Category: Microsoft

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Microsoft Windows 7-Parallel Processing


Windows 7 is Microsoft’s next hotly anticipated release and there is now information that changes will be made to help it support Parallel Processing.

Microsoft have already stated that deep-level changes between Vista & Windows 7 will be get to a minimum as a way to ensure driver and application compatibiity; and if they pull it off,  Windows 7 will have a much better start to life than poor old Vista 🙂

The downside to this is that they can’t play around with Win32 (Windows Core) too much, and that is going to limit what can be down with regards to Parallel Processing. However, at this year’s PDC (Professional Developers Conference), there is a session entitled “Parallel Symposium: Addressing the Hard Problems with Concurrency” and the session decription contains the phrase “Hear about the key architectural changes Microsoft is making to Windows to enable the efficient execution of parallel software.”, which shows the Redmond giant has clearly got something up it’s sleeve.

Many thanks to Mary Jo Foley over at ZDNet for this info. She’s also got some words from Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s Chief Research and Strategy Officer as to what’s on the drawing board.

Again, anyone attending the PDC please feel free to leave some comments if you hear anything blog worthy!

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Microsoft Viral Videos


Microsoft’s viral ad videos can be great fun..(and informative too) so I’m gonna try and collect as many as I can into this post…so we’ve all got a central place for them..

Let me know which is your favourite!

**New Video** for PDC 2008

Shoe Circus-Seinfeld Vista Ad 1

New Family-Seinfeld Vista Ad 2

I’m A PC 1

I’m A PC 2

I’m A PC – Steve Ballmer

Bill Gates-Last Day Video Diary – This one is truly brilliant! I think this is my fave video of the lot..

Microsoft UK did a set of 4 videos called “The Office Values” which featured Ricky Gervais as David Brent, here they are:

The Office Values 1

The Office Values 2

The Office Values 3

The Office Values 4

This video was taken 100% seriously by some people out there and used as another excuse to have a pop at Microsoft, but I’m pretty sure it’s tongue is very firmly in it’s cheek:

Vista SP1

This video is from the Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) 2008, which was over in Houston.  I was there this year but I only thought to record this after it had happened (typical!) and this is the only clip I can find on Youtube:

Alison “A Fresh” Watson

Bit of trivia for you, I very nearly accidentally tripped up Alison Watson over in Houston at the expo! I wonder what I’d be doing now if that had happened?!

Thought I’d add the EBS Pimp My Infrastructure vid here too

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Microsoft EBS 2008-Big Pimpin’!


Microsoft Essential Business Server 2008 has got it’s own “cool” funny viral video, you can see it here.

This video is really good..funny, well made and gets the point across. Despite that, I think my favourite part is the completely serious (?) discalimer at the end!

There’s another great video about Office MLK’s that HP showed me, but I can’t get a copy of it or a link to it anywhere. I’ll keep trying but if there are any HP workers that can hook me up, drop a comment pleeaase!

Again, got this from Matt McSpirit

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Steve Ballmer is in love?


Steve Ballmer says “IT Pros, IT Pros IT Pros…..and I say I love IT Pros!”

In an attempt to show he isn’t just into Developers, The Ballmernator gave a rousing cry of the above at the London TechNet event yesterday. A video of his speech can be seen here. (Found via Curious George’s Blog).

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Microsoft Zune on Windows Mobile 7?!


Everyone’s favourite CEO Steve Ballmer yesterday confirmed that the Zune software will be available on Windows Mobile 🙂

This is the more likely conclusion to the “Zune Phone” rumours, so while we won’t be seeing a Microsoft branded handset, we will have the awesomeness of the Zune on our WinMo devices. Here in the UK, Zune’s are pretty much just a great sounding myth so this should give me a chance to leave the ipod at home once and for all!

Steve gave no word on timescale, but could this be the “new Media Player” expected in WinMo 7?!

I discovered this over at Engadget.

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Windows Mobile 6.1 HTC Diamond


Windows Mobile 6.1 and the HTC Diamond is a great combination. This post has a dual purpose, to discuss WinMo 6.1 and also the HTC Diamond..my favourite ever phone and I really believe it’s the best phone available (even including the iPhone!!!).

I went to the WPC (Worldwide Partner Conference) 2008 in Houston with an HTC WinMo 5 PPC (Pocket PC) that I was pretty happy with. I was thinking about an upgrade (but just because I wanted a new gadget..not for any specific usability reasons) and so decided there was no real point.

Then I went to one of the Breakout sessions hosted by Andy Lees, Senior Vice President of Mobile Communications Business at Microsoft, saw his demo of WinMo 6.1 and was blown away! The new home screen is much cooler/slicker and certain things I’d been wishing for (such as the ability to select multiple messages then mass move/delete) had been implemented…(maybe Bill can hear the thoughts of Gold Partners?!)

I did pop into the T-Mobile shop in Houston to see what WinMo 6.1 phones they had..that’s how excited I was 🙂

Some of the other features from a personal view that I like are the threaded SMS (so they’re like emails-makes things so much easier!) and IE full page zooming. From a corporate view, the big addition was “Domain Enroll” which allows WinMo devices to be managed via System Center Mobile Device Manager (MSM) 2008.

*Update* It’s been confirmed by Steve Ballmer (after a leak from Motorola) that we’re going to see Windows Mobile 6.5 first..as to which features will be in that and which will be saved for WinMo 7, I’ve not seen anything yet…

Windows Mobile 7-is expected in the 2nd half of 2009 and should feature a new, revamped UI, multi-touch and motion sensing features. There should also be a new version of IE, a new version of Office Mobile and a new version of Media Player-this could well be the Zune software (see here).

The HTC Diamond is awesome…and I mean that in it’s original sense, in that it did fill me with awe! That might seem a bit overboard but the Touch-Flo 3D UI makes using the phone a joy. The menu layout is easy to navigate, it’s quick and easy to get to the majority of things you need whether they’re apps, settings, downloads etc and the UI is very responsive. Another element I love which pits it against the iPhone, is the fact that you don’t really need to use the stylus. I can navigate menus, turn features on/off and even compose emails and text messages, all without the stylus 🙂

The HTC music player is full of features and easy to use…a good quick alternative to Media Player (although Media Player is far superior for connecting to Bluetooth Headphone devices) if you just need audio. The camera is 3 Mega Pixels so quite mid-range spec but the quality of picture is much higher than you’d expect…we’ve got a number of pictures framed on the wall that came from my Diamond…often replacing pictures taken with a “proper” digital camera.

Another feature of the Diamond that I’ve seen via a video over at Engadget is that the HTC Diamond has Multi Touch capabilities! The video only shows it bwing used for a de-bugging app but it could be the start of something prettty awesome..maybe some homebrew coders can get something great going there?! Even if nothing comes of it at the moment it certainly looks positive for when Windows Mobile 7 arrives!

If you’v got any questions about WinMo and/or the HTC Diamond, drop a comment and let me know!

Cheers

Rich

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Microsoft Windows Cloud


Microsoft Windows “Cloud” was mentioned by MS CEO Steve Ballmer at their S+S (Software Plus Services) seminar in London today.

“We need a new operating system designed for the cloud and we will introduce one in about four weeks, we’ll even have a name to give you by then. But let’s just call it for the purposes of today ‘Windows Cloud’,” said Ballmer.

More info will be revealed at the PDC, which takes place the end of this month in LA.

More info can be found at:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/01/steve_ballmer_windows_cloud/

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Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 released


Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 has been released.

“What are you talking about? It’s been out for months!” you say…nearly but not quite.

This is the standalone Hyper-V server, so while it includes the core parts of the kernel as related to Hyper-V, there are no other roles available for installation. This is a pure Hypervisor that site on bare metal, and allows you to run up to 192 VM’s on a single machine!!

It doesn’t have much of a GUI (Graphical User Interface)-bit of an old school vibe but hey, that’s cool! Also, you can manage it from a Windows Server 2008 installation or indeed a Vista SP1 machine with the Remote Server Admin Tools Pack installed.

Microsoft expect the main uses for this product to be:

  • Test and Development
  • Basic Server Consolidation
  • Branch Office Consolidation
  • Hosted Desktop Virtualization (VDI)

    • You can download HYper-V Server 2008 here

    and

    More info can be found over at Matt “VirtualBoy” McSpirit’s blog here

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    Microsoft Essential Business Server (EBS) 2008


    Microsoft Essential Business Server (EBS) 2008 is set to be released on 12//11/08 (12th November), along with Small Business Server (SBS) 2008.

    What is it?

    Windows Essential Business Server 2008 provides a unified Administration Console to manage an integrated IT infrastructure with the latest versions of management, messaging, and security server technologies.

    EBS 2008 is aimed at medium sized businesses and the aim is that it will make your infrastructure more efficeint, cost effective and easier to manage. There are 2 version of EBS 2008..

    Standard Edition includes:

    • 3 x Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition
    • 1 x Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Standard Edition
    • 1 x Microsoft System Center Essentials 2007
    • 1Yr subscription to Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange
    • 1Yr subscription to Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway, Medium Business Edition

    The Premium Edition includes all the above as well as:

    • 1 x Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition (making a total of 4)
    • 1 x SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition

    From a licensing point of view, EBS allows up to 300 users and there is a single Client Access Licence (CAL) that gives access to all the included programmes.

    Licensing:

    There are two types of CAL for EBS 2008. Standard CALs for all users/devices connecting to any part of the EBS network and Premium CALS for any users/devices connecting to the PREMIUM features of EBS (so SQL Server).

    Another change is that CALs will be available individually as well as in 5, 20 & 50 packs. The ability to purchase CALs on their own makes it more cost effective when adding new members of staff.

    One thing to note is that you are NOT able to downgrade the components of EBS 2008 to previous versions. To this end, Microsoft have made SQL 2005 available as an EBS 20008 component to prevent any possible issues with customized Line-Of-Business (LOB) applications. This will last for approx. 1 year.

    EBS 2008 aims to make medium sized businesses more efficient and cost effective, and helps to reduce the workload for system administrators. The inclusion of System Center Essentials means that admins will be able to track assets, install patches and updates, deploy software packages and more all from the EBS Central Admin Console.

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    Microsoft Office 14 (2009/2010)


    Microsoft Office 14, the next version of the Office Suite, is set to include the monitoring & analytics component of Performance Point Server..making Business Intelligence easily accessible to a huge number of people.

    The release date was originally thought to be 1st half 2009 but it now looks more likely to be the 2nd half..maybe even Q1 2010.

    There isn’t a huge amount of information on Office 14 available but enhanced Enterprise Content Management, tighter Unified Communications integration and security all seem likely to be included.

    If I hear anything else I’ll let you know..if you’re one of the lucky beta testers-let me know your thoughts!

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