I was recently at Tech-Ed EMEA in Barcelona working with the Springboard group. When my friend Ken Rosen bailed on a scheduled interview with Mark Minasi, I was asked to step in and discuss the controversial topic of Vista adoption. I was actually very interested in hearing other's opinion to this question: "With Windows 7 hanging in the shadows, should companies deploy Windows Vista or wait?" We answered this question and many others...

 

Click on the following link to see my interview with Mark Minasi:

Here's a rare "non-technical" post...

 

Casting call for Certification Video

Payment: No Pay

Description: Production Coordinator is looking for well-spoken real Microsoft Certified Individuals (MCP & MCT) —aged 21 or older, all ethnicities and types - to appear as Microsoft testimonials. Most testimonial days last between 2-4 hours and are filmed in the greater Seattle, WA area. Accepted applicants for shooting will be provided with lunch. Pre-Interview is required. (Pre-Interview will take place Week of October 27^th) Testimonial applicants will have had a positive experience with Microsoft Certifications. They will then tell us why they chose to get certified and how being certified impacted their career journey.

Send picture, current job position and a brief description of your Microsoft Certification experience to:Regines@microsoft.com Electronic submissions only.

http://www.bentuser.com/article.aspx?ID=332& : Good read!

 

I don't typically post links to articles, but i'm getting a lot of questions lately about the differences between Vista and XP. Although there are many differences under the hood, the interface differences are very impressive as well. As always, MS is pushing towards a user friendly interface and an effortless management of information. Sometimes succeeding on both fronts...

I'll write more in the months to come about Vista, as one of our clients has been selected as a MS TAP client for Vista and we'll be managing the deployment during March and April.

During the month of December, I typically spend some time looking back at the year behind me and the projects I've worked on, as well as the projects ahead. I usually spend some time looking into where I should focus my energy for the upcoming year. I run a brief analysis of what is moving and shacking in my market and globally with IT in general.

 

This year, I think we'll see some interesting changes in 2006. Of course we have the obvious, the release of Windows Vista and (hopefully) the new Office. But where is the IT focus shifting to? What's going to emerge this year as a front runner or new leader in IT. For example, as far as I'm concerned, 2005 was the year of Sharepoint/WSS. Not necessarily cause i've worked so much with the product, but because of the buzz around it. 2006 will see many more implementation of Sharepoint technologies and a continued rapid growth for the product. A probable integration into the next version of Exchange will only speed up the adoption rate of this technology. In 2006, we'll also a continued effort from MS to push its business solutions products. As a MS Certified Partner (we reached Gold Partner status this year ) we are constantly promoted the virtues of these technologies for our clients. I believe MS sees itself hold a larger portion of that market and 2006 may be the year that is spent positioning the company with the important clients. As an example of that, will be the proposed integration of Office 12 with SAP. A pilot project of the SAP integration will take place at some point this year.

 

So what should we keep our eyes open for this year?

 

The continued speed of adoption of Sharepoint technologies.

The impact/adoption rate of Windows Vista.

The growing news and impact of 64bit only Exchange 12. (E12)

Office 12, level of integration with other products and the evergrowing suite of server side Office products.

Another one I'm curious about is Live Communication Server 2006 (heard it is going to be renamed). Lets see what the rate of adoption on that product will be. If IM is any indication this technology should be hot this year.

And of course all those new ERP products arriving towards the end of 2006, early 2007.

Happy new year everybody and good luck with your implementations...