TechNet Webcast: Mastering Exchange Server Scripting (Level 300)
Tuesday, August 09, 2005 - 9:30:00 AM - 10:30:00 AM Pacific Time

Small Business Webcast: Using Microsoft Exchange Server in Small Business Server 2003 (Level 100)
Wednesday, August 17, 2005 - 1:00 PM - 1:45 PM Pacific Time

Momentum Webcast: Fighting Spam the Microsoft Way (Level 100)
Tuesday, August 2, 2005 - 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM Pacific Time

Momentum Webcast: Common Troubleshooting and Support Issues for Exchange Server 2003 (Level 100)
Thursday, August 18, 2005 - 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Implementing Exchange Server Security (Level 200)
Wednesday, August 24, 2005 - 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Microsoft IT: Exchange Security at Microsoft (Level 300)
Tuesday, August 30, 2005 - 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Implementing Messaging Security for Exchange Server Clients (Level 200)
Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Mastering Exchange Server Scripting (Level 300)
Tuesday, August 09, 2005 - 9:30:00 AM - 10:30:00 AM Pacific Time

Small Business Webcast: Using Microsoft Exchange Server in Small Business Server 2003 (Level 100)
Wednesday, August 17, 2005 - 1:00 PM - 1:45 PM Pacific Time

Momentum Webcast: Fighting Spam the Microsoft Way (Level 100)
Tuesday, August 2, 2005 - 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM Pacific Time

Momentum Webcast: Common Troubleshooting and Support Issues for Exchange Server 2003 (Level 100)
Thursday, August 18, 2005 - 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Implementing Exchange Server Security (Level 200)
Wednesday, August 24, 2005 - 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Microsoft IT: Exchange Security at Microsoft (Level 300)
Tuesday, August 30, 2005 - 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Implementing Messaging Security for Exchange Server Clients (Level 200)
Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM Pacific Time

Every businessman/woman will tell you that the best business they ever earned came from a reference or word of mouth. There are numerous brands around the world that have survived decades on the cult following alone, despite being technically inadequate or ridiculously overpriced. This is no less true for the software and hardware industry than it is for the motorcycle industry. When you have individuals or groups passionate about the products you put out, they can make or break your business initiative or the latest advertising campaign.

Earlier this week Dell shut down its highly popular message boards and effectively alienated a lot more people than they imagined and effectively cut the heads off their evangelists.

Their reasoning: it became a support forum.

Well no (expletive deleted). When you sponsor a community, encourage it to promote your product, on your site, organized and promoted by your stuff — what else can you expect?

Corporations do not understand that by opening themselves up to feedback they will receive the good with the bad. That level of transparency is nothing but positive for the company and gives them a realtime feedback on the shortcomings of their product. Corporations have massive market research budgets aimed at just that: tell us what you want.

Second of all, no corporation should sponsor a forum and turn its back on it. One of the most successful forums I have ever seen in my life has been the EV1 Servers forum where the CEO, along with many managers, takes the time to post news from time to time. Dell seemed to take it hard when people complained about the product quality. EV1 CEO had to answer to his customers complaints that the company hosts terrorist web sites with movies of American civilians having their heads chopped off.

Fact of the matter is, many corporations do not understand what community initiatives are all about. They talk about community as if it is a department in one of their subsidiaries. Bottom line is that it is all about people. People who are seeing assistance from other people. You cannot approach this group with a set of initiatives, a to-do list, or a memo. You have to learn how to reach them on the personal basis. With all the executives simply ignoring the Maslow’s Hearchy of Needs it is sometimes puzzling how many of them even made it out of the business school.

Regarding the User Group Resource DVD we gave away last night, the Virtual PC HD (vhd) image needs to be expanded using WinZip which is provided in the root of the CD. It will NOT be expanded using the Windows built in zip so please don’t try extracting it, or copying it from the CD to the disk, the archive is not corrupt. It just needs some WinZip love.

If you have not yet put this disc in your drive, you NEED to do it before you close this message. If your business depends on SBS this DVD is packed with all the guides, demonstrations, sales scripts, marketing collateral, demo Virtual PC images with ready-to-go SBS 2003, and step #1 when the content loads is making money. And in case you don’t read the text in long boring paragraphs, the

Content on this disk is more important than anything you will find in the Action Pack.

I had a pleasure of being accompanied by JJ Antequino to the Tampa Bay SBS Partner Group. We had one of the best turnouts ever, over 25 people showed up to hear us discuss the new program.

Rene Alamo and I talked at length about the Small Business Specialist Program recently announced by Microsoft and JJ Antequino fielded questions from the partner community. He is Florida’s TS2 presenter (SST) and I’m glad he got some face time with the partners that truely care about the IT industry and believe in the efforts Microsoft is working on in the SMB.

Big thanks to everyone that showed up and I hope you learned something. I will announce my LiveMeeting seminars shortly, look forward to helping everyone get certified on 70-282.

Well, its the second Tuesday of the month, the official Microsoft patchday.

Summary is available at Microsoft Technet, they are all critical updates and patch holes that could allow for remote code execution.

Vulnerability in Microsoft Word Could Allow Remote Code Execution (903672)
Vulnerability in Microsoft Color Management Module Could Allow Remote Code Execution (901214)
Vulnerability in JView Profiler Could Allow Remote Code Execution (903235)

In addition, new Outlook 2003 Junk Filter rules have been released.

Regardless of how you may feel about the Microsoft’s new small business specialist program, you have to admit it is a step in the right direction. Not just by Microsoft, but by all the companies that now have a legitimate venue of certified professionals to pursue and market to.. and through!

First of which appears to be Computer Associates. They are making the following offer (read below) to the new specialization and it is somewhat revolutionary if you’ve ever had to deal with the AV folks. Not only was obtaining NFR (not for resale, fully functional software) almost impossible and very expensive, but there has not been a non-intrusive evaluation version since at least 1995 (good old McAfee command line scanner).

Let us hope CA is followed by many other companies who realize the benefit of the program and the members who showed initiative to become certified at it.

Original Announcement:
Computer Associates International, Inc. has announced support for the new Microsoft Small Business Specialist Community by inviting partners who join to receive from CA a Show and Sell kit for its new CA Business Protection Suite for Microsoft Small Business Server Premium Edition, a $2000 value. The CA Business Protection Suites for Microsoft Small Business Server Premium and Standard editions offers protection for both server and desktop resident data for small business’s using or planning to implement the standard or premium edition of Microsoft’s Small Business Server. The suites include antivirus protection, which helps customers fend off the onslaught of viruses while easing antivirus administration and automatically updating virus signatures; Anti-Spyware, which detects and removes tens of thousands of “pests” - including spyware, adware, trojans, denial-of-service attack agents, and other backdoor web-based threats - safeguarding PCs from unauthorized access, information theft and diminished system performance; backup-and-restore protection of desktops, laptops, servers and mobile devices, and advanced system migration functionality that streamlines the capture and transfer of user settings and data during a PC refresh, operating system upgrade or desktop recovery.

The Show and Sell Kit which will be offered to Microsoft Small Business Specialists at no charge for the kit includes: (Nominal shipping & handling fee will apply)
* A free version of the Business Protection Suite for Microsoft Small Business Server Standard edition that can be used in their organization and for demos to their customers.
* A free, 5-user license of the Business Protection Suite for Microsoft SBS Standard Edition that the MS Small Business Specialist can re-sell to a customer.
* 10 live trial cds that they can give to prospects to test drive the solution
* 10 data sheets/collateral that the partner can use to highlight the benefits of the solution to their prospects

More information can be obtained by visiting
http://www.ca.com/microsoft/sbspecialist/

Read the entire Exchange Server 2003 Security Hardening Guide online or download the Exchange Server 2003 Security Hardening Guide . This guide is designed to provide you with essential information about how to harden your Exchange Server 2003 environment. In addition to practical, hands-on configuration recommendations, this guide includes strategies for combating spam, viruses, and other external threats to your Exchange 2003 messaging system. Important: Since the previous version of this guide was released, the following new topics have been added and are available only online:
• Running Exchange Server 2003 Clusters in a Security-Hardened Environment
• How to Run Exchange Server 2003 Clusters in a Security-Hardened Environment

Harry Brelsford is reporting from Microsoft WWPC that there are some concerns by Microsoft Certified Partners that the new small business designation is going to dilute the value of their Microsoft Certified Partner program. Here is my response:

As a Microsoft Certified Partner, I can tell you that the ones complaining either do not understand the small business market or have not read through the benefits and qualifications they would get by obtaining this credential themselves. Even as a MCP you can get the Small Business Specialist designation for your company, I have. Here are my opinions, I’ll be glad to educate any MCP on how they can realize a lot more value than they think from the Small Business Specialist Program and, more importantly, Small Business Specialists.

Does it dilute their program value?
No, it reinforces it. How? Microsoft, for the first time, is actually providing the 1-man-shops with some legitimacy as they have shown at least some level of competency in deploying Microsoft software because they have become certified at something. This will bring a huge amount of advertising and awareness of the Microsoft Partner program and raise the stock of the Microsoft Certified Partners — Until now the difference between the “Microsoft Certified Professional” and the ‘Microsoft Certified Partner” on the business card was nearly indistinguishable.

As far as an opportunity is concerned, as a Certified Partner now I have Microsoft pointing out who I can subcontract and send my smallbiz work to and trust them not to destroy the clients network. Microsoft Certified Partners generally do not work with SOHO and being able to work with someone, even a 1 man shop, is an amazing benefit. You get a person that has put in enough initiative and self-motivation to get certified, pass the tests, subscribe to the Action Pack, and even get their logo out there. This is the kind of a partner you want — we all started small.

As for the value, by getting the Small Business Specialist you still get 25 MSPP points to use towards a higher certification level. You also get a listing in the resource directory for small business products.. so now not only can you approach smallbiz clients with the fact that you have a lot of resources, employees and experience, but you can also show them that you have the ability to understand their business and recommend an appropriate solution. If all your marketing collateral shows the big boys and Fortune 500, you can’t close on the small business. But if you show them “Hey, Microsoft recognizes me for my ability to give you what YOU need, at the price YOU can afford — Look at what Fortune 500 paid for their solution — millions, and we sold it to them… Now I can give you that same power for $599!” and watch their eyes light up.

Eric Ligman (Sr. Manager, US Small Business, Microsoft Corp) posted the following information as a response to a number of questions raised on the mssmallbiz mailing list. It certainly answers a lot of my questions but keep them coming, as I’ve said before, everyone that does anything in the smallbiz needs to have this credential. If you’ve got questions or concerns, this is the time to bring them up (while they are listening):

And let me add a little bit more to this for further clarification:

1) Small Business Specialist is not a Partner Level (like Registered, Certified, or Gold)
2) Small Business Specialist is not a competency in the Microsoft Partner Program
3) Small Business Specialist is a designation that a Partner at any level, Registered, Certified, or Gold, can look to obtain to differentiate their business as one that focuses on serving the needs of Small Businesses. So, you could be a Registered Member of the Microsoft Partner Program that is a Small Business Specialist or you could be a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner that is a Small Business Specialist (same for Certified). On the flip side, you could be a Registered Member, Certified Partner, or Gold Certified Partner and not be a Small Business Specialist.
4) Yes, Small Business Specialist does earn you 25 Microsoft Partner Points; however, it is not a competency. So if you have (2) competencies already, you can still use the 25 points from Small Business Specialist in your total (even though there is a cap of 2 competencies for points normally), because this is not a third competency.
5) On the Small Business Center website (http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness), which is where we point our Small Business customers through our advertising, the “Find a Partner” tool will list Small Business Specialists first because they focus on Small Business. As such, a Certified Partner that is a Small Business Specialist will list before a Certified Partner that is not a Small Business Specialist. Why? Because if a customer is looking for a
Partner on the Small Business Center, they are most likely a Small Business Customer and would be best served by a Partner with a Small Business specialization. Will a Certified Small Business Specialist come up before a Registered Member Small Business Specialist? Yes. Why? Because not only do they have a Small Business Specialization, they have also taken the extra steps to become Certified. So for those of you who are already Certified and have been suggesting that now that the Small Business Specialization is out it will alleviate the need to be Certified anymore, here is just the first example of where that is not the case.
6) You will see additional “proficiencies” be added within the Small Business Specialist Program around items like: Security, CRM, Financial Management, Retail Management, Business Productivity, etc. over time so that not only can you designate your organization as a Small Business Specialist; however, you can become a Small Business Specialist with a CRM proficiency, for example. To gain these proficiencies, you will need to meet minimum requirements (which will be determined as the proficiencies get introduced).
7) How many times have you been a part of, instigator of, or witness to a conversation that includes, “As a Registered Member that is a one or two person shop, we are too small to qualify to be Certified Partners, yet we have more SBS or Small Business skills than any of those who became Registered Members just to get Action Pack. How are we supposed to differentiate ourselves if Microsoft makes it too hard to reach that based on our size?” Sound familiar to anyone???? Well, part of the goal of this program is to help you do just that. Anyone who became Registered just to get Action Pack will no longer be on the same level as you. You will have an advantage. Those of you who have become Certified, you will still have all of the advantages of the Certified
Level, which still exceeds that of the Registered Level. And no, becoming a Small Business Specialist does not get you all of the advantages of being a Certified Partner. One thing to look at though is that by becoming a Small Business Specialist, those of you who really want to reach the Certified Level but were not quite big enough, you now earn 25 Partner Points which helps get you closer to attaining that goal. Those of you who are Certified, the 25 points gets you that much closer to obtaining a Gold Level if you choose to pursue it.

As someone very close to this program, I see it as offering a lot of positive upside to any Small Business Partner that really wants to differentiate themselves and use the program to get ahead. Looking at the issues that were raised in the past and complaints we have heard, I think we are much better off with the offerings available as of yesterday vs. what was available last week as several of these items are being addressed with the Small Business Specialist Program. As the program continues to grow and the additional proficiencies become available, I do believe this will become an even greater asset for all of our motivated Small Business Partners, which again, will help differentiate you from those who are in it just to be in it. And isn’t that one of the big things you have been asking for?

Ok, that’s enough typing for one post…

Thank you and have a wonderful day,

Eric Ligman
Senior Manager, Microsoft US Small Business