Customer logic

I’ve been pondering what the appeal might be of Office365 for customers and you know what I reckon will be the number one draw card? I reckon it’ll be that they’ll see it as a way to get Office cheap.

Office365 will offer the ability to install Office Professional Plus 2010 on the desktop (depending on which license is chosen). You can read more about this here:

http://office365.microsoft.com/en-US/office-web-apps.aspx

A few technical people I have spoken to about this have scoffed at my notion (which isn’t uncommon for one of my notions), yet I still think it may be the case. Why? May be because customers still don’t understand all this cloud stuff but they understand Office on their desktop and getting that cheaper is better in their minds.

You gotta stop thinking like a technician and start thinking like a customer I reckon if you want to sell this cloud stuff. I shouldn’t be telling you that because I plan to sell the cloud to your customers so I’d better shut up now eh?

Digital story of Nativity

Couldn’t resist this one:

<img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-a_6DQqcGUBo/UP8bxVn4MDI/AAAAAAAAHzc/lJicYDU74ww/video2083608dfec9%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-style: none" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('ea5b4582-fbac-4bac-8cad-95bed72c45ef'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "

http://www.youtube.com/v/GkHNNPM7pJA?hl=en&hd=1“;” alt=””>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkHNNPM7pJA

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all readers of this blog.

New SharePoint options for SMB

So SBS 2011 Standard has been released and will soon make its way onto the servers of SMB customers (so they say). SBS 2011 Standard includes an on site version of SharePoint 2010. This version is SharePoint Foundation 2010, which is kind of the upgrade from Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.

Now SharePoint Foundation 2010 is a free download from Microsoft, which you could install on a Windows 2008 server without the need for SBS 2011 Standard. SharePoint Foundation 2010 also has a bigger sibling know as SharePoint Server 2010. SharePoint Server 2010 comes in two flavours, standard and enterprise both of which are really priced out of the market for SMB customers.

SharePoint Server 2010 enterprise has plenty of really great features including Access Services which allows you to host an Access database in SharePoint and using it through a web front end. It includes InfoPath services that allows you to host intelligent forms created with InfoPath on SharePoint without the need to have InfoPath installed on the desktop. Along the same lines you’ll also find Visio and Excel services. SharePoint Server 2010 also includes features like social networking so people can ‘like’ and rate results which improves their relevance to the organization. It includes something known as My Sites that gives each employee their own portal as a way of aggregating information about them and what they are working on. Finally, SharePoint Server 2010 includes a much improved and extended version of search.

Typically all this was out of the reach of smaller customers because SharePoint Server 2010 requires both server and client licensing, thus they settled for the reduced functionality in SharePoint Foundation 2010. But guess what? They don’t have to any more. Why? Because when Microsoft makes it’s latest version of cloud services available via Office365 customers can get access to almost the complete functionality of SharePoint Server 2010 for a few dollars per user per month.

Many of the projects I get engaged with are looking to develop an intranet using their SBS server. That’s great, and for some customers that will work well but when I speak to most customers about the benefits they receive from hosted SharePoint Server 2010 via Office365 combined with the reduction in administration, reduction in licensing complexity and so on, most are choosing to go with the online offering.

Until Office365 officially launches clients need to sign up with BPOS which is currently limited to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 but they all see the benefits of getting on board sooner rather than later and can’t wait for the upgrade to Office365 to take place. Personally, I can’t either because it is going to give businesses of all sizes access to enterprise software for a few dollars per month per user.

Roll on Office365.

Upgrade or downgrade?

I’ve been testing the limits of SharePoint Designer of late as I work on an automated vacation calendar that I’ll be making available soon. If you didn’t already know, here are some interesting issues I have found with SharePoint Designer so far.

Firstly, you can only use the latest version of SharePoint Designer with the latest version of SharePoint. Thus SharePoint Designer 2007 only works with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 while SharePoint Designer 2010 only works with SharePoint Foundation 2010. The same applies to the bigger SharePoint Server versions as well. So, if you are like me and need to work with both versions of SharePoint you need both versions of SharePoint designer installed on a machine. Couldn’t have the newer version supported the older version of SharePoint? I know it is completely new technology but….really?

Now, the thing that really has my nickers in a knot is the fact that Microsoft seem to have deprecated (read removed) a feature that I make extensive use of. In SharePoint Designer 2007 you can send an email as part of a workflow. Thus an email like this:

allows you to also embed HTML so that the result looks like:

This allows you a great deal of formatting flexibility to improve the presentation ability to end users.

BUT try exactly the same formatted email using SharePoint Designer 2010 and this is the end result:

that is, HTML is no longer rendered. What the hell? How come this was removed from a NEWER version of SharePoint Designer? I can’t see it being because of the newer SharePoint 2010 technology, because all it is doing is sending an email.

This makes it very difficult to format professional looking emails from SharePoint 2010 now doesn’t it? I find it interesting that Microsoft touts SharePoint Designer 2010 as the tool for creating workflows yet it removes this sort of basic functionality.

There are a few places on the Net where a potential work around is provided for this but that usually requires modifying the web server configuration files on the actual SharePoint server, something not generally possible on hosted SharePoint now eh? What’s the bet that isn’t enabled with the Office365 version of SharePoint when it becomes available either? (Pretty high I reckon).

So, the only solution seems to be to design with Visual Studio but that means I gotta go out and buy, install, and learn how to code before I can do something as simple as format an email!

Surely there has to be an solution to this, surely?

Need to Know Podcast – Episode 11

The latest episode features Microsoft Security MVP Dana Epp from Scorpion Software (http://www.scorpionsoft.com/) speaking about the insecurities of wireless technology. Dana also delves into topics such as selling security to customers, how to monitor security and what to do if breeches are detected. He also spends some time discussing why ‘community’ is so important to the SMB segment.

You can access the podcast directly from:

http://ciaops.podbean.com/2010/12/14/episode-11-dana-epp/

as well as view all previous episodes at:

http://ciaops.podbean.com

where you can not only subscribe via mediums such as iTunes but also leave comments and ratings on each episode.

If you are interested in, or know a business that is, sponsoring the show please contact me directly (director@ciaops.com). Also if you would like to appear as a guest or would like to hear from someone specifically again contact me (director@ciaops.com). Finally, if you think the show has provided you with value I’d appreciate any donation you’d care to make. All donations go to helping me improve what is offered (http://www.ciaops.com/donation).

No work at work

One of the best books that I’ve read this year is Rework. If you haven’t read it then you should no matter whether you run a business or not. I’ve also posted previously about how the authors are focused on improved productivity, unlike so many other businesses these days. Thanks to Hilton Travis there’s now another video of Jason Fried where he talks about how most people say that the office (i.e. work) is not the place they go to actually do work (i.e. be productive).

You’ll find the video here:

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/12/05/fried.office.work/index.html

and it is only 15 minutes or so long but well worth the watch if you want to begin to understand why being at work destroys your productivity. Jason also provides some suggestions for boosting the productivity of the work place by not having meetings and having a period of silence to allow people to concentrate. Now that’s novel eh?

It is amazing to me how many businesses, large and small, are still struggling to be more competitive. My advice? Take a look at your environment and see whether you are actually allowing your employees to work. If you are an individual I challenge you to closely examine how much uninterrupted time (no emails, no phone calls, no interruptions, etc) you allow yourself in a day. If you are honest about it then I think you’ll find out that you really are just spinning your wheels.

If you want more free time I say then you need to commit to being more productive. Until then you are simply in denial.

iTunes star

I’m proud to say that my podcast series has been accepted by iTunes and now appears in their podcast directory. The web page for it can be found here:

http://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/ciaops-need-to-know-podcasts/id406891445

It is also nice to see that someone has already gone in and given it a rating (thanks VM Guru).

For all the episodes and easy ways to subscribe visit http://ciaops.podbean.com. A new episode due out next week and this one will be with noted security professional Dana Epp.