buchanan from Gizmodo digs the new Windows 7 RC backgrounds:
“Yes, these are just a handful of the ridiculously awesome backgrounds packed inside Windows 7.”
We couldn’t agree more! But if that weren’t enough, you can go online and download some more “ridiculously awesome backgrounds” by visiting http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/Windows7/Personalize
Last week I wrote a pile of blog posts on Windows 7 for the schools blog – and you may find some of them useful for starting to get to grips with the way that Windows 7 will impact education users.
Traditionally, in the UK, the data shows that the education market has often been one of the first to adopt new operating systems (yes, that was counter-intuitive to me too, until I saw the research data), and I have come across many network managers who have installed Windows 7 Beta/RC onto a spare laptop (and in some cases, onto their main laptop).
The blog posts are:
In a review meeting with a partner during the week we also had a discussion about Windows 7 and netbooks. It was driven by the debate about whether the Windows 7 Starter edition limit of running only 3 simultaneous applications was enough for educational use. This was specifically in the context of netbook computers (the only ones likely to be supplied with the Starter edition), and even more specifically within the Home Access Programme – where it is likely that there will be extreme cost pressures on the providers.
Well, if only I’d known then what was announced on Friday on the Windows blog. The Windows team have said that Windows 7 Starter edition will be available globally on netbooks (not just in developing markets) and they have removed the 3 application limit.
I reckon the impact of this is that early next year, when the Home Access Programme moves to mainstream roll-out from it’s pilot, all of these home computers will be running Windows 7. That’s much better than today, where the family is sometimes walking out of the store with a netbook running Windows XP.
Thinking as a consumer, I would still be likely to want to buy an upgrade from Starter to Windows 7 Home Premium, even if it’s only to be able to change my desktop background (see the spec details for Windows 7 Starter)