The Sikh Geek

What am I saying? As if you don’t know Beatrice Mulzer … who doesn’t know her! Author of the 70-282 Exam Preparation Guide and the Microsoft Small Business Specialist Primer and she’s also a worldwide trainer on SBS, so what she doesn’t know about SBS isn’t worth knowing.

The great thing about about WPC is you get to meet a lot of great people but you get to see who the really nice people are, those who are humble and not caught up in their own status. Beatrice is one of those people, with a great sense of humour and a genuinely interesting person to talk to on a number of different levels.

She writes a very "Pink" blog which I can’t believe I wasn’t following! What was I thinking of? … but I sure am now

Yesterday was a day spent at Ullesthorpe Hall in Leicestershire courtesy of Combined Knowledge and Steve Smith MVP and co-owner of this leading Sharepoint Training Company. This is the second event that Steve and I have managed to put together for SBSC Partners on Sharepoint with Steve providing the content/materials and me plugging it to SBSC Partners around the UK. We had a packed boardroom of 15 people and had to close off registrations to comfortably accommodate people. It was good to meet up with Nick Lloyd of Sirona Solutions  and his Partner Alex who had travelled from Stockport to be there.

We spent quite a bit of time discussing how to sell WSS 3.0 to our customers and a set of quick wins. It was nice that Steve framed his presentation in a business context and how to get the stakeholders within our customers onboard.

Whilst WSS 2.0 is a standard part of SBS 2003 what you really want to do is get the free WSS 3.0 and do either a side-by-side install of it or put it on a separate box if you can. Microsoft made a load of good changes to WSS 3.0 such as the item level security, pluggable authentication providers, built it on ASP.NET 2.0 hence been able to use standard web parts and many others. Also, WSS 3.0 is the foundation for Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007), so anything learnt on WSS 3.0 is directly transferable up to its big brother. Also, WSS 3.0 will be a standard part of SBS 2008.

The key advice was to start using it in our own businesses so we get a good understanding of what can be done and of course you should check out the excellent training offered by Combined Knowledge as most of the trainers are Sharepoint MVPs and authors of key books on Sharepoint. Also check out the UK Sharepoint User Group which holds events all round the UK on a regular basis.

I’ve been following Vlad’s posts on Microsoft’s Online Services approach and as others have said what has changed in the last week? If you’re an SBSC Partner ask yourself are you successful today? What makes you successful? What Partner Programme and relationship did you have before SBSC? What were you doing 1,2,3 years ago as a business and what do you expect to do in 1,2, 3 years and beyond?

To me Microsoft is following in the online services market rather than leading it, something it has often been criticised for. If I was Google I would be pissing my pants with laughter as Small Business Partners turn on Microsoft. Job done by Google and it didn’t even have to set up an expensive Partner Programme of its own.

By all accounts, OwnWebNow, have never been more successful with Partners flocking to them and good on them. OWN is providing online Microsoft Services and Partners are choosing to go with them rather than Microsoft direct, so that’s choice Microsoft is offering, is it not?

Vlad has talked of the demise of the Small Business Consultant doing onsite installs, providing support and doing Managed Services and has been building his business around Online affordable services with a strong Partner Model. Microsoft last week just validated that business model. Vlad saw the change and acted upon it and that is what we have to do.

There will be greater influencers than Microsoft Online Services to our customers as we enter potentially difficult economic times. I know that the fundamental issues with Small Business Customers is seeing IT as an investment FULLSTOP!

Good luck to Vlad and his business, I hope it continues to grow and the thing I take out of Vlad’s experience is the inspiration to adapt my business and not the doom and gloom side of it.

Liz is one of the Canadian SBSC PALs and someone I hugely respect. Not only does she run an award winning Gold Certified business, Conamex, but she is actively involved with the IAMCP (International Association of Microsoft Certified Partners) and is a leading light in the Women in IT/Leadership area. This is actually a rare photo with Liz as she’s normally rushing off to a meeting somewhere or organising some session. One smart cookie who also used to take part in Martial Arts competitions, so she’ll "kick your ass" if you mess with her!

The word "passionate" is an often over used word but in Liz’s case it does not even begin to describe her drive and energy. It’s one of the reasons why I get rather worked up by people who think the PALs are paid to just spout the Microsoft mantra. You couldn’t buy Liz for any amount, a woman with a huge amount of integrity.

Aaron Brooker from Hardlines has assembled a great range of videos from WPC on Varvid

The videos include :-

• The HP C3000 and Greg Starks at WPC
• Eric Watson from the EBS Team at WPC
• Augusto Valdez of Windows Mobile at WPC
• Stuart Crawford on Software + Services at WPC
• Dean Paron Interview at WPC (Group Program Manager for SBS)
• Oliver Sommer Interview at WPC (SBS MVP, German SBSC PAL)
• Erick Simpson Interview at WPC
• Steven VanRoekel Interview at WPC (Director of Windows Server Solutions)

plus many many more …

Listen to "Mr Virtualisation" and his thoughts on Online Services.

I often hear people talking about the value of Twitter but for a while I’ve been following people talking about Enterprise Social Networking and in particular Lawrence Liu and using Sharepoint for this purpose. So, at WPC I attended a presentation on Enterprise Social Networking. It had a case study by Newsgator who were building social networking components for Sharepoint. Now, Sharepoint (more specifically MOSS 2007) has something called "Mysites" which allows people to become connected via their profiles with various information about themselves.

I can’t offer any great insight into this area other than it is a really interesting area and something which I have gut feeling will be very  important in the future.

The BBC News Online has a story reporting a study by Gartner on how businesses are missing out on the potential that social networks present.

Interesting that it says Social Networking was taking over from email or at least taking a place alongside it.

You can also find me on Twitter and Friend Feed. If you’re on one of these as well then let me know so that we can connect.

Emily recently took on the role of Channel Development Manager / Community Lead for SBSC. She has been working at Microsoft for 4 years and the last two as a marketing manager for the Windows Mobile Team. She’s not new to the SBS Groups as she has been taking feedback from them recently and as a result has been working to put together a mobile offering through one of the Mobile operators and their distributors.

I’m sure she’ll be coming to a Group near you and wanting to listen to the issues that you feel are important to your Business and your SBSC Engagement.

Gareth Brown of Sytec and myself as the two UK SBSC PALs are committed to working with Emily to support SBSC Partners.

In line with the changes to the overall Partner Programme, SBSC is going to evolve. Some of this vision was shared by Andrea Russell at the PALs meeting last week in Houston. As this is in draft form I can’t really say too much about it other than it seeks to take into account the different things we do as Partners with a number of "specialisations" or "routes" to become an SBSC Partner. We currently have 2, which are the network infrastructure and system builder side. From what I’ve seen it will better fit what we are doing and overall I like it. One of the PALs role will be to provide input into this. This is also coupled with the fact that 2 new server products will be released later on this year namely SBS 2008 and EBS 2008. There are new exams on the way, which people like Mark Crall and others are working on. I don’t know the timeframes for this but as soon as I do I’ll post it up here. There will be a "grace period" to get re-certified but that period has not yet been fixed but it would be interesting to hear what people think that period should be?

There are many people behind the scenes of the Small Business Team at Microsoft Corporate and to pick out one seems a little unfair but hey, it’s my blog!

Deanna has been working with the team for a couple of years (I think?) but doesn’t work directly for Microsoft and through what Microsoft terms a "vendor", a bit like a contractor. She’d previously worked for Microsoft for a good number of years.

Deanna has had the responsibility of organising the SMB Forum/Symposiums over the last few years and what a great job she’s done. I worked with her in getting the Community Presentation together that was delivered by Mark Crall, David Lees and myself. She’s been a "go to" person to talk to and very open and honest. She held the fort for the SBSC PALs Programme when Andrea Russell was away on maternity leave. So, all in all a really nice person and good fun.

Thanks Deanna