UK TechNet Virtual Conference

May 26th, 2009 | Tags: , ,

Just spotted a really interesting virtual conference taking place on June 19th.

Highlights include:

  • Windows 7 Deployment and Management
  • Windows Server 2008 R2 – 10 things to make life easier for IT Pros
  • An overview of Office Communications Server R2 and voice capabilities
  • The trials and tribulations of SharePoint implementation
  • Exclusive Keynote featuring Mark Russinovich

For registrations go here

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Connect Coverage

May 26th, 2009 | Tags: , , , ,

Today’s Microsoft Connect event “Save Time. Work Smarter. Reduce Costs”, is over and I’m on a flight back to the UK (just when I thought Ryanair have cashed in on all they could I was wrong, they now sell in-flight smokeless cigarettes!), but they fly to London Luton and it works for me.

Now back to the event! The Microsoft Ireland Team focussed on:

  • SharePoint (work spaces)
  • Office Professional (for InfoPath integration you need this if you want to use Outlook to accept workflows, alternatively you can use your browser)
  • Excel (Pivot tables, graphing and formatting)
  • PowerPoint (embedding Excel content very easily copy/paste)
  • Some great UC demos (auto attendant & livemeeting)

To finish off three customers ran through their own implementations. Garda Siochana, spoke on their transformation of paper to SharePoint, similarly ESB ran us through their own SharePoint document library. Recommendations made by both was the importance of governance and business buy-in for SharePoint adoption, I know that when we ported our Intranet over to SharePoint 2007 this was key.

Last but not least I spoke on behalf of First Rate and the roll-out of UC within the organisation, hopefully those that attended found it insightful and take into account some of my “lessons learned” when they decide to take the plunge – you won’t regret it!

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Windows 7 loveliness (If LAN = x, then printer = y)

May 21st, 2009 | Tags:

When your responsible for the delivery of technology within a multi-site business, location independence is pretty high up on your agenda. One of the challenges is default printers, how many times have you worked either from home or an alternate office and ended up printing a sensitive document back in HQ for all and sundry to see?

Of course it can be scripted based on local directory servers, but this has recently been simplified in Windows 7 and I am extremely impressed. Hopefully this will become manageable within group policy at some stage?

Source: here

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ATI releases catalyst display drivers for Windows 7 (32/64bit)

May 20th, 2009 | Tags:

Luckily when you install Windows 7 RC you will be pushed out plenty of drivers to get you up and running. However if you want to have some of the tools that come along with manufacturer installation packages then you will be pleased to hear that ATI seems to be one of the first in with the release of their catalyst driver suite here for Windows 7.

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Speaker appearance at Microsoft Connect in Dublin

May 20th, 2009 | Tags: , , , ,

For those of you in the Dublin area on May 26th, Microsoft Ireland are putting on a Unified Comms, SharePoint and Office event “Save Time. Work Smarter. Reduce Costs”. I will be speaking on behalf of First Rate

Event Overview
Join us on May 26th to find out how leading Irish organisations in the Public and Private sector are saving time and reducing costs through the use of Microsoft Office and our Communication and Collaboration tools. This ½ day seminar will show you how you can save 1 day per month for you and everyone in your organisation by reducing the time and money spent on everyday business tasks. This seminar is for IT Managers, Desktop and Productivity Specialists and IT trainers.

Agenda Overview:

08:30    Registration & Breakfast

09:30    Save a Day a Month for every user in your Organisation

10:30    Coffee Break

10:45    Case Study – Hear from An Garda Siochana on how they are taking paperwork out of their organisation with Microsoft Collaboration Tools

11:25    Case Study – Find out how the ESB are improving team collaboration and making the sharing of information available to everyone in their organisation

12:05    Case Study – Learn how First Rate are enabling flexible working with Microsoft Unified Communications

12:35    Interactive Q&A with Panel Discussion

13:00    Close & Networking Lunch

Registration is here

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HP and Microsoft Expand Alliance in Unified Communications and Collaboration

May 20th, 2009 | Tags:

Just spotted a press release over @ MS PressPass

Key areas of integration include:

Product development and integration

• The two companies will form joint teams to collaborate on products and services development across Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Office Communications Server, as well as HP ProCurve networking products.
• HP will obtain Microsoft Unified Communications qualification for the HP dx9000 TouchSmart Business PC and select smartphones.
• HP will obtain Microsoft Unified Communications qualification for new IP desk phones.
• HP Business Technology Optimization (BTO) software will provide additional support for Microsoft Office Communications Server, including the ability to provide real-time quality of service metrics for the voice and video network over the IP infrastructure.
• The two companies will provide end point interoperability with HP Halo Telepresence Solutions and Microsoft Office Communications Server-based unified conferencing, enabling remote participants at any Microsoft Office Communication Server-enabled PC to join telepresence conferences.

Professional services

• Microsoft and HP will offer a full set of business productivity services ranging from assessment, architecture planning and design to implementation, monitoring, management and support for software, hardware, network, server, storage and infrastructure components in the shared portfolio.
• HP will dedicate a global team of service professionals to support the joint solutions, helping customers achieve improved levels of network availability and response times.
• HP and Microsoft will also target communications service providers, offering them the same technologies and services to enable hosted unified communications and collaboration services for small to medium-sized businesses.
• HP and Microsoft will provide services for customers who seek to run their technology on-premises, fully outsource, or who opt for a combination of both.
• Microsoft and HP will work together to address customers’ real-time collaboration needs using HP Halo Managed Services and HP ProCurve products.

Marketing and sales

• Microsoft and HP will assign dedicated salespeople to their joint solutions and train several thousand technical and delivery personnel.
• The companies will showcase their end-to-end solution and their respective communications and collaboration products in Microsoft Technology Centers and HP Customer Briefing Centers worldwide.
• HP will help organizations accelerate adoption of the end-to-end solution with flexible financing and trade-in programs from HP Financial Services.
• More information about the HP and Microsoft initiative is available at http://www.hp.com/solutions/microsoft/ucc. More information about Microsoft unified communications and collaboration technologies is available at http://www.microsoft.com/bpio.

Source: here

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