Information about SharePoint, Microsoft 365, Azure, Mobility and Productivity from the Computer Information Agency
Just announced another full day SharePoint bootcamp in Brisbane on Thursday the 10th of November 2011. For details and registration please visit:
http://www.ciaops.com/bootcampbne/
Don’t forget that this a full day hands on course that not only includes all meals and documentation but also a 12 month subscription to my SharePoint Guide (www.wssops.com) and an external hard disk full of SharePoint machine images you can use for your learning well after the course is over.
I’m going to do a series of blog posts on the differences between the plan offerings in Office 365. I’ll update all the previous posts as I complete future articles. The first one will be on the differences in the Lync Plans
Product
1 – Lync
2 – SharePoint
3 – Exchange
4 – Enterprise Suites
5 – Small Business Suite
6 – Office Web Apps
7 – Office 2010 Professional Plus
8 – Kiosk Suites
|
Feature |
Lync Online |
Lync Online |
|
Instant messaging (IM) and presence |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Lync-to-Lync audio/video calling (1-to-1) |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Lync federation (IM/presence/audio/video) |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Click-to-communicate in Office |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Authenticated attendee in Lync meetings* |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync® |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Online Meetings |
No |
Yes (up to 250 attendees) |
|
Initiate ad-hoc and scheduled online meetings |
No |
Yes |
|
Initiate multiparty (3 or more users) Lync audio/video sessions |
No |
Yes |
|
Initiate interactive data sharing (screen/application/whiteboard) |
No |
Yes |
|
Interop with third-party dial-in audio conferencing services |
No |
Yes |
|
Rights to Lync Server CALs |
Lync Standard CAL |
Lync Enterprise CAL |
|
Price (A$/user/month) |
A$3.20/user/month |
A$10.20/user/month |
* Enterprise Suite E1 includes Lync Plan 2
* Enterprise Suite E2 includes Lync Plan 2
* Enterprise Suite E3 includes Lync Plan 2
* Enterprise Suite E4 includes Lync Plan 2
* Small Business Suite includes Lync Plan 2
Very happy with the feedback Wayne Small and I received on our recent presentation on SBS 2011 Essentials at SMB Nation 2011 Fall.
My thanks again go out to Wayne Small for the opportunity to present with him as well as SMB Nation.
I’ve been making some more appearances on the Net and in trade magazines.
Firstly, some of my opinions from this blog have appeared in the October edition of Computer Reseller News (CRN) Australia. The article is not available online but you can download the PDF here:
http://www.ciaops.com/storage/docs/crn_oct_11.pdf
In there I talk about the support issues around the Office 365 P product here in Australia.
The next article you’ll find at:
http://boxfreeit.com.au/Productivity/how-to-edit-sharepoint-online-files-on-the-ipad.html
and details the challenges that you’ll face if you want to edit Office documents from SharePoint with an iPad. Here is the first part of the story:
One of the most surprising challenges with Office 365’s SharePoint Online is to get it working effectively on an iPad. The solutions are by no means easy or straightforward.
The workaround below uses third-party applications on the iPad as middlemen to download files stored in SharePoint Online to the iPad for editing and then save them back up to SharePoint.
The most important app you’ll need to get documents to and from SharePoint is DropBox. A free account lets you synchronise up to 2GB of files between the cloud and your desktop. Once in the cloud you can access those files from your iPad.
Next you’ll need an iPad app that can read Office documents in DropBox and edit them. There are a few; I chose Office2 Plus. There is both an iPad and an iPhone app starting from around $6. The free versions let you view Office documents but not edit them, which is the same situation if you log in through your browser and use the native Office Web Apps in SharePoint Online. So to edit documents you’ll need to shell out for the full version.
Finally, you are going to need an app that can access your SharePoint Online site. Again, there are a few of these but the one chosen here is called SharePlus. The Pro version is $14.99 which lets you make changes rather than just read files.
Now we have all the apps in place on our iPad (DropBox, Office2 Plus and SharePlus).
For the rest of the article visit – http://www.boxfreeit.com.au/Productivity/how-to-edit-sharepoint-online-files-on-the-ipad.html
http://www.ciaops.com/office-365-seminar/
This is opportunity for you to learn about these latest ‘cloud’ technologies and how they can integrate in your business. If you have been considering moving to ‘cloud’ technologies this course will give you valuable hands on information about how these technologies work. if you are already using Office 365 and Windows InTune you’ll benefit from learning how to make these applications work better and more productively as well as learning advance features and time saving tips and tricks.
The cost for this full day is only $ 299 ex GST and includes all meals and course material. If you are interested in learning about the benefits ‘cloud’ technologies can provide you or you want to get more from Office 365 and Windows InTune then you should sign up for this course. Places are limited so don’t delay.
Once you have a bit of SharePoint experience under your belt you’d really like to consolidate that and let people know via certification. The best options are the following 2 certifications available from Microsoft:
70-667 – TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Configuring
70-668 – PRO: SharePoint Server 2010, Administrator
However, if you come from the world of SMB and SharePoint Foundation things are going to be a little more tricky than simply sitting these exams. This is because both of these exams focus not just on SharePoint Foundation but also SharePoint Server. This means you are going to need to know about not only SharePoint Server configurations but also things like Network Load Balancing, Virtualization, and so on.
70-667 is perhaps a more basic exam with a number of questions presented in sequence. You can generally return to any of the questions at anytime and review your answers. 70-668 is little different in that it gives you scenarios that you need to read, then you are expected to answer a few questions based on the scenario. Once you have answered these questions you can’t return and review them. Thus, you only have a limited time to read, digest and answer what is presented in each case.
If you are coming from an SMB background and SharePoint on SBS you are going to need to learn about SharePoint server. The best suggestion (apart from my Guide and installing it on a VM) is to have a look at these publications:
Professional SharePoint 2010 Administration By Todd Klindt, Shane Young, Steve Caravajal – http://astore.amazon.com/c00ef-20/detail/0470533331
and
Microsoft® SharePoint® 2010 Administrator’s Companion By Bill English, Brian Alderman, Mark Ferraz – http://astore.amazon.com/c00ef-20/detail/B0043M52KY
Not that I have read it but there is also the following book specifically focused on the 70-667 exam:
MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-667): Configuring Microsoft SharePoint 2010 (Training Kits) – http://www.amazon.com/MCTS-Self-Paced-Training-Exam-70-667/dp/0735638853/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317964888&sr=1-3
At the end of the day both the 70-667 and 70-668 are focused on SharePoint Server but if you know your SharePoint Foundation stuff and are prepared to learn a little about SharePoint Server then you should be able to pass the exam and add these certifications to your roster.
Final day of the conference and the information still keeps coming. The first session of the day started off with a look into Access Services and how to develop solutions that will run on Office 365. It is really impressive to see how easily you can move applications from Access to the cloud.
The great part about this for smaller businesses is that Access Services comes with the P license (which I don’t generally recommend) and the E3 license. It demonstrates how much additional functionality a small business can get if they move to Office 365 as trying to implement the same functionality on site is simply too expensive.
Next up was another fantastic presentation on Excel services and what can be achieved here. I was amazed at how little effort is required to get a really powerful dashboard that includes pivot tables, slices, interactive graphs and more. The presenter even showed some of functionality of Excel from Skydrive including how to embed Excel spreadsheets on just about any web page. Really, really impressive stuff that inspired me to return and implement something similar.
Although it was a significant cost to attend and although the majority of the content at the conference was focused on the enterprise I’m glad that I attended. There is just so much around this product as I have said before. There is simply so much opportunity, even in the SMB space., even more so going forward with the move to Office 365.
Perhaps the most exciting thing is what Microsoft have planned to bring to Office 365 in the future and all of that will be available to all subscribers, big and small. Now I need to start reviewing al the other sessions I wasn’t able to attend but are available on the conference we site. Certainly can’t complain about the ongoing value of this conference. I’m sure it’ll keep me busy for at least another 12 months.
Phew, it’s been a hectic 2 days full of SharePoint goodness. Most of the content is aimed at enterprise types but is becoming more relevant with Office 365 (which provides enterprise SharePoint in the cloud).
I also finally managed to spend some time with all the vendors who are also here and must say that I found plenty of opportunities. Again, most are focused on the enterprise with enterprise level pricing but there are also a few option here that would suite SMB. I’ll need to spend some time digesting all this information before I post my findings.
After Day 2 we also had the opportunity to attend Disneyland (which closed off for everyone except the SharePoint conference attendees). Most of the rides were open, there was free food and drink which everyone took advantage of. It was a good time.
While I am here I also took the opportunity to sit the Microsoft SharePoint 2010: Configuring (70-667) exam. I am also please to report that I passed the exam and now have a SharePoint 2010 competency under my belt.
The event has been jammed packed with information and I realize now how much more there is to SharePoint and what an opportunity it presents. From configuring, to administering, implementation and development, there is just so much to this product.
Tomorrow is the final half day of the conference and then it’ll be over for another year. They have announced the one next year will be in Las Vegas in November. Roll on 2012!
CIAOPS 