Reading, UK | December 2nd, 2009
Microsoft Business Integration UK Road Show Event
Executive Summary
Tough economic times bring us back to focus on improving efficiencies, cutting cost and extracting more value from existing systems. These times also present excellent opportunities to streamline information-sharing among partners, customers, employees and suppliers, as well. This event is focused on the topic of how Business Integration can help organizations realize more value from their existing IT investments and integrate and connect their business applications and data and increase business value. The event includes lots of real-world case studies and examples of how customers are using the Microsoft BizTalk platform to integrate their business.
Target Audience
This conference is aimed at CTOs, IT Directors, enterprise architects, solution architects and key technology decision makers.
Agenda
|
Time |
Title |
Speaker |
|
09:00-10:00 |
Breakfast and Registration |
|
10:00-10:15 |
Welcome and Introduction the Microsoft Business Integration Vision
This session will provide a perspective on the current state of the Integration market including current and future trends in this domain. |
Morris Novello – Microsoft BizTalk Server UK Product Manager |
|
10:15-11:00 |
Opening Keynote: The Microsoft Application Platform: Connecting business applications, partners and devices
Hear the Microsoft vision for Business Integration and how Microsoft provides a holistic platform for data integration across applications, events, master-data and other scenarios. Customers are looking to drive costs out of their businesses and do more with less and Microsoft’s data integration technologies provide a comprehensive platform to streamline information-sharing among partners, customers, employees and suppliers, as well as automating sophisticated, high-value transactions, both inside and outside the organization. Hear how integration can do a lot for your organization during these challenging times. |
Sriram Balasubramanian – Group Manager Microsoft BizTalk Engineering |
|
11:00-11:45 |
Payments Processing on the Microsoft Platform
In this session we’ll cover how a mission critical payment processing platform was architected and delivered by Microsoft Services. The Payments Platform had many challenging functional and non-functional requirements including the ability to process both batch and real-time payment schemes on the Microsoft platform using Microsoft BizTalk Server, SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 Integration Services. In the session we’ll drill into some of the technical challenges overcome by the project, discuss the performance results and detail how Microsoft Services delivered the solution within a very compressed timeframe. |
Darren Jefford –Solution Architect, Microsoft Consulting Services |
|
11:45-12:00 |
BREAK |
|
|
12:00-12:45 |
Transforming Local Government with Microsoft BizTalk
Hear how the Transformational Government Accelerator is helping local authorities face the challenges of transforming their IT delivery capability by building a service orientated based enterprise architecture delivered on a BizTalk Server platform. This session will discuss how by tackling head-on the barriers that local government face, cross department business processes can be automated, providing immediate efficiency gains, measurable cost savings whilst significantly contributing to the NI 14 (avoidable contact) initiative.
Skandia: a Case Study
Online banking and insurance provider Skandia was beginning a major program of application development to modernize the bank following service-oriented architecture principals using Microsoft BizTalk, IIS, and WCF as the core foundation. Hear how BizTalk Server and key partner, SOA Software deployed an integrated service registry/repository and lifecycle management as part of the solution. Skandia quickly saw the value in the operational governance capabilities of SOA Software’s solutions for BizTalk, IIS and WCF. |
Andy James – Solidsoft, TGA Chief Architect
Ian Goldsmith – SOA Software, VP Product Management |
|
12:45-13:30 |
LUNCH |
|
13:30-14:15 |
ERP Business Integration
BizTalk is an enabling technology that customers can use to increase the reach of existing ERP and other line-of-business applications. This session looks at how BizTalk 2009 Enterprise Service Bus can be used to connect to major ERP platforms such as SAP, Oracle e-business suite, Siebel etc to create compelling composite applications that blend on-premise and services from cloud platforms such as Windows Azure. |
Jeff Johnson, Harsha Karunaratne – Microsoft Integration Specialists |
|
14:15-15:00 |
Enterprise Services for the Energy Industry
Centrica Energy sources energy for Centrica Plc (British Gas in the UK) by Exploration and Production, Power Generation as well as through its Trading and Optimisation activities. Centrica Energy needed a fundamental shift in the way that information is captured and used across the organisation and Avanade was brought in as a key partner and integration specialist to help enable this.
This session covers:
- Business case scenario – key integration objectives
- How BizTalk was successfully used to automate interfaces to provide a seamless flow of information between disparate systems within Energy Trading
- The operational challenges of handling 100+ interfaces between Centrica Energy systems and external sources
- Migration of Centrica Energy’s BizTalk Server 2006 platform to BizTalk Server 2009 and SQL Server 2008 and SOA roadmap
|
Ian Bretherton, Avanade Solution Architect and Integration Practice Lead
Balaji Anbil – Centrica Plc, Enterprise Architect |
|
15:00-15:15 |
BREAK |
|
15:15-16:00 |
Closing Keynote |
Sriram Balasubramanian – Group Manager Microsoft BizTalk Engineering |
|
16:00-16:30 |
Q&A, Prize Draw (X-Box) and Drinks |
|
To Register
Click here to register online (Windows Live ID is required) OR call 0870 166 6680 event ref: 0518. Space is limited so register today to ensure your attendance at this event.
Location
Microsoft UK
Thames Valley Park
Reading RG6 1WG, UK
Room: Chicago 1
Directions: click here
Speaker Profiles
|
Speaker |
Biography |
|
Morris Novello – Microsoft BizTalk Server UK Product Manager |
Morris Novello is Product Manager for BizTalk Server at Microsoft. His interests focus on Applications and Systems Integration, Event Driven Architecture and Business Intelligence. Prior to joining Microsoft, Mr. Novello spent few years of tenure at Samsung Semiconductors as Flash Memory Product Manager. Prior to Samsung Semiconductors, Novello spent four years at Intel Corporation, most recently as Product Marketing Engineer for Core 2 Duo processors. He attended the University of Padua in Italy earning a BSc. and MSc. in Electrical Engineering and he was visiting scholar at M.I.T. Sloan School of Management during his MBA degree. |
|
Darren Jefford – Solution Architect, Microsoft Consulting Services |
Darren Jefford is a Solution Architect working for Microsoft UK, Darren delivers Architectural consulting to a variety of organisations in the UK. Since joining Microsoft 8 years ago, Darren has worked across the whole spectrum of Microsoft products with a particular focus in recent years on BizTalk Server, Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and Cloud Computing. |
|
Andy James – Solidsoft, TGA Chief Architect |
Andy combines his role of CTO with that of heading up key projects for Solidsoft. Most recently he has been working with the Cabinet Office in delivering a key piece of the transformational government programme. Besides providing Solidsoft with its technical guidance, Andy is a prominent member of the Microsoft Architect Council and he is a frequent presenter around SOA and BPM in the Microsoft space. Andy has been an active member of the Microsoft Partner Advisory Council for .NET, MD .NET and RFID and is a valued contributor to the Microsoft community. |
|
Ian Goldsmith – SOA Software, VP Product Management |
Ian Goldsmith drives product and market strategy for the leading provider of Unified SOA Governance automation solutions. These award winning products include Repository Manager, Policy Manager, Service Manager and SOLA. Ian focuses his energies on technology adoption in large enterprises, having successfully completed several cryptography and secure messaging projects with US and international defense and intelligence agencies. |
|
Jeff Johnson – Microsoft Integration Specialist |
Jeff Johnson is a technical specialist focused on the area of Business Integration. Jeff helps customers understand and architect solutions based on the Microsoft Application Platform technologies, including BizTalk, SQL, .NET. Windows Azure. Prior to joining Microsoft 4 years ago, Jeff worked for BEA Systems in the Advanced Architecture consulting practice. |
|
Harsha Karunaratne – Microsoft Integration Specialist |
Harsha is a technical specialist focused on the area of Business Integration. Harsha helps customers understand and architect solutions based on the Microsoft Application Platform technologies, including BizTalk, SQL, .NET. Windows Azure. Prior to joining Microsoft 7 years ago, Harsha worked as an architect at SAP. |
|
Ian Bretherton - Avanade Solution Architect and Integration Practice Lead |
Ian Bretherton is a Solution Architect specializing in Microsoft integration technologies. Ian has been in the computing industry for more than 15 years and has spent the last 6 years developing enterprise Integration solutions primarily using BizTalk Server for various FTSE 100 clients and is currently leading Avanade UK’s Integration practice. |
|
Balaji Anbil - Centrica, Enterprise Architect |
Balaji Anbil is an Enterprise Architect at Centrica Energy. He is currently responsible for Centrica Energy’s trading and optimisation IT architecture and specialises on Global Energy Management MBA at Warwick Business School in part-time. Prior to this, Balaji has architected on Trading, HR and Workflow domains for more than 15 years. Part of these roles as an IT Consultant, he has worked in the Asia-Pacific, the US and in the UK for major financial service organisations focusing on Integration architectures and prides his implementations in all the versions of BizTalk platform. |
Posted by Phil
Following on from my post about Saving Money with SharePoint in the Public Sector where I talked about the OEP and how SharePoint might help with cost efficiency, I thought you might be interested in hearing about an event one of our partners, PCubed is running in London on 17th December which looks at how we can improve project delivery capability in the public sector. Clearly even shaving a few percent off the cost of delivering projects running across a significant programme of work, reducing project failures and delivering more of those projects on time will add up to significant savings in a very short space of time for most organisations, so I expect this will be a very interesting session for many of you to attend.
Public Sector organisations are under pressure to improve their performance with regard to project delivery. Government Departments are now being specifically assessed as to their capability in this area; and the PPM Professionalism initiative is attempting to drive up standards across the public sector. These challenges are being addressed, of course, against a backdrop of increasing financial constraint.
The latest in Pcubed’s series of Breakfast Briefings explores three key aspects of the improvement process.
Rory Underwood MBE, ex-England and British Lions Rugby International and now Managing Director of Wingman, will talk about the importance of leadership in effective project delivery.
Marcus Wildsmith will provide insight into how to assess and improve the capability of an individual and the performance of the organisation.
Karl Williams will set out how software tools can add control and visibility, demonstrating the Pcubed DeliveryHub, our PPM solution (Built on SharePoint MOSS and Project Server).
Place: British Film Institute, South Bank, Waterloo SE1 8XT
Time: Tuesday 17th November 2009, 8.30am-10.30am
For more details go to the PCubed site
To book your place at this FREE event, please email rachel.compton@pcubed.com
Posted by Phil
Did you know that Microsoft published a paper on the five ways in which SharePoint can save you money with customer stories and evidence early in 2009? In May, the Treasury published the Operational Efficiency Programme report with recommendations about how to save money around IT and back office. I thought it might be interesting to have a look at both documents and see where public sector SharePoint investments might just dovetail with OEP and help Public sector organisations deliver cost savings with their IT assets, particularly if they already have SharePoint.
Five Ways SharePoint Can Save You Money
Operational Efficiency Programme: back office operations and IT
The five ways sharepoint can save you money are:
· Reduce IT costs and complexity, by consolidating multiple product investments into a single infrastructure, by reducing infrastructure and support costs, and by getting all your enterprise solutions under a single product license.
· Reduce development costs, by using comprehensive out-of-the-box components, by using built-in integration with the Microsoft Office 2007 suite, and by using the .NET Framework object models to reduce learning curves and development time.
· Simplify management and training, by providing a single, easy-to-use interface for end users and for IT administration and governance.
· Improve employee productivity, by implementing collaboration workspaces, self-service Web publishing, social computing features, and business process workflow and forms.
· Enhance the effectiveness of customer service and sales teams, by aggregating critical information from across the enterprise and by providing rapid, easy access to information.
The recommendations of the OEP for IT are:
· Take into account the estimated £3.2 billion annual IT savings when determining departmental settlements
· Strengthen management information and increase use of benchmarking to drive performance
· Strengthen the governance of IT-enabled change projects
· Strengthen Gateway assurance process to improve success of major IT-enabled change projects
· Implement portfolio management processes of projects within departments to reduce overlap and duplication
· Promote greater standardisation and simplification of IT systems, desktops, infrastructure and applications
· Develop internal IT Capability within the public sector and continue to professionalise IT enabled change
Let’s address these from the OEP side:
1) Strengthen Management information and increase benchmarking to drive performance: PerformancePoint services in SharePoint provide “BI for the masses” where every employee in government can have real-time access to scorecarding and performance management tools to facilitate performance visibility and to encourage better performance and productivity.
2) Strengthen the governance of IT-enabled change projects: SharePoint on its own has a limited capability to increase the visibility and governance around projects through collaboration, BI and workflow. However, with Project Server on top of SharePoint, government has a set of tools that can deliver real transformation in the way projects are governed and this gives great management visibility. Just think about how powerful it would be even to deliver projects across your programme at 5% lower cost and 5% less time (a conservative estimate)? The ROI would stack up very easily.
3) Strengthen gateway assurance process to improve success of major IT-enabled change projects : Clearly doing the right projects is more important really than doing projects efficiently. Both Portfolio and Project Server as well as SharePoint workflow and BI give organisations a way to implement rigorous gateway process around projects.
4) Implement portfolio management processes of projects within departments to reduce overlap and duplication : SharePoint is already licensed in many agencies; once implemented for something it is important to appreciate how many solutions could be built with this asset without having to create or buy another siloed application. What’s great is that SharePoint doesn’t have to be a one-stop solution, it integrates with almost anything, but it also does offer a lot of capability if you want to make the most of what you have already got.
5) Promote greater standardization and simplification of IT systems, desktops, infrastructure and applications : SharePoint provides a great platform for many organisations that already have it, to standardize at the application tier. Look at “Five ways…” and understand how consolidating on SharePoint can help you cut costs. On something like PS Flex? SharePoint is there to be exploited by your business as part of the service you have already signed up to.
Clearly SharePoint offers a lot to your organization, if you make the most of it. If you have it already, are you making the most of it? If using a bunch of loosely or non-integrated solutions, is there scope for consolidations on a single infrastructure? If you have some best of breed solutions, are you thinking about integration and usability? In 2010 SharePoint will support all these open standards: DOM 1.0, HTML, HTTP, HTTPS, MathML , ODBC. ODF (IS26300), Open XML (IS29500), OpenSearch, OpenType, PDF 1.7, PDF/A, RTF, RSS, ATOM, SOAP, SVG, REST, UDDI, Unicode, URI/URN, W3C XML Schema, WCAG 2.0, WebDAV, WSDL, WSRP, XHTML, XML, XML Web Services, XMLDsig, XPATH, XPS, XSLT. There isn’t much it won’t co-exist with so this could really be the glue that makes your infrastructure start to deliver added value to your business. Let us know if you want to know more.
Posted by Phil
Isn’t it ironic? One of the delights of Live Meetings is that you do not have to gather everyone in the same room and risk spreading coughs and sneezes. So far, our current series Public Sector Live Meetings (webinars) has been disrupted by presenters falling foul of bugs and viruses at the last minute.
We are now back on track and thought you would like to see the revised programme below for November and December. Simply click on the hyperlink for each Live Meeting and enter the invitation code when prompted to see more information and register to take part:
Friday November 6 12:00-12:45 Maximise the value of your Microsoft investment with Desktop Optimisation
Invitation Code: AFC352
Friday November 13 12:00-12:45 Identity and Access Management solutions for the Public Sector
Invitation Code: 62B6E3
Friday November 20 12:00-12:45 Simplifying Server Licensing for Virtual and non-Virtual Environments
Invitation Code: 59C3A4
Friday November 27 12:00-12:45 Improving the citizen experience of public services: Citizen Service Platform
Invitation Code: 1643C7
Friday December 11 12:00-12:45 Enabling secure document records management in the Public Sector
Invitation Code: 246F11
Friday December 18 10:00-10:45 Improving the citizen experience with effective relationship management
Invitation Code: 2F213B
Posted by Ian
For those interested in the subject of open government, innovation and how technology can support better public services through transparency, collaboration and open participation over the web you've probably already looked at http://innovate.direct.gov.uk/apps and the work that groups like mysociety and rewiredstate.org are doing to marry public data sets and Web 2.0 into something useful to both citizens, government and business. You might even be inspired by the work happening in the US around the Open Government Initiative on Data.Gov and the apps for America consultations that have been happening. Clearly something very exciting is happening when government starts to put their non-sensitive public domain information out there in a consumable format on the web and people start to think of ways to put that information to serious work. This encourages the innovators both inside the public sector, in industry and among our citizens to build solutions at relatively low risk to government, with potentially high impact and usefulness. The "crowd-sourcing" approach applies to development of these solutions but also to the purpose of many such applications. Interactive sites have the merit of rapid feedback, dialog, reflection and conversation which can inform public policy and also encourage higher standards in public services and better targeting of resources. If you're unsure of the ways in which this might be useful have a look at all the ideas mysociety.org have already come up with, things like fixmystreet and the parliamentary scrutiny site theyworkforyou. Take a look at some of simple but powerful utilities on rewiredstate.org, some of the existing projects on innovate.direct.gov.uk or consider the NHS crowdsourcing site iwantgreatcare.org. The potential has only just begun to be explored.
The good news is that Microsoft's Public Sector Developer Evangelism team have been at the forefront of these developments, driving our Open Government Data Initiative (OGDI) and building tools and APIs based on the Azure Services Platform in order to make innovating around government data simple and accessible. OGDI makes it easier to both publish and use a wide variety of public data from government agencies without having to host anything yourself. We're also reducing the "hack" factor in building government data mashups by providing slick web service interfaces to data. OGDI-based web API’s can therefore be accessed from a variety of client technologies such as Silverlight, Flash, JavaScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, mapping web sites, etc. so it doesn't matter if your developers Microsoft developer technologies or not, they can still make use of this API to publish data and bring their application ideas to life.
To read all about this on our website, please visit the site:
http://www.microsoft.com/industry/government/opengovdata/default.aspx
and to have a play with a sample data browser and application sample (mapping of crime incidents), here:
http://ogdisdk.cloudapp.net/DataBrowser.aspx?Container=dc&EntitySet=CrimeIncidents
Posted by Phil
In the current economic climate and difficult employment market, continuously developing skills and expertise are vital to any person’s ability to find a job and develop their career. ICT skills, in particular, can be difficult and expensive to maintain for those who find themselves out of regular employment for any length of time.
Recognising that business needs to do all it can to help people during this recession, Microsoft has introduced its Britain Works campaign to help 500,000 people into work by 2012. Through a combination of a new national apprenticeship scheme, targeted skills and employability training and a new job matching service, Microsoft will work with its partners, NGOs and local government to deliver this ambitious target.
At the SOLACE (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives) conference in Brighton today, Microsoft is launching the Britain Works Challenge to all local authorities in the UK. The Britain Works Challenge encourages councils to devise effective programmes to address unemployment and availability of digital skills in their local community.
All entrants for the Britain Works Challenge will be given a complimentary membership to the Microsoft IT Academy.
Three shortlisted winners will receive a custom-designed training programme to meet their local ICT training needs:
1st place
100,000 Essential Skills vouchers
5,000 Business Worker vouchers plus 2,500 exams
2,500 Technical Specialist vouchers plus 1,000 exams
2nd place
50,000 Essential Skills vouchers
3,000 Business Worker vouchers plus 1,500 exams
1,500 Technical Specialist vouchers plus 600 exams
3rd place
30,000 Essential Skills vouchers
2,000 Business Worker vouchers plus 1,000 exams
1,000 Technical Specialist vouchers plus 400 exams
You have until December 19th 2009 to submit your entry to win one of these valuable training programmes. Now is the time to start working on your ideas and proposal by reviewing the entry guidelines and categories at the Britain Works Challenge website. Good luck!
Posted by Ian
I thought you would be interested in knowing about our upcoming series of Live Meetings (webinars) on specific aspects of Microsoft technology and how they are being used by our Public Sector customers to drive up efficiency and drive down costs.
The Live Meetings start this Friday (October 16th) with one on Unified Communications – the perfect antidote to too much time wasted travelling to meetings. All of the Live Meetings are scheduled for Fridays from 12:00-12:45 and you can participate from the comfort of your own desk/home office directly from your PC.
More details and how to register information for the Microsoft Public Sector Live Meeting series (October – December 2009) are given below. I hope you will join us for one or more of these sessions:
Friday October 16 12:00-12:45 Enable the mobile organisation with Microsoft Unified Communications
Invitation Code: B9AE93
Friday October 30 12:00-12:45 Improving performance management using Microsoft Business Intelligence
Invitation Code: D9E021
Friday November 6 12:00-12:45 Maximise the value of your Microsoft investment with Desktop Optimisation
Invitation Code: AFC352
Friday November 13 12:00-12:45 Identity and Access Management solutions for the Public Sector
Invitation Code: 62B6E3
Friday November 27 12:00-12:45 Improving the citizen experience of public services: Citizen Service Platform
Invitation Code: 1643C7
Friday December 11 12:00-12:45 Enabling secure document records management for Public Sector organisations
Invitation Code: 246F11
Friday December 18 10:00-10:45 Improving the citizen experience with more effective relationship management
Invitation Code: 2F213B
All we need is less than 1-hour of your time at your desk, in front of your PC/web browser and our experts can update you on how to make the most of your investment in Microsoft technology.
Posted by Ian
On September 30th, we held the 2nd Microsoft Public Sector Information Governance and Security Conference to a full house of over 100 customers and partners. We were delighted that Owen Pengelly, Head of Information Security and Assurance at the Cabinet Office, was able to take part and provide an update on the National Information Assurance Strategy.
There were also fascinating customer presentations from the MOD on providing secure intranet access to remote employees and from the DWP on the challenges of secure authentication for online citizen services. Add in Microsoft presentations on our own in-depth security intelligence reporting, the latest developments in our Forefront security portfolio and the evolving nature of cyber threats and you have all the ingredients for a packed day.
We are now working on making the unmissable content from the day – unmissable. You can currently review a selection of the presentations here and we shall be updating this page with video of some of the presentations later in October.
Posted by Ian
Actually, I missed the official PowerPoint birthday by a few days. PowerPoint came into our business lives on August 14th 1984 and I think it is fair to say it has had a significant role to play in office meetings, conferences, proposals etc. since it became an application at the core of Microsoft Office.
Should you think this is no big deal, these statistics about PowerPoint might change your mind:
· Organisations globally make 30 million PowerPoint presentations every working day
· The average PowerPoint session runs for 250 minutes from start-up to shutdown (I do not think this means that every PowerPoint presentation actually lasts 4 hours and 10 minutes!)
· The average PowerPoint slide shows 40 words
Yes, we have all experienced the ailment known as ‘death by PowerPoint’ and such classic PowerPoint epithets as ‘you won’t be able to read this at the back’ and ‘the colour contrast looks better on my monitor’.
My personal experience of the best use of PowerPoint in a business context is by a colleague who was on vacation when due to present at a customer event. He took the time to pre-record his PowerPoint presentation with voice-over and appropriate backing sounds of waves lapping on the shore, seagulls squawking overhead and drinks being ordered at the bar. He got the highest score of any presenter on the day – it was informative, entertaining and short!
PowerPoint has also featured in stand-up comic routines … or maybe it is a formal training course on how (not) to use PowerPoint. Judge for yourself here.
What are your highlights and lowlights with PowerPoint presentations? Why not share your experience with fellow readers?
Posted by Ian
The Roman poet Juvenal first raised this concern in his Latin phrase: quis custodiet ipsos custodies? This suggests that the challenge of who watches the watchers is a dilemma that society has grappled with for many centuries.
Why do I raise it here? The news that there has been over 500,000 requests to access phone and email records by public sector organisations in 2008. When you do the maths that is 1 in every 78 adults who is potentially under scrutiny by authorities using the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA).
As with all matters concerning security, there is a fine line that all organisations tread between ensuring they are fully compliant and stepping over the line into intrusion on matters of individual privacy.
That is why it is important that all public sector organisations are on top of the requirements for effective information assurance and security as articulated in the National Information Assurance Strategy (NIAS) issued by the Cabinet Office Central Sponsor for Information Assurance (CSIA).
Microsoft UK is running our second Public Sector Information Governance and Security Conference in London on Wednesday September 30th where you can get fully up-to-speed on the latest developments in NIAS and how Microsoft is helping public sector organisations with their information security.
We shall have presentations from the Cabinet Office CSIA, Microsoft security experts and our customers who will all provide a strategic perspective on how to deliver more effective information governance across the Public Sector with practical advice on how to ensure that your people, processes and technology know what they need to know and do to ensure your organisation is fully compliant with the NIAS requirements.
You can find out more and to register your place at the Microsoft Public Sector Information Governance and Security Conference 2009. The invitation code to enter when prompted is D54099.
Posted by Ian
Event: Mapping for Local Government and the Public Sector
There has been an explosion in the number of companies using mapping to help reduce costs, increase productivity and enable interaction. Local governments and public sector organisations are no exception to the rule with police forces, councils and health services all using mapping to help them:
· Analyse, interpret and display data such as crime statistics and health data.
· Track assets and resources.
· Share information to create satisfied local communities.
With our Bing Maps for Enterprise platform (formerly Virtual Earth) Microsoft is providing the technology behind many of these applications.
The Bing Maps team has organised two events, one at Reading and one in Leeds for some of our partners to showcase applications they have built for real life customers within this segment. The events will also feature a technical session, run by Johannes Kebeck, to really help with the nuts and bolts of using the platform. This will include integrating with SharePoint, CRM and existing GIS solutions as well as the management of additional datasets such as Ordnance Survey data. If all of that is not enough for you, the events are totally free and will include lunch.
For more information and to register please follow the links below:
8th September 2009 (Leeds, UK)
8th October (Reading, UK)
Can’t make it but want to stay informed about Bing Maps for Enterprise? Why not sign up for our monthly newsletter here.
Posted by Carla
Buying Solutions are running a series of regional Best Practice roadshows in the following cities later in June where Microsoft will be presenting on the new Public Sector Agreement (PSA09):
· Glasgow : Thursday June 17th
· London: Wednesday June 23rd
· Manchester: Thursday June 24th
Sharing best practice and hearing from peers about how they found solutions to procurement challenges is an effective way to improve services and achieve greater value for money and savings for the public sector.
Microsoft will have expertise at all these roadshows throughout the day of each event and will deliver a session on the new Public Sector Agreement negotiated with Buying Solutions on behalf of the public sector.
You can reserve your place at any of these ‘best practice’ roadshows here.
Do spare the time to attend as we would we delighted to meet you in person to talk through how you can get even better value from your investment with Microsoft through the new Public Sector Agreement.
Posted by Ian
SharePoint ar gael in Gymraeg
Microsoft have joined the Welsh Assembly Government at the Urdd Eisteddfod in Cardiff Bay, to launch Welsh language support for SharePoint. Steve Beswick, of Microsoft, and Meri Huws, of the Welsh Language Board, officially launched the pack with Jane Hutt, the Welsh Assembly Minister for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills.
Meri Huws, Chair of the Welsh Language Board
This follows on from the work we did a little while ago to make Windows and Office available in Welsh. We do all of this through making a free Language Interface Pack available for download, which you can then use to convert your system over.
There are already quite a few schools and local authorities in Wales using SharePoint – for example, Swansea run their learning platform on it, and the addition of the Welsh language option will extend the potential use.
Julie Davies, a teacher at Ysgol Gyfun Bryn Tawe in Swansea explained why it was so important:
As a school and centre of excellence for Welsh medium education, we have always taken advantage of new Welsh language initiatives and resources. We are very excited to see a large IT company recognising and responding to the need for more resources in our first language. I believe Swansea Edunet which is based on SharePoint will improve communication within the school, and create an effective learning community for staff members and pupils.
But why SharePoint in Welsh, and why is it so important to education? Well, the answer on the day was:
Mae Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 yn darparu lleoliad sengl, integredig lle gall defnyddwyr gydweithio’n effeithiol, chwilio am wybodaeth, rheoli cynnwys a llyfnhau prosesau gweinyddol. Mae’n integreiddio’n hawdd â systemau TGCh sydd eisoes yn eu lle, ac mae’n gymorth i wneud penderfyniadau ar sail gwybodaeth drwy cynorthwyo i staff gael hyd i wybodaeth yn haws, i’w rhannu ac i adrodd arni.
You can find the English version of this in the Welsh Language Board press release in English (Welsh version here)
Download Information
The downloads are now publicly available using the URLs below. I got a surprise checking these links – the pages are all in Welsh!
SharePoint Server 2007 Language Pack (X86)
SharePoint Server 2007 Language Pack (X64)
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Language Pack
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Language Pack (X64)
If you’re working for one of the many UK public sector organisations that have a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, then read on…
- If you run the IT across your organisation, then you’ve got a chance to make your colleagues happy
- If you’re working elsewhere in the organisation, then there’s a chance to save some money
As part of our Software Assurance programme, which is a standard part of an Enterprise Agreement, we include a benefit called the Home Use Programme (HUP). This gives employees the opportunity to buy Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 for £12.93. HUP is designed to increase employee satisfaction, employee retention, and training and productivity. (I’d whisper this so that only the IT people hear - It’s also been seen to reduce support costs). The licence allows employees to use the software as long as they work for the organisation, and as long as the organisation is covered by Software Assurance.
Unlike similar schemes, the employee is the one responsible for correctly licensing (ie you simply have to let them know when they should stop using it, you’re not expected to enforce this). And finally, the system takes no administration from the organisation – the employee places their order online, using their own credit card, and receives the software and support directly from Microsoft.
For some reason, even though it has been around a while, not that many people have taken it up.
It is easy to activate:
- Your EA Benefit Administrator (quick, find a number for the IT department!) goes onto the Microsoft Volume Licensing Services website, and ticks a box to activate the programme (at https://licensing.microsoft.com). They will enter an email domain for your organisation (like @dvla.gov.uk) and in return will get a program code
- They distribute that program code around the organisation
- Employees logon to https://hup.microsoft.com, and enter their email address and the program code – and then just place their order.
It’s that simple.
And instead of paying £90 in a shop for Office Home & Student, your employees have Office Enterprise for less than £15.
We’ve got HUP Information Packs sitting here in the office, with a resources CD to help promote it internally. If you want one, just drop James an email
And finally, there’s also an option where the administrator can order multiple copies on behalf of employees, where the price has been dropped to under £7 if you order 20+ before 15th June. That’s all on https://licensing.microsoft.com too.
The new Public Sector Agreement (PSA09) is a new software purchasing model for the UK public sector. It is the result of an in-depth collaborative procurement engagement between Microsoft and Buying Solutions on behalf of the public sector. You can read the full press release about PSA09 here.
In PSA09, Microsoft is offering value for money, greater choice and licensing flexibility, unique in its public or private sector agreements.
It paves the way for future models of software purchasing and will help organisations to meet emerging and future challenges in delivering public service reform.
What makes PSA09 different from previous agreements?
· Value for money – customers can save up to 16% on previous licensing agreements
· Matches business needs – customers can choose from more flexible licensing options
· Simpler licence transferability – licences can be transferred between organisations
· Accelerates public service reform – provides the enabling technology for frontline services
We have arranged two Live Meetings (webcasts) with Microsoft and Buying Solutions experts for you to find out more about the new Public Sector Agreement and get your questions answered:
Register to take part in a Live Meeting on the New Public Sector Agreement
· To take part in the Live Meeting on Wednesday May 13th, 11:00-12:00 register here and quote invitation code: 833389
· To take part in the Live Meeting on Thursday May 14th, 14:00-15:00 register here and quote invitation code: B418BE
All we need is 1-hour of your time at your desk, in front of your PC/web browser and Microsoft and Buying Solutions will explain how you can get the most out of PSA09 for your organisation.
Posted by Ian
