http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/ Mitchell Ashley talks with interesting people about interesting topics in the world of Microsoft. en Copyright 2009 I'm happy to welcome a repeat guest on the Converging On Microsoft Podcast, Simon Crosby, CTO Virtualization at Citrix. Simon joins us to talk about a newly announced initiative called Project Independence (you might also want to check out the press release.) Citrix's Project Independence makes some interesting and bold predictions. (29:10) http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2009/021309com-crosby.html http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2009/021309com-crosby.html Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Unified communications has been a long time coming but some feel we’re finally ready to ditch the PBX in favor of a full software solution using Microsoft’s Office Communications Server 2007. Joining me on this episode of the Converging On Microsoft podcast is Terry Gold, CEO and founder of Gold Systems. Terry is a long time expert in voice communications, speech recognition, PBX and VoIP technologies and has been an integral partner to Microsoft in the development and deployment of OCS 2007. During our discussion, Terry talks about what’s in OCS 2007 R2 that finally makes it possible to replace the enterprise PBX with OCS. Terry also talks about key capabilities like presence in OCS and the Office Communicator client which integrates with Exchange calendar information. If you are involved in unified communications or in the process of evaluating Office Communications Server, you’ll get a lot of value from our conversation. (25:11) http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2009/012209com-uc.html http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2009/012209com-uc.html Thu, 22 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Jeff Kaplan, managing partner at THINKstrategies joins me to dive deep into what IT organizations are doing with SaaS. The economic challenges seem to have accelerated use of SaaS by IT groups, maturing SaaS to a point where it is much more palatable to IT. (27:45) http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2008/112008com-saas-kaplan.html http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2008/112008com-saas-kaplan.html Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0500 In part 2 of my interview with Savvis CTO Bryan Doerr we jump into the implications of the economy and how the impact helps or hurts enterprise IT, SaaS ISVs, and SaaS providers like Savvis. (19:45) http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2008/102408com-downeconomy.html http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2008/102408com-downeconomy.html Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400 Not to be left in the cloud of dust kicked up the Salesforce, Google, Amazon and others, Savvis announced their entrant to woo ISVs onto their SaaS hosting platform and services. Savvis CTO, Bryan Doerr, joins me for part 1 of the podcast to talk about the Savvis offering, and more specifically, what Savvis is doing to differentiate from others already going after ISV SaaS hosting and services. (23:07) http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2008/102208com-savvis.html http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2008/102208com-savvis.html Wed, 22 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400 Does a simple user name and password cut it in the world of cloud services, SaaS and Software+Services? This week’s podcast furthers the theme of utilizing cloud services for our applications, discussing how cloud identity management services offer richer options for managing user identities in applications that operate using services outside of the enterprise. (28:41) http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2008/092908com-cloud-id-mgmt.html http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2008/092908com-cloud-id-mgmt.html Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0400 BizTalk Server was in the news this week with Microsoft's announcement it will continue BizTalk development and release BizTalk Server 2009 early next year. Every enterprise deals will very difficult integration issues and BizTalk provides the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), or the message bus, that allows disparate systems and databases to communicate and integrate with each other. In this podcast, Technetronic Solutions CTO and BizTalk expert Donald Lutz joins us to explain how BizTalk works, how to download and learn to use BizTalk Server (recommended book: Professional BizTalk Server 2006), why Microsoft chose to bring out BizTalk Server 2009 rather than wait for the much touted Oslo technologies, why BizTalk isn't used in more Web 2.0 applications, cloud based Microsoft BizTalk Services, and what the future holds for BizTalk Server and Oslo. (24:13) http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2008/091208com-biztalk.html http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2008/091208com-biztalk.html Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0400 This week Eugenio Pace, Microsoft Platform Architect and Software+Services guru joins me to talk about building S+S applications using cloud data services. Eugenio is one of Microsoft’s best experts at architecting S+S applications. He spends his days researching, architecting, designing, building software, speaking, and writing about Software+Services apps. In the podcast, Eugenio and I explore why S+S apps are different than traditional web apps, and how software designers should approach SQL Server Data Services using cloud data services. Microsoft doesn’t offer a cloud data service offering yet, but SQL DS clearly is the vehicle for connect S+S apps into Microsoft’s forthcoming cloud services. Eugenio knows his stuff and whether you’re architecting S+S applications or someone who makes decisions about IT technology and spending, you’ll get a ton of good information from the discussion with Eugenio. (28:32) http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2008/082908com-e-pace.html http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2008/082908com-e-pace.html Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0400 HP, Intel and Citrix have joined forces by sponsoring a new event, Power IT Down Day on August 27th. The Federal business units of these organizations created this event to bring awareness to the need and benefit of turning off unused equipment, particularly end users’ desktop and other computing equipment when the leave work for the day. Estimates are that the US could see a similar spike in power costs over the next seven years that we’ve recently experienced with gasoline prices. If 10% of government employees followed the practice of turning off unused equipment during off hours, savings could be as much as $24,000 every day. Join me in talking Tom Simmons, Citrix Federal area Vice President, about why these companies joined forces to sponsor this event, learn how companies can participate, what would be considered a success and how you can help save energy costs. http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2008/082008com-power-it-down-day.html http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2008/082008com-power-it-down-day.html Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0400 This week I interview John Betz, Director Product Management for Microsoft Business Online Services. In our interview, John and I get into the details behind Microsoft's online hosted Exchange and SharePoint. We discuss who owns the customer, what service level agreements are offered or are in the works, the differences between the deskless and full hosted offerings, how partners can differentiate and offer additional services, and much more. If you are a Microsoft Partner considering how you can play in the world of hosted Microsoft solutions, this is a podcast you must listen to. (23:39) http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2008/080608com-betz.html http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2008/080608com-betz.html Wed, 6 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0400