Steve's TS2 Insider

Q: (from Joseph)

Great TS2.  You did a great job.

You mention that there was a free tool for copying / syncing Outlook Public Contacts to Personal Contacts.

Can you send me a name of the tool?  And, if you have it, where to find it?

A:

I looked around for the contact sync tool from Microsoft and the only one I found was from 2001:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=2D31C7F0-B871-49CE-9F96-712A1695E372&displaylang=EN

which I’ve used as recently as 2003.

Looking beyond Microsoft, I found:

http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/sync-mail.asp

which includes a tool called Add2Excahnge which appears to offer similar functionality. But I have no personal experience.

Q: (from Dan)

Always great to see you present and allow partners to pick your brain…

As per today’s discussion, here are a few questions that have been compiled:

· Is there a side by side comparison of Groove Vs. SharePoint?

· Is there a battle card for SharePoint vs. Google Dashboards and/or IBM WebSphere?

· Can you point me to anything to really promote/show Business Intelligence on SharePoint?  Something we can replicate to learn from and show ourselves?

· Can you provide any information on how to handle email management within SharePoint?

Good job on your presentation, great job on handling question (as usual).

A:

Thanks for the kind words.

Here is are answers to your inquiries:

Groove vs. SharePoint – I couldn’t find a document that I liked which clearly showed a comparison. Perhaps because they both address the same issues, but with a different approach, we seem to only discuss the approach differences: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/groove/HA101680011033.aspx?pid=CL100604881033.

SharePoint vs. the competition – My recommendation would be to reach out to our Competitive Support team at (800) 426-9400 X88827 or https://partner.microsoft.com/US/salesmarketing/40016218

BI Demo – If you are a Registered or Certified partner you should be receiving either the ActionPack or the Partner Monthly Mailing respectively. In the ActionPack, you should be receiving the Technology Demonstration Toolkit; my demo came off of volume #8. There is a similar set of demos on the Demo Showcase in the Certified Partner Monthly mailer.

SharePoint & email – I’m not sure what you are looking for here, but the email/SharePoint integration is pretty fundamental. Here is a demo: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/HA102047921033.aspx?pid=CH101788401033

I hope this helps.

Q: (from Jim)

I enjoyed the T2 Event in Newark, DE yesterday. I had asked about the upgrade path for clients with Windows 2003 Server w. Software Assurance and whether or not they would get Hyper V if they upgrade to Server 2008. Can you please forward this question to the right folks on your end and let me know what the answer is?

Thanks very much,

A:

From page 30 of http://download.microsoft.com/download/E/E/C/EECF5D44-9A88-43D8-AFDB-D2AB82BE035C/Win%20Server%20Lic%20Book%20customer%20hi-res.pdf

“Previous versions of Windows Server can be upgraded to Windows Server 2008, as shown below. Volume Licensing customers who have SA on Windows Server Standard, Enterprise, or Datacenter editions can opt for either Windows Server 2008 with or without Hyper-V. Once they decide, they will not be able to switch. Upon renewal of their SA, they will acquire the appropriate SA renewal SKU.”

Q: (from Peter)

When publishing an app, is a TS license and an application license (think Office) required?

A:

Are you talking about RemoteApp? If so, the answer is “Yes”

For example, if you have 20 people who would be using Office over TS but the maximum number of simultaneous users would be 10, you would still need 20 TS CALs and 20 licenses of Office.

If it’s a 3^rd party app, Office licenses are not required; you need to follow the 3^rd party licensing rules, but you still need the 20 TS CALs.

Q: (from Rachel)

Do you have access to something like this…

A DVD with audio that would talk about “upgrading the desktop” or something similar that my partner could play on a giveaway TV in a kiosk format at an event?

Her Partner received one at a Partner event …she believes it was a TS2 event.

A:

I’ve tried to keep copies of everything distributed at TS2 events and although the name sounds familiar, I was unable to find any disks with that title. I also checked MS Market (internal marketing resource) and couldn’t find anything with that name but we do have a partner "Ready to Go" marketing campaign called "Upgrade the Desktop".

http://www.mspartnerdirect.com/action/microsoft/site/catalog/campaign/CampaignView?campaignID=114

My guess is that a disk with that title might have been included, but any videos on that disk would have been designed to play on a computer and not on a video player.