In Search of New

 
 
By Peter Galli  |  Posted 2007-07-11 Email Print this article Print
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Partners"> Microsoft is also launching new deployment planning services programs for the desktop and SharePoint, which help compensate program-certified partners that deliver customized deployment plans to eligible customers. The desktop deployment planning services program is available now, while the SharePoint deployment planning services program is expected to be made available in January 2008 as part of Microsofts Software Assurance program.
Read more here about how Microsoft showcased its Dynamics Live CRM solution.
Like the other keynote speakers on the first day of the sold-out conference, who included CEO Steve Ballmer and chief operating officer Kevin Turner, Capossela spoke to the 10,000 attendees about software plus services solutions and how these offer partners a wide variety of opportunities, whether they are hosted on site by customers, by Microsoft, or its partners. For example, he noted that Microsoft Office Live provides developers with access to more than 400,000 small businesses, which has traditionally been a hard-to-reach demographic. "To reach this market segment, Microsoft Office Live is updating its partner program to include new programs such as the Microsoft Office Live Marketplace, the new Microsoft Office Live Affiliate Network and greater access to the Microsoft Office Live customer base," he said. Caposella also used his keynote address to announce an updated Office Live Solution Developers program, a new Office Business Applications OnRamp program and new Desktop and SharePoint Deployment Planning Services programs. Click here to read more about how Microsoft gave its Dynamics applications an Office makeover. Caposella also sang the praises of enterprise search, noting that more than 3,500 partners are enrolled in the Quickstart for Microsoft Search partner program, which was launched at the 2006 worldwide partner conference. Quickstart helps partners gain knowledge and build skills by giving them access to training and community resources. There are also a growing number of partners developing new enterprise search tools on the SharePoint platform. Among them is BearingPoint, which provides information management and search solutions, and which will offer a search-enabled application, known as SingleView. This application helps SharePoint Server 2007 customers access information from across a variety of enterprise repositories, structured databases and unstructured content libraries. Microsoft further announced that more than 1,150 partners from 50 countries on six continents have registered their support for Ecma Office Open XML, the default file format for Office desktop applications. To read more about why Massachusetts embraced Microsofts Open XML document format, click here. It also announced that Linux platform developer Turbolinux is the latest company to pledge support for the creation of Open XML to ODF (OpenDocument Format) translator tools, along with Novell, Linspire and Xandros. Editors Note: This story was updated to include add new comments on Microsofts evolving strategy from Microsoft corporate vice president Chris Caposella. Check out eWEEK.coms for the latest news, reviews and analysis about productivity and business solutions.


 
 
 
 
Peter Galli has been a financial/technology reporter for 12 years at leading publications in South Africa, the UK and the US. He has been Investment Editor of South Africa's Business Day Newspaper, the sister publication of the Financial Times of London.

He was also Group Financial Communications Manager for First National Bank, the second largest banking group in South Africa before moving on to become Executive News Editor of Business Report, the largest daily financial newspaper in South Africa, owned by the global Independent Newspapers group.

He was responsible for a national reporting team of 20 based in four bureaus. He also edited and contributed to its weekly technology page, and launched a financial and technology radio service supplying daily news bulletins to the national broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation, which were then distributed to some 50 radio stations across the country.

He was then transferred to San Francisco as Business Report's U.S. Correspondent to cover Silicon Valley, trade and finance between the US, Europe and emerging markets like South Africa. After serving that role for more than two years, he joined eWeek as a Senior Editor, covering software platforms in August 2000.

He has comprehensively covered Microsoft and its Windows and .Net platforms, as well as the many legal challenges it has faced. He has also focused on Sun Microsystems and its Solaris operating environment, Java and Unix offerings. He covers developments in the open source community, particularly around the Linux kernel and the effects it will have on the enterprise.

He has written extensively about new products for the Linux and Unix platforms, the development of open standards and critically looked at the potential Linux has to offer an alternative operating system and platform to Windows, .Net and Unix-based solutions like Solaris.

His interviews with senior industry executives include Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Linus Torvalds, the original developer of the Linux operating system, Sun CEO Scot McNealy, and Bill Zeitler, a senior vice president at IBM.

For numerous examples of his writing you can search under his name at the eWEEK Website at www.eweek.com.

 
 
 
 
 
Manage your Newsletters: Login   Register My Newsletters























 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Rocket Fuel