Microsoft vs. Blackberry

Microsoft announced the new Microsoft® System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008 and that will make the main competitor rethink all strategy.

The main reasons that keeps Blackberry selling devices and servers are the supportability, the easy way to manage devices from a centralized point in the network. And the feeling of security that a blackberry user gets when he use his device.

From now on Microsoft will try to compete in this areas, centralizing the management of mobile devices in the Active Directory via Group Policies and bringing a new layer of security to the mobile network, implementing software distribution

Very well explained @ Mr. Mobile

There are 3 core areas of capability in Systems Center Mobile Device Manager 2008.

1) SECURITY: Windows Mobile devices will be able to participate in Active Directory.  They will join Active Directory and can then be managed through Group policy to allow administrators to control the features and functions of a Windows Mobile Device.  You can control whether WiFi can be enabled, the camera can be used, which applications can be whitelisted or blacklisted.  There are over 130 policies that can be deployed.  

2) DEVICE MANAGEMENT: IT teams can manage Windows Mobile phones end-to-end through a single solution rather than many, helping save time and resources.  

• Easy distribution of software over the air
• Easily add more users as needed and as solution grows
• Over the Air enrollment of devices- just type in a password and go.
• Integration with Windows Server and mobile development investments, such as AD, GP, MMC Console, Powershell, WSUS 3.0, and Microsoft Dynamics

3) DATA ACCESS: System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008 provides a Mobile VPN that gives a secure single point of access to the corporate network.  You can use this to access any line of business applications or Intranet applications.  It also enables a fast reconnect if disconnected and provides easy transition from Wi-Fi to carrier networks with Internetwork Roaming

System Center Mobile Device Manager will be available in the first half of 2008.  

Scalability

Security

del.icio.us tags: Microsoft® System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008

PopFly goes public

PopFly goes into a public beta and the logo had changed too!...

Introduction

What is Popfly?

Microsoft® Popfly™ is a web site and tool to help people create and share web sites, mashups, and other kinds of experiences. It has two parts: the social network, which we call "Popfly Space" and the online tool for creating different kinds of experiences, which we call "Popfly Creator."

What can you do with Popfly?

Programming is not something that takes years to learn. With Popfly Creator, in just a few minutes, you can create something that will have people saying "wow."

With Popfly you can create a mashup using functionality from Virtual Earth, Flickr, Yahoo!, Twitter, and more.

del.icio.us tags: popfly

Hotfix for Excel

Hotfix for Excel released

"(...)If you're a fan of the numbers 65534.9999999995 and 65535.99999999995, we've got good news for you. The bug that caused them to display 65535 and 65536 has been fixed. We released a couple of hotfixes for the issue yesterday. If such things interest you, head over to here and here to check out the Knowledge Base articles that will help you. Those are the fixes for both Excel 2007 and Excel Services in Office SharePoint Server 2007. One other note: This is NOT a security vulnerability. It's a formatting issue with the display of some calculation results."

Technorati tags: excel, fix

Windows Live SkyDrive updated

The beta of Windows Live Skydrive was updated today.

the news are:

• increased storage capacity, from 500 Mb to 1 Gb

• RSS Feeds on Public Folders

• See who uploaded a file

• Add a contact directly within SkyDrive

You can check for more @ the Windows Live SkyDrive team blog

del.icio.us tags: Live Skydrive

ITIL Foundations

Since last week I'm ITIL Foundations Certified, but WTF is ITIL?

the best description (...and help for the exam...) I've found it  on Jose Barreto's blog:

"(...)a framework for IT Services Management. But what can you really learn from a set of books on IT Infrastructure published by a UK government agency? Oh, quite a lot!

The idea behind it is to offer best practices for IT processes, using consistent terms that can be understood globally, no matter what IT environment you work on. If you find any value in similar systems like the ISO 9000, CMMi or EFQM, you will probably benefit from learning about ITIL. For me, the most important aspect of this training was to get a better understand of what this ITIL buzz is all about and to understand the terminology used by it. It helps put the entire set of IT Processes in perspective.

So what are these processes anyway? Well, the ITIL books define a number of them and, since they all interact with each other, it’s actually hard to talk about each one individually. They are grouped into two major groups each one in its own book: Service Support and Service Delivery. The Services Support book describes services (and a function) that is offered to your end-users (called simply IT users). The Service Delivery book includes services that are provided to the teams that sponsor or hire those IT Services (called simply IT Customers). There are other books in the library, but these are the main ones."

check the rest of the post for a more explanatory description of some processes and some study material.

del.icio.us tags: ITIL, Framework

Microsoft Active Directory Topology Diagrammer

The Microsoft Active Directory Topology Diagrammer reads an Active Directory configuration using ActiveX Data Objects (ADO), and then automatically generates a Visio diagram of your Active Directory and /or your Exchange 200x Server topology. The diagramms include domains, sites, servers, administrative groups, routing groups and connectors and can be changed manually in Visio if needed.

Windows Mobile Communicator RTM

Microsoft released the new communicator client for Windows Mobile devices.  Communicator Mobile 2007 requires Windows Mobile 5 or 6.  The client can be downloaded here.

 

del.icio.us tags: ocs 2007, communications Server 2007, mobile communicator 2007