May, 2010

The line up of speakers for the Microsoft Scotland 2010 Higher Education Briefing on 9th June includes some great speakers.

Of course, Steven Grier, our Scottish Education Business Manager will be compere for the day, and he’ll be joined by:

• The University of Aberdeen, who have confirmed that they will talk about Office Communication Server in the Higher Education Environment. They will share how and why they chose the product, how they have deployed it, innovative ways that they are using it and why they decided that Unified Communications was the right solution for them.
  
  
• Chris Rothwell, who is one of the key people in our UK Information Worker group , is going to be talking about and showing Office 2010 and Live@edu.
  
  
• Richard Lane, who is our technology specialist in the education team, will be talking through SharePoint 2010, and also providing an overview of System Centre
  
  
• And finally, I’ll be there to talk about where we’ll be in ten years’ time – and what the future world of work and learning might look like.

So if you’re from a university (or college) in Scotland, and you’ve got an interest in IT strategy, then spending a day with us on 9th June will hopefully be a good investment of your time.

Find out more about the Scotland 2010 Higher Education Briefing

Bookings are now open for our Scotland Higher Education Briefing day, on 9th June in Edinburgh.

Microsoft will be holding our Scottish 2010 Higher Education Briefing on 9^th June 2010 at our Edinburgh offices . The agenda for the event runs from 10:00 to 4:45 with breaks to catch up with colleagues from other universities.

As well as getting the latest news on Microsoft’s product roadmap, there will be the opportunity to hear from one of our Scottish universities and to hear how they are responding to the economic pressures that all universities are feeling. Of course, this current academic year is full of launches of new Microsoft products, and we’ll be able to use the day to bring all of this into context – explaining the value and relative importance of some of the key new product launches.

9:30 - Registration and coffee
10:00 - Welcome and introduction
10:00 – Looking ahead a decade: The future vision of work
10:40 – Office 2010
11:05 – Break
11:20 – SharePoint 2010
12:05 – Lunch
12:50 – Live @ edu
13:30 – Working with Open Source
13:45 – Customer Case Study
14:15 - System Center Overview
14:45 - Conclusion
15:00 - Close

Steven Grier, the Microsoft Education Business Manager for Scotland, will lead the day, introducing experts from Microsoft and bringing case studies from our customers.

We’ll be holding the briefing at our offices in Edinburgh, and there will be plenty of Microsoft colleagues available for discussions.

You can book your place by emailing Samantha Mills

My colleagues in the Government team are running a series of Live Meetings (webinars) together with our partners that demonstrate how new technology can deliver genuine cost-savings and improve the efficiency of public service delivery. This week, it’s all about Windows 7 migration, then next week they are covering Windows 7 Application Compatibility, and in two week’s time Identity Management.

Although the content will be designed for a wide range of public sector organisations, not just for education customers, you may be working on a project where the content could come in handy.

Here’s the info on this week’s session, this Friday:

	The first in this series of Live Meetings addresses how to Simplify your migration to Windows 7 with Citrix and Microsoft (Invitation Code: BAC0F1) and takes place on Friday May 14th from 11:00 – 12:00. Taking part in our Live Meeting will provide you with a genuine insight into how to: ·        Deliver virtual applications on demand: With multiple ways of virtualising applications, Citrix will set your applications up for Windows 7 by separating them from the endpoint and the desktop operating system. ·        Re-use the PCs already installed: Repurpose desktop refresh/upgrade budget to build a desktop as a service infrastructure either running on a virtual desktop in the Datacentre or streamed directly to the endpoint PC or thin client. ·        Access Windows 7 desktop from any device, anywhere: Users will be fully productive with all the corporate productivity tools available to them on any endpoint on any network. A simple network connection is all that is required for them to access their corporate desktop. ·        Lock down corporate data in the datacentre: By simply removing corporate data from the Windows 7 endpoint, data security concerns are minimised. Our Live Meetings are delivered by Microsoft experts and business partners with experience in the Public Sector.  You will have the opportunity to interact with the presenter(s) during the Live Meetings and get answers to your questions.

Find out about the public sector Live Meeting series

Over the next week, we are moving the thousands of blogs that run on the blogs.msdn.com site over to a completely new web platform, which will give us lots of new ways of keeping in touch. We’ve had a trial run already, and it seems to be pretty smooth.

However, whilst the change is happening, there are a couple of things you need to know about:

• For the week ahead, we won’t be writing any new blog posts, whilst the thousands of blogs are moved across. It’s a massive job, because we’re moving all of the blog posts, and all of the comments you’ve made in the past, onto the new site.
  
  
• Also in the week ahead, I’m afraid you won’t be able to add any new comments onto the blog – from Sunday 16th May through to Sunday 23rd May. Of course, if you’ve got something important to say to us, you can still use the “email” button on the menu bar. And I’m sure many of you know that you can reach us on Twitter and other places.

We’ve also decided that we’re going to take the opportunity, whilst the builders are in, to revamp the site a little, to make it look a little nicer too. When we come back, on Monday 24th May, you’ll hopefully notice the difference, and I’m sure you’ll be good enough to rush in with your thoughts and comments.

Ben, Kristen, Stuart, Mark and I, who all blog for the UK Education team, are poring over our colour charts. To be honest, everybody’s choice is being influenced by their own life.

• Ben’s food habits leave him quite keen on blueberry white.
• Kristen’s got her eye on Red, White and Blue.
• Stuart, who’s from Wales, seems to think Urban Obsession works
• And Mark A’Bear has chosen a Silver Fox colour.
• Just like at home, I’m never allowed to choose colours.

We’ll just have to see decide on something we get to next weekend

And just think – we’ll have hopefully stored up a few interesting blog posts for you to read in seven days.