http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/ Mitchell Ashley talks with interesting people about interesting topics in the world of Microsoft. en Copyright 2009 Microsoft desperately needs a response to the competitive threat of Google Apps and they've responded very strongly with Office Web Apps. My guest this week is Chris Bryant, Director of Office Product Management at Microsoft. Chris joins me to talk about Office Web Apps and answer some important questions about how we would use Office Web Apps and how they work with the full Office 2010 versions, including SharePoint 2010, within the enterprise. (26:27) http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2009/100709com-chrisbryant.html http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2009/100709com-chrisbryant.html Wed, 7 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400 Joining us this week on the podcast is repeat guest Sam Ramji, interim president of the CodePlex Foundation. Microsoft recently stunned the industry when it announced the formation of CodePlex, an independent open source non-profit organization.CodePlex Foundation intends to address the barriers that have traditionally inhibited corporate developers from participating in or contributing to open source projects. We'll learn on the podcast how Sam and other volunteer contributors working to shape the CodePlex Foundation plan to address these and other questions. Sam also announces his next position, after recently leaving Microsoft. The CodePlex Foundation position is an interim one, and Sam is joining Sonoa as VP Strategy, a startup with ambitions to become the Google Analytics of online APIs. http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2009/093009com-samramji.html http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2009/093009com-samramji.html Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400 This week, TA McCann, Founder and CEO of Gist joins Mitchell Ashley to talk about how Gist helps you build stronger relationships with people you know by connecting information on the web with information in your e-mail inbox. While somewhat similar to Xobni, the popular Outlook plug-in that pulls up useful and interesting information from your inbox, Gist’s solution is much different in its implementation and the greatly expanded information it gives you. Gist is connecting people and companies you most frequently converse with to information on the Internet like news, blog posts, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook feeds. Rather than spending your time searching the Internet to find out the latest happenings with a customer, business partner or friend, Gist brings all of that information to you through an Outlook plugin and on their web site. Gist analyzes your inbox in the cloud rather than on your desktop, analyzing e-mail from your Outlook, Gmail, IMAP e-mail, and relationships in your Salesforce, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook accounts. Gist opened up their beta to the public on September 15th and if you do a lot of your business through e-mail and researching people and companies using the Internet, Gist is definitely worth checking out. (36:43). http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2009/092009com-gist.html http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2009/092009com-gist.html Sun, 20 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400 SharePoint is Microsoft's fastest growing, most successful server product in history. But SharePoint isn't like most other IT technologies, such as databases, Web servers, and traditional .NET applications SharePoint has many handy templates and can be configured right out of the box to quickly begin delivering value to an organization. That same flexibility and power can also result in runaway SharePoint projects, leaving IT to run the servers and respond to end user problems and application issues they didn't have a hand in creating. So just how do you run a successful SharePoint implementation project? Our guest is author of the O'Reilly book SharePoint for Project Management and Innovative-E business process consultant Dux Raymond Sy. Dux regularly works with organizations to bypass the pitfalls of technology solutions looking for a problem, and brings end user and IT teams back to the fundamentals of addressing business needs of an organization. During the podcast, Dux and I both share our experiences helping get SharePoint projects started off on the right foot, and how to make sure SharePoint is solving a really valuable end user need, not just acting as a newer and better file server. Dux also shares with us the three most common mistakes made by SharePoint projects. (30:51) http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2009/091009com-dux-sharepoint.html http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2009/091009com-dux-sharepoint.html Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400 Microsoft released to manufacturing System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2, which along with previously RTM’d Windows Server 2008 R2, supports the much anticipated Live Migration feature. Our podcast guest is Kenon Owens, Technical Product Manager on the Integrated Virtualization Team at Microsoft. Kenon and I talk about Live Migration, how it works, and how the new Quick Storage Migration feature was essential to enabling Live Migration. Live Migration is a key capability that’s had Hyper-V at a disadvantage to its competitors, particularly VMware. We also touch on updated support for VMware VCR 4 so Virtual Machine Manager can continue to manage VMware virtual servers as well as Hyper-V. Another important feature is the ability to add or remove storage from a running virtual machine. We wrap up by talking about other improvements including network performance improvements, support for new Intel and AMD processors, and SAN migration support. Microsoft has made significant progress with Hyper-V and Virtual Machine Manager since their introduction just over three years ago and many believe Live Migration support brings Hyper-V up to being enterprise ready. If you’re considering or already involved in using Hyper-V, you’ll want to be sure and check out this podcast with Kenon Owens. (30:08) http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2009/082809com-kenonowens.html http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2009/082809com-kenonowens.html Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0400 Mike Schutz, Director of Product Management in the Microsoft Windows Server Division and a seven-year Microsoft veteran, joins us to talk about securing Windows Hyper-V. If you want to know what’s happening with virtualization in Windows Server, Remote Desktop Services (formerly Terminal Services) and Hyper-V, Mike’s guy in the know. http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2009/081709com-schutz.html http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2009/081709com-schutz.html Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0400 Our guest is Sarah Haase, Collaboration Manager for Microsoft SharePoint at BestBuy.com. Sarah leads the charge assisting groups within BestBuy.com using SharePoint for knowledge management and business process automation. Sarah also manages the company’s internal wiki which runs on Confluence. http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2009/081009com-sarahhaase.html http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2009/081009com-sarahhaase.html Mon, 10 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0400 Sam Ramji, Senior Director of Platform Strategy joins us to talk about Microsoft’s recent open source code contribution to Linux. Microsoft surprised, maybe even shocked, the industry by submitting three Linux drivers to the Linux kernel team licensed under the GPLv2 open source license. It’s certainly the most visible and significant open source contribution Microsoft has made to date. The Linux device drivers comprise 20,000 lines of code which optimize Linux when running under Hyper-V. The contributions are also important because we increasingly see signs that Microsoft recognizes the role of open source and the importance of supporting mixed Windows and Linux environments for their customers. During the podcast Sam Ramji and I dive into details about the GPL'd Linux drivers, talk about how Microsoft worked with members of the community during their development, discuss why Microsoft submitted the drivers under the GPLv2 license, and examine what it took to gain consensus within Microsoft to open source the drivers under the GPL. Sam also brings clarity to a related controversy of claims that Microsoft was forced to GPL the drivers because prior distributed driver code had linked to other GPL licensed code. In closing, Sam briefly talks about the importance Microsoft is placing in working with and support PHP on Windows Server. (31:16) http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2009/080309com-samramji.html http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2009/080309com-samramji.html Mon, 3 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0400 It's here! Windows Server 2008 R2 is RTM! Windows Server Division product manager Eric Jewett joins me on the podcast to go in depth about all that's important in Windows Server 2008 R2. We cover the new Live Migration feature and many performance improvements in Hyper-V, "green" CPU power consumption improvements of up to 18%, scalability and reliability improvements, and Remote Desktop Services (former Terminal Server) including presentation improvements and the addition of the RDS connection broker. There are also many Windows 7 specific additions including DirectAccess support, and BranchCache that locally caches and serves up large non-volatile files from a cache server or Windows 7 user machines instead of downloading them multiple times over a WAN link. Windows Server 2008 R2 is available for download the second half of August if you are a Technet or MSDN subscriber, and we’ll start to see R2 from OEMs in the September/October timeframe. (28:21) http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2009/072209com-ericjewett.html http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2009/072209com-ericjewett.html Wed, 22 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400 We're back! Yes, the Converging On Microsoft podcast is back in action. Joining me on the podcast is Xobni co-founder Matt Brezina along with Microsoft Subnet blogger Ron Barrett. Xobni is a Microsoft Outlook plug-in that surfaces social networking information from your Outlook .pst and .ost file, and helps you connect email senders to their social networking presence on LinkedIn, Facebook and on Hoovers. Matt's on the podcast to tell us about Xobni Plus, the first paid for version if Xobni that adds a query search builder, conversation and network search, rank-powered autosuggest, and more filtering capabilities. (31:40) http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2009/071709com-xobni.html http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2009/071709com-xobni.html Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400