Office 365 Recipient limits raised

One objection I hear regularly from business who are using their emails incorrectly is that Exchange Online ONLY allows email to 1,500 recipients a day. Many use that as an excuse for staying on premise because they want to bulk email from their own inbox.

Firstly, Microsoft has just raised that limit to 10,000 recipients a day from 1,500.

http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd630704.aspx#RecipientLimits

Secondly, you really shouldn’t be using your normal email accounts for bulk email. A much better bet is something like Mailchimp, but if you must (and some MUST) then ensure you follow the guidance provided by Microsoft when it comes to bulk emails and you’ll never reach those limits!

http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/ff381292.aspx#bulkemailstrategies

Less site options in Foundation 2013

Been poking around SharePoint Foundation 2013 and noticed the following reduction in site template options.

Here’s the site template options when you go to create a new sub site:

Collaboration tab

SharePoint 2010 Foundation

SharePoint 2013 Foundation

i.e. the following templates are no longer available:

– blank site

– document workspace

– group work site

There is no longer a meeting tab as there is in SharePoint 2010

There is now an Enterprise tab that contains:

So the following site templates are no longer available by default in SharePoint 2013 Foundation:

– Blank site

– Document Workspace

– Group Work Site

– Basic Meeting Workspace

– Blank Meeting Workspace

– Decision Meeting Workspace

– Social Meeting Workspace

– Multipage Meeting Workspace

The following have been added:

– Basic Search Center

The reason? My guess is that most people never used the site templates that have been removed and the thinking is that if people want to get them then they will probably be available via the new Office Marketplace that is part of SharePoint 2013.

However, the more I look at Foundation 2013 the more I am convinced that it is far more basic that Foundation 2010 was. Maybe the addition of the Office Marketplace in the 2013 products is where additions to the product will appear? I’ll be interested to see whether they do.

SharePoint Foundation 2013 setups

The previous blog post I did on setting up SharePoint Foundation 2013 I will admit to cheating a little. There is did the installation completely on a single windows 2012 Server that I had converted to a Domain Controller (DC).

Now, technically that isn’t supported, so here are some other ways you can attempt to install it.

If you simply try and install it on a stand alone server that is not part of a domain you’ll see

If you select stand alone and follow it through you’ll end up with the following error during the configuration wizard:

which is the same sort of error I received when testing the beta.

If you instead try and do a complete install you end up at:

So as:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2764086/en-us

notes, SharePoint 2013 is NOT supported unless it is on a domain connected server, only then will you see:

and the ultimate end results you are after

When you use the GUI installation method.

New CIAOPS SharePoint book–preorder offer

I am just about set to publish my latest SharePoint title –

SharePoint Client Side

This book covers all of the desktop applications that can be interfaced to SharePoint 2010. It shows you how to use common Office applications like Word, Excel, OneNote and Outlook with SharePoint Document Libraries and lists. It shows you how Office Web Apps functions as well as more advanced applications such as Access, Visio and SharePoint Workspace. It also provides a brief introduction to the power of applications like InfoPath and SharePoint Designer.

In essences it demonstrates that the real power of SharePoint is how it can be integrated with the applications user every day. If you want to get more out of SharePoint than what you are getting now then this book will show you how by providing extensive information and tutorials on how to use, Windows Explorer, Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, Access, SharePoint Workspace, Project, Visio, InfoPath and SharePoint Designer with SharePoint 2010.

If you use SharePoint you need this book to give you the complete picture of what is possible with SharePoint on the desktop.

I expect to have the book ‘e-published’ by this time next week and until then I am going to make the following pre-release offer:

– 50% discount off the price of the finished product (i.e. $4.38 vs $ 8.76 RRP)

– all 3 ‘e-versions’ of the finished work (ePUB, Kindle and PDF)

Conditions

– full payment of $4.38 receive prior to the ‘publishing’ of the final product most likely next week.

To take advantage of the offer please contact me (director@ciaops.com) to arrange payment.

If you are already a CIAOPS SharePoint and Office 365 Guide subscriber you’ll receive a copy of the title once it becomes available as part of your subscription.

Do wait to too long to take advantage of this offer.

SharePoint Online backups – when?

What many Office 365 users don’t seem to appreciate is that Microsoft backups up their data. Not only their emails but also their SharePoint data. This is all part of the service.

Now, equally valid questions are how often do they do that and for how long is a backup retained? The answer to these questions can be found in the service descriptions for each service:

Enterprise plans – http://www.microsoft.com/en-au/download/details.aspx?id=13602

In there (under SharePoint Online Service Description, P18) you’ll find:

Data Backup

Data protection services are provided to prevent the loss of SharePoint Online data. Backups are performed every 12 hours and retained for 14 days.

It is always good to have multiple backups of any data source in multiple location but part of the Office 365 DOES including automatic backups of that data residing there.

Need to Know Podcast–Episode 41

Join me in this episode as I speak with Microsoft OneNote MVP Ben Schorr about a product we both love – OneNote. Ben explains how OneNote works and how it can help just about any business manage information overload.

http://ciaops.podbean.com/2012/11/20/episode-41-ben-schorr/

Don’t forget all the other podcasts at http://ciaops.podbean.com and appreciate a like over at http://www.facebook.com/n2kpodcast.

Remember if you want to be a guest please contact me (director@ciaops.com)

Windows 8, end of an era?

Now let me ask you, what do consumers want when it comes to technology? I’d suggest that they want new gadgets (devices) and apps. I would also suggest to you that most apps are simply the front end onto larger online “services”. So, I would contend that consumers want devices and services.

I’ll bet that if I now ask you what Microsoft does you won’t know. Impossible I hear you say. They do software is your reply. Are you sure? Really sure? If you visit the Microsoft homepage and have a look at what the name of the tab says I think you’ll be surprised.

It says Devices and Services, right there on the homepage.

Would it be fair to say that Microsoft is now aiming itself squarely at the consumer who wants devices and services rather than software? I would think so and nothing confirms that to me more than Windows 8.

I would also contend that Windows 8 signifies something else significant. It signifies the end of the IT Professional age. Look at the landscape today, most major providers (Apple, Google via Android and now Microsoft) are all providing a very similar technology platform. Sure there are some minor differences but basically it is all about devices and services. They are beginning to look the same both in their hardware and software. Doesn’t this indicate the final phase in the consumerization of technology? Doesn’t this mean there is less room for the traditional IT Professional?

Technology has become mainstream. Just about everyone has a smart phone, most are replacing their PC with tablets. Don’t believe me? This article spells out the Dell suffered a 47% drop in profit and pointedly:

Revenue from PCs, which still account for about half of Dell’s sales, declined 19% from a year ago to $6.6 billion. The biggest drop was in sales to consumers, which fell 23% to $2.5 billion.

PCs are in the thick of an industry-wide decline as customers increasingly turn to tablets or smartphones. In the third quarter, world-wide shipments of PCs plunged more than 8% from a year earlier, according to research firm IDC. Dell’s shipments fell 14% in the quarter, IDC said.

Many bemoan the loss of the Start button in Windows 8 but I reckon many, many more will welcome the new ‘touch friendly’ interface with open arms. Like it or not it is simply the way the world is going and that world is being driven by the consumer who simply sees technology as part of the landscape. For example, consumers don’t care whether they are running ice cream sandwich or jellybean on their Android phone, they just want to access the services they want on the device of their choice. Simple. They want nice icons they can tap with their fingers.

The IT Professional age was characterized by a knowledge few who understood how to twist the knobs to make technology work. That need is becoming no more. Most people can work it out for themselves or can find it using a search engine. To me Windows 8 is recognition from the final big player in the market that the world has changed, technology is a utility and they now need to focus on a different audience. All that means that traditional SMB IT Professional ‘PC generalist’ is fast becoming an extinct species.