These are some of the pics I took in my recent trip to LA for the Microsoft WPC 2011.
Skype will come to Microsoft Office 365
Microsoft’s recent $8.5 billion purchase of Skype is close to being officially completed (pending international anti-trust go-ahead) and it’s first appearance will be in Office 365, Microsoft’s just launched cloud offering.
Kurt Delbene, MS Business Division President said:
“Office 365 will be the lead offering along with the client that should drive parity”
Client, in this case, means Office so does that mean there will be a separate “Skype” component in Office 15 or, more likely, will “Lync” simply connect to both?
Talking of the next version of Office, Mr Delbene had some info on that too.
Talking about when we can expect the next version of Microsoft’s desktop productivity suite, he said:
“We’re typically in a 2 1/2 year cycle”
which would put Office 15 (as I’m calling it for now) at June-December 2012. I’m not too sure about that as it is likely that will be the release schedule for Windows 8 too…I feel that trying to promote new versions of their 2 biggest products at the same time could be tricky.
Although if my prediction that Windows 8 will have a much bigger consumer focus is right,that could make it easier for Redmond’s marketing teams. Predominantly push Windows to consumers and predominantly push Office to enterprises…do you think that could work?
Wikipedia, via Neowin, also tells us that:
“notable changes in Excel include a tool for filtering data in a storm, the ability to convert Roman numerals to Arabic numerals, and the integration of advanced trigonometric functions. In Word, the capability of inserting video and audio online as well as the broadcasting of documents on the Web were implemented”
For more info, head over to the Seattle Times sites here.
A look at Org Charts
The below is a fantastic look at the Organizational structures of the big tech companies:
They’re all pretty accurate too!
Thanks to Bonkers World and @SamRoutledge
Microsoft E3 Announcements
Microsoft at E3 is always good. There are always awesome announcements and this year, we’re getting them early 
So far, Microsoft have revealed:
Voice Search coming to Xbox. I take it this will be for the Marketplaces, making it easier to find films, songs, games etc.
Halo 4 is being developed. I’m excited about this – although Bungie have gone, MS did retain some of them for their new 343 Industries team, dedicated solely to Halo.
Kinect Sports 2 will have:
- Baseball
- Golf
- Tennis
- Skiing
among others. I’m also hoping for Basketball and football keepie ups
Halo: Combat Evolved will be “remastered for a new generation” which I’m quite happy about. I came into the franchise at #3, so never got to play this one.
Kinect Fun Labs is available immediately (can’t see it on xbox.com yet though) and does a great job of showing off some of the technology…including Finger Tracking! According to WinRumors, it features:
- Build a buddy – scan in any object and play with it in any way
- Googly eyes – scan in an object and then be that object
- Kinect me – make an avatar that looks like you
- Bobble head – create a bobble head from your avatar
- Kinect sparklers – lets you use finger tracking to create photos with sparklers
Windows 8 New Features
Microsoft Windows 8 has been officially demoed and it looks pretty great, with it’s Windows Phone 7 inspired tile interface.
There are other new features being discovered by people who have the leaked pre beta builds and one of them is pretty great:
Built in ISO mounting
Windows 8 Center have got a screen shot which shows this:
This would be a brilliant addition. All my main machines have got Magic Disc & Magic ISO on them simply so I can mount ISO’s as and when needed. However it’s really annoying when you get a new machine and/or you’re working on someone else’s machine…you go to mount an ISO..BOOM – no can do, so you’ve got to go and download/install them. This new addition will save quite a lot of time across the IT Industry I would imagine 
Built in PDF Reader
This will also be cool, again saving users from one extra download and extra bit of 3rd party software on their machine.
SkyDrive
On paper, SkyDrive is awesome. 25GB of storage that you can access pretty much wherever and use either for personal storage alone or also to share things such as datasheets, documents etc with friends, clients, partners and more.
In practice, it’s quite difficult to use…fiddly, hard to find, not quite as easy to get things into/out of as you thought.
Integrating it straight into Windows 8 will see a massive rise in the use of Microsoft’s online storage, and will make the tablet piece even more compelling as users will have a built in, free, easy to use way of sharing/syncing quite a lot of “stuff” available immediately.
Microsoft Project Barcelona: Excel Hell will be no more
Microsoft’s Excel is THE de facto spread-sheet program, pretty much everyone turns to Excel if they need to do something with numbers.
Tax returns, finances, holiday charts, sales figures, bonus calculations, project progress and many many more are all common uses for Excel sheets in 1000’s of businesses all over the world. This means there is an almost incalculable amount of business data buried in .xls/x files, only a handful of people know the document exists and even fewer people know where the document is stored <—that’s usually how it goes!
This problem isn’t limited just to Excel files, there has been a huge proliferation in Word documents, project files, pdf’s, Sharepoint sites…even SQL Databases, all strewn across an organization’s estate with little discoverability. This makes it hard for users to properly act upon data and also makes it much more difficult administrators to update and change parts of their infrastructure. Microsoft have decided it’s time to do something about this and so was born:
Project Barcelona
There are 3 “buckets” of components to this project:
Crawlers:
Microsoft will provide crawlers for various Microsoft products including:
- SQL Server
- Excel
- Sharepoint
- Reporting Services
- Analysis Services
- SSIS
These will extract metadata & “Enterprise Dataflow” information which will be indexed in the Barcelona server. If the data source cannot be crawled then a “declarative way of describing the metadata and dataflow information” will be provided. A neat feature is that it will support auto discovery of new target sources which will reduce the amount of on-going user/admin interaction needed to make it a success.
Index Server:
This will be the cache for all the metadata & dataflow info collected. It will also allow querying, augmenting and annotating of the data via an exposed API.
Tools:
Initially there will be 2 tools:
An Admin experience to manage the crawlers & Index server.
A DBA experience for things such as renaming columns, retiring servers etc.
The overall architecture will look like this:
This is a great idea, something that will be very useful to a huge number of companies across all sectors and in many different ways. I can definitely see this fitting into my discussions with customers very well. I have multiple conversations each week with companies hoping to discover:
- What they have
- Where it is
- What it costs
- How it’s used
when it comes to software licensing and also hardware. Being able to do the same thing for data is surely something that customers are already wishing to do?
There are some quotes from Andrew Conrad of the Project Barcelona team that show Microsoft’s thoughts and plans for this:
“although we are designing the first iteration of the product to be a DBA/ ETL developer solution, we believe that the long term value will grow significantly beyond this”
“developers can plug in their own crawlers or metadata providers.”
“we will support metadata augmentation and have rich annotation support (both crawler support and via server API) which will allow producers and consumers of the system to leverage the crawlers and Index server in ways we haven’t even thought about”
“One of our goals for Project Barcelona is customer driven innovation”
We “really want to work with the community on the design and feature prioritization”
“we strongly believe we will need significant feedback before landing on the right design and feature set. Hence, to accelerate the feedback loop, in addition to shipping a number of CTP releases, we plan on being very transparent on our design plans via this blog”
These give a great insight into how Project Barcelona will progress and it looks good to me. A clear focus on customer insights, ideas and requests is always positive.
To read more on this interesting and surely one day to be a product that gets RTM’d, head over to:
You can also follow them on Twitter @projbarcelona
One last thing, the team are jokingly calling this “Marauders Map”, a reference to the Harry Potter map that shows the location of each & every person! 
Microsoft Enterprise Agreement: Updated for the Cloud
Microsoft’s top level licensing model, the Enterprise Agreement, has recently been overhauled to make it more cloud friendly…which is a good thing for organisations looking to adopt this new model now, or in the future.
What is an Enterprise Agreement?
The Enterprise Agreement (EA) is Microsoft’s highest level model, for companies of 250 seats and above. It requires an Enterprise Wide (EW) licensing commitment, includes Software Assurance (SA) on all licences and offers the best discounts.
The common way for an organization to licence under the EA is with the “Professional Desktop”, comprised of:
- Windows OS
- Office Pro Plus
- Core CAL
The Core CAL itself is a bundle, comprised of:
- Windows Server CAL
- Exchange Server CAL
- Sharepoint Server CAL
- SCCM Client ML
With the exception of Windows Server & SCCM, all these products are now available online via Office 365 and Intune.
If a company with an existing EA wanted to take advantage of these products, they would be on top of their existing Professional Desktop licences, as they are required to maintain the Enterprise Wide commitment. This would mean double licensing, not an effective use of budget and of course, not the way customers want to do things.
So in a very quick move, Microsoft have produced an amendment to their Enterprise Agreement terms making it possible for organizations to “mix & match” between online & onsite licensing.
Product LineUp
Windows OS –> Windows Intune
Office –> Office 365 E3 or E4
Core CAL –> Core Bridge
Enterprise CAL –> ECAL Bridge
What’s a Bridge CAL?
Bridge CALs are a new licensing item that bridge the gap between the CAL suites and their closest online relatives.
For the Core CAL offering, the bridge CAL covers the organization for:
- Windows Server CALs
- SCCM Client MLs
thus completing the Enterprise Wide commitment, without duplicating any functionality and keeping them compliant with the contract terms.
Example
The following diagram gives a good example of how the online and onsite licensing models can co-exist within an organization.
There are certain differences when it comes to the Software Assurance benefits available with Online products too, for example:
Windows Intune does NOT give
- Training Vouchers
- TechNet Subscriptions
There are a variety of different combinations possible when it comes to these licensing scenarios, some more complex than others! I have left out a fair amount of information from this post as I don’t want to cause confusion, however if you have a specific scenario I would be more than happy to help 
It’s great to see Microsoft making such changes as this and at such a good speed. Many people criticised Microsoft for taking too long to update their licensing models to accommodate the changes brought about by Virtualisation and, while that may be true, Redmond are definitely ahead of the curve this time!
Microsoft Windows Phone 7 at Mix 11
Microsoft’s MIX development conference has just finished and there have been a lot of great announcements for the future of Windows Phone 7.
Microsoft’s next update “Mango” will most probably bring about Windows Phone 7.5 as well as a number of huge updates.
Internet Explorer 9
Windows Phone Mango will bring with it a new browser which will have the same rendering engine as their new, much lauded desktop browser. That will mean:
- Hardware Acceleration
- HTML5
- CSS Standards Support
all on a mobile device. Demos comparing an updated WP7 device to an iPhone and an Android handset showed it to be much faster.
Third Party Multitasking
Currently, only the built-in Microsoft apps can multi-task but that will all change, allowing:
- Fast Application Switching
- File Transfers
- Background Audio
and more.
Developer access to hardware/software & Better tools!
Devs will be able to target and use more of the hardware already there, including camera data and motion sensors…bringing Augmented Reality (think Layar) to Windows Phone 7 
They will also be able to access contacts and calendars, which I think will bring some great possibilities to the world of WP7 apps.
Not only this but Microsoft are improving the tools that developers can use which will allow them to mix Silverlight with XNA in a single app and emulate location and accelerometer features during the development phase.
Random Extras:
Don’t forget that Microsoft have already told us that Twitter will be getting much deeper integration with the Mango update – that will be pretty great!
TCP/IP support will allow a Skype app.
ANGRY BIRDS IS COMING ON MAY 25TH <—Yes that’s all in caps!
Nokia Windows Phone Devices
Microsoft & Nokia have joined forces to improve, build and push Windows Phone 7 going forwards, this we know. Now the rumours and conjecture have moved, logically, to the next thing – what will Nokia’s first device be, and when will we get them?!
I’ve never had a Nokia.
I’ve had numerous other phones (Motorola, HTC etc) over the years but never Finland’s biggest (?) export, and that’s mainly been down to the OS. I’ve long admired their hardware but couldn’t make friends with the Symbian Operating System…so this could be a first for me now they’ll be running Windows Phone 7. Actually, my Samsung Omnia 7 is the first Samsung device I’ve ever had come to think of it…anyway, back to the Nokia devices!
According to various sources on the internet, the first Windows Phone 7 from Nokia will be the “W7”…based on the Nokia X7 innards but looking like the HTC Mozart. However continuing Nokia’s theme for great cameras, it will have 8 Mega Pixels and a flash.
The next device will be the W8, based on the current N8, although there are apparently a dozen Nokia WP7 devices coming in 2012…should be good times!
Microsoft Cloud Mobility Licensing Changes
Microsoft are making a big push with their hosted application offerings (BPOS & Office 365) but are also aware that many customers and partners base their businesses on 3rd party hosted solutions. In an effort to make that easier and more cost effective, the Redmond based company recently announced some changes to their licensing rule, referred to as “Licence Mobility”.
Essentially, these changes will allow customer organizations to deploy their licences in-house or hosted in a 3rd party datacenter. Not all products are covered with these changes, in fact, here are the products that are:
- SQL Server
- Exchange Server
- Sharepoint Server
- Lync Server
- System Center Servers (note the plural – this seems to be any and all SC products)
- Dynamics CRM
If these products are licensed with Software Assurance they
“can be run in service providers’ datacenters on shared hardware for that customer’s dedicated use”
Products that are NOT included are:
- Windows Server Operating Systems
- Windows Client Operating Systems
- Desktop Applications
- Developer Tools
Other Changes
Also, Microsoft are expanding the Subscriber Access Licences (SALs) for SA SKUs to cover Enterprise licences for
- Exchange
- Lync
- Sharepoint
For more information, see here:
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/about-licensing/value-of-volume-licensing.aspx#tab=4
Cloudy with a chance of Licensing 