From 5:00 – 6:00 PM on Monday, July 13 th at Worldwide Partner Conference, I have the pleasure of hosting the, “SMB002 Help Your Customers Reduce IT Costs and Risks and Strengthen Your Business” session, which will be in rooms 218 & 219. Joining me will be Andy Trish, founder of NCI Technologies out of the UK, SBS MVP, and SBSC PAL, and Arnold Bogaards, Sr. Marketing Manager at Microsoft. During this session, we will be talking about simplifying client’s IT environment, minimizing network disruptions,

On Friday, I posted about an exciting announcement for our Microsoft Small Business Specialists taking place this morning at 9:00 am PST: Microsoft Small Business Specialist 4 Hour Technical Support Expanding to over 50 products! Well, there is exciting news for all of our Partners starting today. Announcing the launch of Partner Online Technical Communities Forums! Online Technical Communities (OTCs) provide unlimited, no-cost online technical support to partners in over 60 countries around the

Some of you may recall back when we announced the SBSC Exclusive 4-hour response time managed newsgroup , where Microsoft Small Business Specialist Partners could now get 4 hour response times to their technical questions through our Online Technical Communities on some of the top SMB products, such as: Windows Vista, Windows XP, SQL Server Reporting Services, Exchange Server, Windows Server, Windows SBS, and the 2007 Microsoft Office system. Well now we’re taking it to the next level! Starting on

The Microsoft Partner Program Small Business Specialist Community (SBSC) has over 15,000 partners worldwide selling Small Business Server, Exchange, Mobility, and other Microsoft solutions. We are pleased to announce a new Mobility Resource Readiness Center for Small Businesses is now live as part of the community’s new Partner Tool Kit. This is part of a larger initiative— Get Mobile Ready @ SBSC — to recruit, train, motivate, and assist this community in selling Microsoft Windows Mobile technologies,

Did you catch the Microsoft Small Business Summit when it aired live back in March? Of not, or if you’d like to view replays of the various sessions run throughout the Small Business Summit, we now have the Small Business Summit replay engine up and running directly on the home page of the Microsoft Small Business Cente r. It looks like this: By simply choosing the session you want to view by clicking on it, you will be able to view that session directly from the comfort of your office on your PC

Yesterday, we launched three new Online Technical Communities in International English, including exclusive communities for ISV and Web Solution Partners, Gold Certified and Certified Partners, and MAPS subscribers. The Online Technical Communities provide free online technical support service to partners and are staffed weekdays by Microsoft support professionals to answer technical questions. These new Online Technical Communities add to a collection of communities already available for Partners

Starting this morning at 9:00 am PST, we will start streaming the Microsoft Small Business Summit here to the Blog and continue running it until 9:00 pm PST on Thursday, March 27 th . It is four days filled with information, resources, tips, etc. for small businesses and business owners everywhere. Hover over player to the right to expand it: Thank you for viewing. The Summit is now complete. Thank you and have a wonderful day, Eric Ligman Microsoft US Senior Manager Small Business Community Engagement

After my, “ Only 23 days left to the Office Partner Subsidy Promotion! ” post yesterday, I started receiving inquiries about whether or not the SBS Partner Subsidy that we announced at the same time as the Office Partner subsidy was ending at the end of January as well. The answer to that question is, “Yes, the SBS Partner Subsidy is ending then as well.” So, if you are looking to take advantage of the SBS Promotion for your clients, and remember that the SBS Partner Subsidy promotion was expanded

Attention Microsoft Partners, it’s the first day of the New Year and it’s time for the first breaking news announcement of 2008… We are thrilled to announce that on March 3 rd , 2008, Microsoft will be launching the Microsoft Open Value Subscription Program in both the U.S. and Canada. This is an exciting new offering for SMB Partners and customers in these countries! Based on feedback and input we have received from customers and Partners alike, this new offering is one that will offer a solution

Some business owners look at IT and technology as a part-time thing that their brother-in-law, the neighbor's kid, or the son of the friend of the butcher who lives down the street who's taken a computer course can look at once in awhile for them. Is that really who you want to bet your business on? If you're answer to who takes care of your computer systems is, " We've Gotta Guy ," you may want to rethink that approach... Thank you and have a wonderful day, Eric Ligman Microsoft US Senior Manager