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This Week in BPOS News 1/21

This week in BPOS news is a recurring segment on the Microsoft Online Services Team Blog that covers news from all sectors of Cloud Computing and the Microsoft Online Services business suite known as the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS). You can read all past This Week in BPOS News segments here. For this week in BPOS news we take a look at the new Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 announcement, and we get a 99.9 percent guarantee from BPOS. 1. Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM 2011 hits the cloud In our first BPOS News story we announce a new cloud offering from Microsoft, Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM 2011. CNET covers the launch story here . The announcement comes with a price drop of the service from 44 dollars to 33 dollars per user. There is also a “Cloud CRM for Less” program which CNET explains as Microsoft “ offering cash rebates on a per-user basis for companies that switch over from competing Salesforce or Oracle CRM tools.” Dynamics General Manager Brad Wilson told CNET why he was excited about this announcement. “What’s kind of cool about this right now is that this kind of price point and this type of technology lets smaller business take advantage of technology that was before only available to larger organizations,” Wilson said. “So to be able to offer it up as an on-demand service at a very affordable price really expands the access of the technology to smaller companies, and I think that’s very exciting.” What do you think of the new Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 announcement? We want to hear from you! Leave your thoughts below in the comments section. 2. Microsoft: BPOS components average 99.9-plus percent uptime In our final BPOS News story for this week , we look into the average up time for Microsoft BPOS over the past year. Microsoft offers a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee as their service level agreement or SLA. SLA’s are taken very seriously and if the 99.9% SLA cannot be met, Microsoft offers cash reimbursements. In this NetworkWorld article it claims that Microsoft has held a 99.9 uptime SLA over the past year. What do you think of the service level agreement from Microsoft BPOS? Leave your thoughts below. What are your thoughts about the stories we shared with you this week? Did you see a story you want to share with us? Let us know what other topics you’d like to see. You can comment on this blog post or send an email to our community mailbox . Follow us on Twitter and like our Facebook page.

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Thinking about getting your certifications?

In case you are thinking about taking one or more exams towards your certification – for example the following: Exam 70-573: TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Application Development Exam 70-576: PRO: Designing and Developing Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Applications Exam 70-177: TS: Microsoft Project Server 2010, Configuring You might appreciate the Microsoft Certification Pack voucher codes with Prometric – https://www.prometric.com/microsoft/certpacks

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Community Video Picks

There are thousands of videos made every day and posted on the internet that span various topics and interests. I wanted to take this week’s video blog post to highlight some of my favorite videos that focus on Microsoft BPOS and Cloud Computing. I have spent a lot of time roaming the internet to try and find the latest and greatest BPOS videos to add to our YouTube channel favorites section . The following videos are some of the best that I have found. 1.

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Handling Changes to the Project Start Date

How often are you told that your project will start on date x and then it is moved to date y, maybe date z before it finally gets going? Now when your project start date moves, you can just update the start date in the Project Information dialog and a lot of dates will update but not all of them (ex. deadlines, constraints, tasks with actual work). If you want those to move you need to go through Move Project. The advantage of Move Project is that everything in the project is moved with respect to its original offset from the project start date. For example, in this project task b has a deadline 5 days into the project and task c has a constraint to start 2 days after the project’s start date. Now I select Move Project to update the project start date to 1/12/11. And everything in the updated plan has the same offset as it had before. Task b has a deadline 5 days into the project and task c has a constraint to start 2 days after the project’s start date. In Project 2007 and earlier, you can access this functionality on the Analysis toolbar, Adjust Dates but there are a few limitations: deadlines and tasks with non-zero percent complete aren’t moved.

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This Week in BPOS News 1/14

This week in BPOS news is a recurring segment on the Microsoft Online Services Team Blog that covers news from all sectors of Cloud Computing and the Microsoft Online Services business suite known as the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS). You can read all past This Week in BPOS News segments here. For this week in BPOS news we take a look at the new Office 365 for Education announcement, and we get a fresh look at the USDA’s move to Microsoft’s Cloud. Live@Edu grows, evolves into Office 365 for Education, leapfrogs Google Apps for Education In our first story, ZDNET Education writer Christopher Dawson takes a look at the new Office 365 offer for education that will take the cloud to the next level. Currently, Microsoft offers Live@Edu which is a set of collaboration tools aimed towards academia. Earlier this week the Office 365 blog announced that an education offering will be available. Be sure to check out the video below if you are interested in the recent Office 365 education announcement. The ZDNET article turns its focus from the Office 365 announcement to comparing the two main cloud for education solutions with Office 365 and Google Apps. The post makes a lot of interesting points that and outlines how the Office 365 education solution is the next step for Live@Edu and how it takes a competitive leap against Google Apps for education. Do you agree with the author that Office 365 for Education “leapfrogs” Google Apps for Education? Leave your comment below. US Department of Agriculture Deploys Massive Cloud Solution In our second story, we get an update on the US Department of Agriculture’s move to the Cloud. We previously discussed the start of the USDA moving 120,000 users to Microsoft’s cloud on our blog. This most recent article asks an important question, “Is cloud computing truly scalable and can a solution be rolled out quickly?” Author Ian McKenzie suggests that due to the USDA moving to Microsoft’s Cloud, the answer to both questions is yes. The article touches on other large government transformations to the cloud including “the State of California , the State of Minnesota , and New York City embracing cloud computing.” Ian also dives into the complexity of moving a governmental organization as big and dense as the USDA to the Cloud. He points out that Microsoft’s Cloud solution should help the 120,000 federal workers collaborate and engage on a greater level, while the government sector saves money through lowering costs with the Cloud. Do you think that the USDA moving to the cloud proves that cloud computing is a scalable solution that can be rolled out quickly? Leave your comments below. What are your thoughts about the stories we shared with you this week? Did you see a story you want to share with us? Let us know what other topics you’d like to see. You can comment on this blog post or send an email to our community mailbox . Follow us on Twitter and like our Facebook page.

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