News & Views for Australian SBSCs : PAL

Guest post # 4 from Hilton - Aussie SBSC PAL

rupcroft — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 08:37:48 GMT

Well, with the announcement at CES 2009 that Windows 7 is available now for TechNet and MSDN subscribers (and those of us on the Windows 7 Beta program) and will soon be available for all other people via download from the Microsoft website (well, the first 2.5 million people who try and download it), as well as the announcement of Windows Live Essentials which contains Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Mail and Windows Live Photo Gallery (which were all standard features previously available in Windows XP and also Windows Vista, but no longer in Windows 7), it seems that Microsoft is on target for a "later this year" release of Windows 7 to replace its poorly received Windows Vista operating system that escaped captivity in late 2006.

Did I say Windows 7 or Windows Vista R2? :)

I can say that this far, I've been impressed with Windows 7 – it feels significantly faster than Vista SP1 on the same hardware (sure, that's not really all that hard), the interface is much improved over Vista's rather good interface, UAC prompts have been toned down a little (which was never really an issue for "regular" computer users anyway), and the new Superbar that replaces the old Taskbar is a major improvement. The new "Jump Lists" also work rather well.

Apple's desktop market share has climbed steadily since November 2006 from around 5% (from memory) to where it is now – a record for Apple at a smidge under 10%. Let's all hope that, for Microsoft's sake (and ours as Microsoft's partners), Windows 7 can bring people back to the Microsoft platform.

Google Android has been ported to Netbooks by a couple of guys at VentureBeat. They used the Android Open Source code and a bit of nouse and came up with a working result. Google and the Open Handset Alliance will need to work together to come up with future devices, but this could be very interesting for those of us who use, sell and support mobile solutions.

Microsoft has some work ahead of them!

http://hiltont.blogspot.com/

Regards,

Hilton

Guest post #3 from Hilton - Aussie SBSC PAL

rupcroft — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:15:22 GMT

Guest post from the Aussie SBSC PAL - Hilton Travis.

See post 1 here and 2 here.

Enjoy.

Well, it is now official – WESS has been launched with both SBS 2008 and WEBS 2008 having their official launch day, complete with 9 hours of US-based webcasts and an online virtual tradeshow on the 12^th November. There was a Robbie and The Wayne show held for Australian audiences on Wednesday 12^th November as well. MAPS shipments have been received by most Registered Members across Australian and the SBSC Kits that ship to all SBSCs are well on their way. So, we’ve all had time to look at the RC code (thanks to a good effort by Robbie and the MS Australia “Breadth” team) and now have the final code in our sweaty hands. And those of us who attended the Tech Ed WESS Pre-Day session should be in the process of receiving our retail copies of SBS 2008 Premium Edition. Yes, Robbie promised us a Standard Edition and delivered a Premium Edition in its place – an unexpected bonus and worthy of a thanks email to Robbie, I’d say.

There’s been some movement over in Perth – the Perth SMB IT Pro Group has been formed and is getting off the ground with Jason Jordan from PCGuru and Matt Lansdown from Accord as the initial group leaders with the assistance of Erle Metcalfe and Adam Garnault. To join the Perth mailing list and show support for this group, please go here. In addition to the news about the Perth group, there’s a “Robbie and The Wayne” show that’s touring user groups around the country in November – have a read of The Wayne’s post for more information.

There are still a few places available in the SBS 2008 and EBS 2008 Hands On Labs that are in various Excom training centers around the country. If you’re hoping to bring yourself more up to date with these new products, $399ex tax for 2 days of training on these new products shouldn’t go astray. Have a read of Robbie’s blog for more information on these HOLs.

Now, to summarise a few of the threads that have been much discussed in both Australian and International lists of late, SBS 2008 CALs are available as single CALs, as well as in 5- and 20-pack SKUs. If you remember, SBS 2003 CALs were only available in 5- and 20-pack SKUs, and this single CAL SKU is one of the things Microsoft has introduced to help offset the significantly increased price of SBS 2008. I’ve blogged some more information about SBS 2008 CALs here. Also, as was widely announced, the SBS 2003 Open Business and Open Value Licensing products were removed from sale once SBS 2008 OB/OV Licensing went live. As some SBSCs may not be aware, SBS 2003 R2 OEM and OEM CALs (and Full Packaged Product) is still available for sale and Software Assurance is still available for these products – this SA was originally going to be stopped as at 31 October, 2008, but as per Eric Ligman’s blog, this has been extended until 31 December, 2008. I blogged about these SBS 2003 SA SKUs here.

As a final point for this month, has anyone seen Microsoft SharedView? Me neither – I just stumbled across this today! It could be a useful tool, but it could also become a bit of a security risk. I’m yet to have a look further into this tool, however as it may be of use to others, I’ll make mention of it here. J

Hilton

Guest post #2 from Hilton - Aussie SBSC PAL

rupcroft — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 03:57:59 GMT

See guest post #1 here.

Thanks,

Robbie

As the Australian SBS User Groups are changing focus, direction and names into the SMB IT Professionals groups, we need to ensure that we're not only changing our names, but living up to them. Microsoft has really expanded our market upwards by introducing EBS. The Enterprise players will generally look at this, see Wizards and dismiss it as a toy. We're in the ideal position to not only know this simply isn't right, but to be able take advantage of this new product and move into this mid-market space if we so choose. Some of our existing SBS clients will be ideal for EBS, some new clients will be ideal for EBS, some will be ideal for SBS and some will not fit either product - either too big (and then onto Windows Server 2008) - or too small (under 10 seats, so maybe Windows Home Server in a workgroup).

MAPS users are going to be receiving both SBS 2008 and EBS 2008 as a part of the Quarterly Update Kit that starts shipping on 24 October,2008 and in addition to this, SBS 2008 is already available on both MSDN and TechNet and EBS 2008 will be available there shortly. Having these products ship in MAPS (for Registered Member SBSCs) is an excellent way for smaller SBSCs to have a look at EBS and see if it is something they are interested in. If not, well, that's fine - at least as a member of one of the SMB IT Pro groups you will know who else in your region you may be able to work with if EBS seems a good fit for a client. That's what these groups are all about - sharing, learning and supporting the SMB IT Pro community. As SBSCs, we're a big part of that community.

As members of this larger SMB IT Pro community, the Australian groups are looking at being able to present a unified face to both vendors and our SMB clients - this means that if we play our cards right, we'll have more influence with vendors who understand the SMB marketplace which will bring benefits to both us as IT professionals and to our clients. To do this, we all have to ensure that we not only let the vendors know if and where they can better target their resources for our market segment, but we also need to ensure that when a vendor is doing something right, we let them know about it!

So, to kick things off here - and after all, this SBSC PAL thing isn't here *just* so I can pick on Microsoft, it is so that I can channel SBSC feedback to Microsoft and Microsoft feedback back to the SBSCs - what things are Microsoft doing right in the SBSC program and with the SMB marketplace in general? Please send comments directly to me at Hilton.Travis@SBSCPAL.com and while you're at it, please join up to the ANZ-SBSC Yahoo! Group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ANZ-SBSC/) for SBSC-related discussions, questions and assistance.

http://blog.hiltontravis.com/

Regards,

Hilton Travis

Phone: +61 (0)7 3105 9101

Phone: +61 (0)419 792 394

Manager, Quark IT http://www.quarkit.com.au

Quark Group http://www.quarkgroup.com.au

Microsoft SBSC PAL (Australia) http://www.sbscpal.com/

Guest post from Hilton Travis - Australian SBSC PAL

rupcroft — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 11:00:57 GMT

Welcome to the first of our guest blogs from Hilton Travis, the Australian Small Business Specialist Partner Area lead.

Enjoy. :-)

Robbie

With the release of SBS 2008 and EBS 2008 just around the corner, now is the time to start looking at what these two new products have to offer if you’ve not had the chance to look already. SBS 2008 has already been released to manufacturing with the worldwide launch being slated for November 12, 2008 and EBS went RTM today – both products are available for download/CD shipment as Release Candidates and if you ask Robbie Upcroft nicely, maybe he still has a few copies left he can send out.

There have been a number of members of the local User Groups that have been looking into various aspects of these new products and who are more than willing to share their experiences with their respective User Groups. As we get nearer the launch date and for quite some time after, your local User Groups will be presenting material on SBS and EBS and along with the collective areas of experience that these User Group members have, this will ensure that we all get a good chance to look at and learn quickly about these new products. At this point in time, there is an unfortunate lack of real technical information released by Microsoft about these two new products, however with the upcoming SBS and EBS training that the Australian MVPs will be going to the USA to receive, along with the experience of the user group members, there’s no doubt that we’ll be able to bring ourselves quickly up to speed.

I therefore encourage all Australian SBSCs to join their local User Group (see http://www.sbsgroups.com.au/default.aspx for a complete list) so they can participate in the Community (the “C” part of the SBSC designation) and give their own input as well as receive help and support from other User Group members. The Perth User Group is just starting off and has had one meeting already – they don’t have a web presence as yet, but as the group grows this will follow, so feel free to contact Robbie (rupcroft@microsoft.com) or myself (Hilton@sbscpal.com) about the Perth User Group. As well as your local User Group, there are two Yahoo! Groups for all Australian and New Zealand SMB IT specialists – the ANZ-SMB-ITS list is for anyone working as an SMB IT specialist to discuss general SMB IT issues that are not specific to a local area, and the ANZ-SBSC group which is specifically for SBSC-related discussions.

Thanks,

Hilton