May 14, 2008

Hopes for the future of Office 2007 collaboration

The new Office servers I've discussed in recent weeks are diverse, opening up a wealth of opportunities: online forms, anywhere/anytime collaboration, advanced presence detection and VoIP technology, project management solutions, business intelligence with digital dashboards, and high-caliber search abilities. Microsoft has certainly granted users several computing capabilities through the Office suite. There are, however, missing pieces and unfinished parts to these servers, though it's possible that the next releases will include more of what we need. On the collaboration side, let's take a look at three: Forms, Groove, and Communications. Forms Server, if you recall, is a slice of functionality... more

TAGS: Business Applications

May 11, 2008

Microsoft Response Point: A phone system for the small business

Sometimes, small business seems to be neglected in many offerings that Microsoft provides. True, the Small Business Server is an attempt to fill those needs, and you may want to take note of the two 2008 items set for a release later this year. But at times, there is needless complexity in these solutions, and they show a lack of insight into the small-business world, in which companies need to focus on their core competencies, not the nitty-gritty of technology. So it was interesting to take note of a product that has some of the high-end features of Microsoft Unified... more

TAGS: Infrastructure

May 07, 2008

Microsoft's Enterprise Project suite isn't just for the enterprise

Keeping track of a project -- any project -- can be an overwhelming task, especially if you're dealing with multiple teams, various funding expenditures, and the ever-popular string of setbacks and delays that haunt projects. Microsoft has continued to roll out products to help take control of projects. In addition to unleashing the latest project flavor last year, Redmond ripped Project Server in two, creating Project Server 2007 and Project Portfolio Server 2007. Each offers complementary and useful features to help users organize and control the flow of a project. Both servers (with their client counterparts) are part of what... more

TAGS: Business Applications

May 05, 2008

Microsoft and Yahoo: Stop the insanity!

The on-again, off-again purchase of Yahoo seems to have collapsed over the weekend with Microsoft walking away from the table and abandoning the deal. On February 1, in a dramatic announcement, Microsoft "made a proposal to the Yahoo board of directors to acquire Yahoo for $31 per share in cash and stock, representing a total equity value of approximately $44.6 billion (based on share prices as of January 31, 2008)." This represented initially a 62 percent premium above Yahoo's closing stock price on January 31. You can read Microsoft's official statement on the matter, as well as Steve Ballmer's letter... more

TAGS: Business Applications

April 30, 2008

$25,000 question: Is the Microsoft Architecture credential worth the cost?

You've heard of a Microsoft Certified Professional. Perhaps at one time you've even dreamed of being a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE). You took one exam after another at a Microsoft testing center to reach this honored and prestigious pinnacle, then battled your way to prove to your employers (or future employers) that you had what it takes to administrate their Microsoft-oriented network. With the arrival of Windows Server 2008 comes a new lineup of exams -- and the end of a certification era. The MCSE status is no longer found in the lineup of possible acronyms one can add... more

TAGS: Enterprise Windows General

April 24, 2008

An SP1 video spoof? Still funny though...

In scanning my favorite news/blog sites the other day, I came across this funny little video regarding Vista SP1 on Long Zheng's site. You can watch the video on YouTube. Is it real...? I don't know but someone went through an awful lot of effort to make a pretty decent replica of the Boss' Dancing in the Dark, right down to the inclusion of a Courtney Cox look-a-like dancing on stage with the 'Vista Street Band' (corny... I know). Even more surprising to me was the use of the term "Ecosystem" in the video and in the title. And shortly... more

TAGS: Desktop

April 22, 2008

Public folders for Exchange are here to stay (a while)

With the release of Exchange 2007, the Microsoft Exchange team posted a statement in its blog that caused some panic: "We are 'de-emphasizing' public folders -- which means that public folders may not be in our next major release after E12." That created a frenzy among some IT Exchange admins as they fretted over what they would do without those familiar, useful public folders. Further fueling those fears: Outlook 2007, unlike its predecessors, does not require public folders. This came off as another hint that Microsoft might be looking to force admins toward a new technology, SharePoint, before they're ready... more

TAGS: Server

April 16, 2008

Will the real SharePoint please stand up?

Many admins don't know it, but SharePoint has two distinct faces: one quite costly, the other free. The pricey version is Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, or MOSS for short. The free one is called Windows SharePoint Services (WSS), currently at Version 3.0. I was somewhat in the dark regarding the differences between the two and just assumed that the free version would be lame in comparison with MOSS (which is built on WSS). However, I was schooled last week at the IT360 Conference in Toronto by C.A. Callahan, respected tech speaker and author of the book "Mastering Windows SharePoint... more

TAGS: Business Applications