I told you so... LAPD put the kibosh on switch the Gmail Cloud from on prem Exchange/GroupWise

REPORTING CLINT BOULTON SUMMARY: Google lost 13,000 Los Angeles Police Department Google Apps seats as part of its deal with the city. Microsoft was surprisingly quiet about the blow to its cloud computing rival. Earlier this month, the Los Angeles Police Department reneged on its agreement to replace its email and collaboration software with Google Apps, effectively removing 13,000 out of 30,000 seats Google had hoped to serve as part of its municipal government contract with Los Angeles... Reporting by http://EWeek.com

Lync for the IPhone , Windows Mobile and Andriod is out.

LYNC 2010 MOBILE : The game is now on!

And the Andriod version actually works!

http://lyncdup.com/2011/12/lync-for-iphone-and-ipad-available-for-download-now-screenshots-and-links/

To make this work you will need the follwoing patch...

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=11551

If your using non-common certificates in your implementation you may get the following error.

In which case you can as an option cadd  certificates to your mobile device
stores using admin tools , or switch to a common certifiacte authority.

Idiots! HP could've taken run at Apple and Google with WebOs touchpad.

Sigh!

At some point, somebody other than Apple is going to produce a tablet that really captures the public imagination. It could be Amazon, if early signs of strong demand for the new Kindle Fire hold up, but for now, the second-most popular consumer tablet in the U.S. is one that isn't even getting made anymore.
Hewlett-Packard's discontinued TouchPad was the best-selling non-Apple tablet in the U.S. from January to October, according to a new report from The NPD Group. Excluding iPad sales, HP had 17 percent of tablet market in terms of unit sales at retail, the research firm reported Tuesday, just a hair ahead of Samsung, which captured 16 percent of the market.


FULL STORY:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2396796,00.asp

The Battle for YOUR VoIP Integration dollars has begun...MS vs AVAYA vs CISCO!

Dear readers, all 3 of you. Things are about to get interesting.

Globally, despite 14 percent increase in shipments, revenue from enterprise telephony equipment fell four percent.

Cisco’s share held steady at 30 percent while Avaya’s rose from 19 percent to 22 percent.

Avaya passed Cisco as the IP telephony leader but Cisco retained its overall share lead because of its 80 percent share of the voice gateway market.

The next five vendors were all losing share in Q1 and Q2 2011.

The Forbes article then goes on to say that the VoIP sub-segment of the overall IP telephony market (it classifies IP Telephony as including IP Fax, SMS and or voice messaging with VoIP being the vast majority of the total revenue) remains hot with SIP trunking coming on strong to support what other researchers feel will be a shift from 31 percent of all business lines being VoIP now to 66 percent by 2015. It also points to the growth of smartphones and tablets and the upward pressure of enterprise socialization as driving the need for enterprises to switch to IP solutions (cloud as well as premises based) to accommodate the multimedia needs of these devices.

In other words, the troika of mobile-social-cloud is hastening the death of TDM communications equipment optimized for voice, and given that the last major upgrade/replacement cycle of most installed communications equipment was because of for Y2K fears, the reality is that the base has never been older and certainly is in need of a replenish. We actually reached what should have been a tipping point similar to what happened when the world shifted from analog to digital PBXs and Key Systems, but which has been forestalled to a certain extent by the use of gateways which preserve functionality of the core PBX and its software yet provide interoperability with the IP world.

Enter the 800 Pound Gorilla —That is NOT a Costume!
I will be brief here because this is a subject that is evolutionary and not revolutionary and will undoubtedly be returned to often. Now for the mischief that was promised
.
While Telegeopraphy sees a sales pick-up as a result of enterprise adoption of Unified Communications (News - Alert) (UC) and more VoIP, what I see is market mayhem.

 Numerous blogs have noted that at the recent Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, company officials (including CEO Steven Ballmer (News - Alert)) stated that the sales trajectories of Microsoft Lync licenses was clearly going to make it their next billion-dollar platform, and sooner rather than later.

For the unfamiliar, Lync is Microsoft's unified communications platform that combines voice, Web conferencing, and instant messaging. It was launched on a new server platform in 2010, is relatively inexpensive by industry and not just Microsoft standards and integrates will with Office 365. In fact, the only thing it is missing at the moment is a robustness in its PBC functionality in its hosted/cloud formulation, but this too shall come.
Why is this important? I am going to go here with a keen grasp of the obvious. After wandering in the PBX/VoIP wilderness for almost a decade, Microsoft has it right.

Better yet, from an IT department standpoint, especially for multi-nationals, the coming integration of Skype (News - Alert) is going to only add a level of brutality to traditional incumbents. And, make no mistake about it, Microsoft is lusting after the 10 million installed lines of Cisco as a target of opportunity. {  Dude it's called an EA they already have rights to ync 2010 or Wave 15 ;)  - KP the VoIP Outlaw}

And, did I forget to mention that industry statisticians, netmarketshare.com (who track everything from browser to OS to tablet shares) last time I looked gave Microsoft Windows 92.44 percent of the desktop operating system market. Okay so they don’t have a presence in the tablet OS or mobile handheld markets, but the hands they do hold are those of ID decision-makers and can you spell

INTEGRATION if at first they don’t succeed?

So what is missing from the Forbes piece and the Telegeography outlook? How about those folks in Redomnd, WA who brought us Outlook?

The facts are that all traditional providers of premises-based telecommunications equipment need to be doing something more than looking in their rearview mirrors. As the late, great African-American pitcher Satchel Paige used to say, “Don't look back; they might be gaining on you.”

This is not going to be a case of age before beauty. Yes, Microsoft has gotten things wrong in the past. Yes, even IBM managed to mangle the PBX business years ago and exasperated sold out to Siemens. However, time is running out. Technology is moving too fast and the installed base is ready to be yanked out. It is going to be interesting...." - Paul Bernstein TMC

FULL STORY : http://sip-trunking.tmcnet.com/topics/enterprise-voip/articles/235874-pbx-market-shares-microsoft-lync-what-not-yet.htm

HTML 5 Rules. Flash is Dead. {Except on Gaming Pcs } Long live HTML5

Adobe is trying to put a positive spin on the news that the company is stopping development on mobile Flash Player. From now on, Adobe will focus on HTML5 and AIR-based native apps for smartphones, while pushing forward with Flash Player on PCs.

"We are super excited about the next generations of HTML5 and Flash," Adobe's Danny Winokur wrote. "...There is already amazing work being done that is pushing the newest boundaries, and we can't wait to see what is still yet to come!"

Props to Adobe for keeping its chin up. But now that the company isn't developing Flash Player for mobile devices, it's only a matter of time before desktop Flash Player fades away as well.

Although desktop computing is still the best way to get work done, people are increasingly turning to smartphones and tablets for leisure. According to Comscore, phones and tablets now account for 7 percent of all U.S. Internet traffic, and that number will surely skyrocket over the next few years, affording less breathing room for desktop Flash.

FULL  STORY: http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,243529/printable.html

iApple : The Ying and Yang of the world 2nd biggest company

The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs

Since Steve Jobs' death last month, the airwaves and Internet have been filled with tributes to Apple's co-founder, including here. (See: Apple Founder Steve Jobs Dies: Reflections on His Legacy)

In addition, Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of Jobs became an overnight sensation, topping bestseller lists here and abroad.

Another tribute of sorts can be found at New York City's Public Theater in the form of a one-man show: The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.

Created and performed by monologist Mike Daisey, the show is, in part, a hysterically funny love letter to Jobs from a self-described tech "geek" and Apple aficionado.

"I've grown up with Apple, love the devices and love the design," Daisey says. "I loved Steve Jobs and the way he was able to meld a human sense of taste and editing in creating these incredibly effective devices."
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/agony-ecstasy-steve-jobs-mike-daisey-says-techology-134300755.html
With the passing of Steve Jobs last month, there have been countless tributes to the man who created the company that changed the world. But along side all the amazingly beautiful, functional and revolutionary products Jobs created, there is a slighter darker side to Apple, which rarely makes headlines.

Mike Daisey, storyteller extraordinaire and lifelong "Machead", explores both the good and the bad surrounding Apple in his new Off Broadway play appropriately titled, "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs."

The professional monologist joined The Daily Ticker's Aaron Task to talk about the show he created and currently performs in at Manhattan's Public Theater. In the accompanying video, Aaron and Daisey discuss the "agony " aspect of Apple, which focuses on the reportedly horrendous labor conditions in the Chinese manufacturing plants where some Apple products are made. (For the "ecstasy" part of this interview, see: The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs: Mike Daisey Says Technology Is 'New Religion')

China's Foxconn: Workers Worked to Death
It was back in the spring of 2010 when at least 10 suicides were reported at Foxconn's manufacturing plant in Shenzhen China. Foxconn is the world's largest electronic manufacturer making product for Hewlett-Packard, Nokia and Apple's iPad.
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/darker-side-apple-human-cost-iproducts-164412176.html

Microsft made a strategic choice, in deciding to give up mobile computing space leadership to Apple/Google

Microsoft's Courier tablet

(Credit: Gizmodo)

Steve Ballmer had a dilemma. He had two groups at Microsoft pursuing competing visions for tablet computers. 

One group, led by Xbox godfather J Allard, was pushing for a sleek, two-screen tablet called the Courier that users controlled with their finger or a pen. But it had a problem: It was running a modified version of Windows. 

That ran headlong into the vision of tablet computing laid out by Steven Sinofsky, the head of Microsoft's Windows division. Sinofsky was wary of any product--let alone one from inside Microsoft's walls--that 

threatened the foundation of Microsoft's flagship operating system. But Sinofsky's tablet-friendly version of Windows was more than two years away. 

For Ballmer, it wasn't an easy call. Allard and Sinofsky were key executives at Microsoft, both tabbed as the next-generation brain trust. So Ballmer sought advice from the one tech visionary he's trusted more than any other over the decades--Bill Gates. Ballmer arranged for Microsoft's chairman and co-founder to meet for a few hours with Allard; his boss, Entertainment and Devices division President Robbie Bach; and two other Courier team members. 

At one point during that meeting in early 2010 at Gates' waterfront offices in Kirkland, Wash., Gates asked Allard how users get e-mail. Allard, Microsoft's executive hipster charged with keeping tabs on computing trends, told Gates his team wasn't trying to build another e-mail experience. He reasoned that everyone who had a Courier would also have a smartphone for quick e-mail writing and retrieval and a PC for more detailed exchanges. Courier users could get e-mail from the Web, Allard said, according to sources familiar with the meeting

FULL STORY:  

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-20128013-75/the-inside-story-of-how-microsoft-killed-its-courier-tablet/

Microsoft has released Update Rollup 6 for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1).
Description of Update Rollup 6 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1

Download Update Rollup 6 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1

"Time will tell us; if this was the right choice, however on thing is working for MS$ Lync plus Skype have made Cisco wake up and look over its shoulder..." - Dr. Strangelove

Google apps not wanted here!

I'm sorry, officer.

Jon Brodkin, Ars Technica

Two years after the City of Los Angeles approved a $7.25 million deal to move its e-mail and productivity infrastructure to Google Apps, the migration has still not been completed because the Los Angeles Police Department and other agencies are unsatisfied with Google’s security related to the handling of criminal history data.

Los Angeles officials originally expected to roll Google Apps out to its 30,000 users by June 2010, in partnership with systems integration contractor CSC. But that number has been reduced to about 17,000 employees, largely because of security objections raised by the LAPD and other safety-related departments. Advocacy group Consumer Watchdog opposed the deal, and this week released a letter LA officials sent to CSC in August, which states “The City is in receipt of your letter dated May 13, 2011, wherein CSC indicates that it is unable to meet the security requirements of the City and the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) for all data and information, pursuant to U.S. DOJ Criminal Justice Information Systems (CJIS) policy requirements.”

"like I told you, and even steve b told you in 2007...this was a mistake" - k. preddie

story:

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2011/10/google-apps-los-angeles-police/

Full story: 

Nice article about consumer devices market trends and its impact

Tim Worstall, Contributor @ Forbes

There’s a nice essay in The Telegraph today about how fast the pace of technological innovation is: how quickly we seem to be getting new shiny gewgaws to play with.

We have, of course, Amazon just coming out with it’s Fire, Apple are about to release the iPhone 5, Samsung, if it can get the court related matters sorted, has products for both markets. Google has created Android to compete with Apple as Amazon is with the Fire and Microsoft has so many irons in the fire it seems tobe both competing against and cooperating with everyone else.

But underlying the details of who is doing what to and with whom, there’s two much larger economic points to make:

For any new device, there’s a brief period when it’s the plaything of trendsetters with disposable income to burn. But the key moment comes when they enter the mainstream. You might have thought that tablet computers were already taking over the world one commuter at a time – but just wait until you see them in every school, every workplace and every home.

The first is the influence of markets and capitalism upon this process. It’s often thought that it is capitalism itself which drives both technical innovation and the higher living standards which that itself brings. But it’s not really: it’s markets more than capitalism. This is at the heart of a lot of the work of William Baumol, trying to untangle what it is that makes some societies innovate furiously, others not so much.

Yes, of course, the pursuit of profit is influential: but much more than that it’s the experimentation, the variance, the consumer choice, that markets enable which really matters.

The reason for this is the second important underlying point. It’s not actually the existence of cell phones, of tablet computers, nor even their possession, that makes us richer. It’s what we do with them that does.

It might be that we can do the same old thing more swiftly, cheaper or better. Or it might be that we can do completely new things with these new technologies. Doesn’t matter particularly which: but it’s the use to which technologies are put, the way that they increase productivity, which creates wealth, not the production of the technologies themselves.

Which is where the joy of markets comes in: the consumer gets to choose which version of whatever it is that they want. Which version contains the right ingredients for said consumer to do that value adding thing. More, different consumers, different groups of consumers, will have very different ideas about what is value adding. No one designing a piece of technology can possibly think up all the things that 7 billion people will do with a new technological toy.

For example, the people who designed the original cell phone at Ericsson, none of them had any inkling that a use would be to enable gay people to hook up in bars as with Grindr. Or as a banking system in East Africa.

FULL STORY: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/10/01/apple-and-amazon-tablets-cellphones-capitalism-and-markets/?partner=yahootix

FAILED CORP or BALANCED PORTFOLIO CORP - What's Right with Microsoft Strategy or lack off...

"....I expect that Mr. Turner will do the big picture for us. I like this comment regarding one point of view of how things are going for Microsoft:

There are certainly some issues at MSFT but some of the people that post in this blog are just over the top in their pessimism and whining. As I see it right now, the good, bad, and ugly of MSFT are: The good:

• XBOX Kinect blew it away this past Holiday, over 35M customers now pay for the priviledge of XBox Live
• The enterprise business is strong, committed revenue is higher than it's ever been (MSFT has a global enterprise business that is really unmatched by anyone
• Office365 and Dynamics both are rapidly growing businesses with a ton of upside
• MSFT now has 11 distinct businesses that do over $1B in revenue - I can think of maybe one or two other businesses on the planet (GE, etc) that can say the same
• Largely because of this diverse portfolio of businesses, MSFT was able to grow revenue, operating income, and net income in spite of *declining* PC sales (MSFT is not a one-trick pony any longer, if it ever was)
• Even with weakness in the PC market the past couple of quarters, it's hard to argue with the success of Windows 7 with over 400M licenses sold
• MSFT's Cloud offerings collectively are second to none
• Bing has a long ways to go but has actually made some progress in the US search market against Google, which was once thought impossible
• As an employee, unless you are a bottom 20% performer, the new comp plan is a win. If you don't think so, then you don't really understand the change
• Say what you will about Ballmer, there are some senior execs at MSFT that are truly outstanding. Mattrick, Satya, KT, Qi Lu, PK, Lisa B - you won't find anyone better than these folks anywhere
• The Nokia partnership will be instrumental in getting a WP7 device in a lot of people's hands

The bad:

• As mentioned, PC sales actually declined in Q4
• MSFT still hasn't figured out a way to win in India or China and doesn't seem to have a cohesive strategy for emerging markets
• WP7 is a good product but as others have alluded to, MSFT is way late to the party in terms of highly functional / attractive UI / rich app eco-system smartphones. The Nokia deal only allows MSFT some hope at playing catch-up at this point
• Employees will soon have to pay a contribution (and deductibles) for health care (thank you very much ObamaCare and the Cadillac Tax for bringing that to us)
• Although there are talented people still there, a lot of talented folks have left MSFT senior leadership in the past 18 months or so - Liddell, Elop, Muglia, Bach, etc, etc. Although Elop was instrumental in getting the Nokia deal up and going

The ugly:

• AAPL sold 20M iPhones and over 9M iPads in a quarter. In. A. Quarter. Let that sink in a moment
• While MSFT has plenty of other viable businesses, none is as profitable nor as core strategically as Windows. Windows was once an impenetrable fortress, but in the past year, AAPL has penetrated it with a single product launch. MSFT is destined to play catch-up in slates, and it sounds like nothing serious is coming out until Windows 8 in another 12 to 15 months (maybe)
• MSFT is still very strong in the enterprise but to the consumer, MSFT seems completely dead. MSFT has no consumer mindshare any longer
• Yes, there are some interesting possibilities with Skype and Lync and XBox (etc), but it is still not at all clear that shareholders will reap anything close to $8.5B of value
• GOOG still dominates search in the US and will for the foreseeable future. And their dominance is even greater internationally
• OSD as an org continues to bleed money and will continue to do so for at least another couple of years

There it is, from a high-performing L63 employee in a broad-based business role, trying to lay things out in a truly fair and balanced manner. Take it or leave it...."

What went wrong with Microsoft re-imagined.

ARS TECHNICA :  Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer today said the overhaul of Windows is part of a larger goal to transform the whole company, making every one of its businesses optimized for new hardware form factors and cloud services.








The Windows 8 user interface is a dramatic change from Windows 7, featuring Microsoft’s Metro-style tiles and optimization for both traditional PCs and touchscreen tablets.

Windows Server 8, now available in a developer preview, is also being upgraded to support the shift from local resources to cloud computing, featuring greater integration with Windows Azure. In all, Ballmer counted seven Microsoft businesses—Windows, Phone, Xbox, Azure, Office, Bing, and Dynamics—and said all of them “are moving to the cloud as their fundamental business model.”

“If Windows 8 is Windows reimagined, we’re also in the process, and Windows 8 is an important step of that, of reimagining Microsoft,” Ballmer said during the second day of keynote addresses from the BUILD developer conference.


"I won't suggest that Microsoft didn't copy or buy out successful products in the past. They did, and it worked. Why? They saw a good idea in the making at a local startup, bought it out, and then gave it the resources and support to turn it into a successful product.

That's a lot different from what Microsoft is doing now. Instead of recognizing good ideas and products before they become successful, it is continually trying to play catch up with innovative products, services, and companies which are already hugely successful. Just look at how Microsoft created Bing to compete with Google after fact, as well as the Zune.

More problematic is that the tech world is moving at a much faster rate now. In many cases it's not enough to simply provide a better product than your competitor. You have to be first to market (and many times redefine/create that market) to be successful. Think about how what the iPod did to the portable audio market.

User Rnmuos wrote:

Now the battlefield is shifting, the PC era is ending (to some extent), and they are playing catch-up. Telling them to come up with magical genius ideas is all well and good, but it's not something they've ever been particularly good at.

Having said that, Ballmer's speech sounds reasonable. There is something to be said for slowly but steadily building on what you know, rather than trying to "revolutionize" everything all the time.

I wouldn't say the battlefield is shifting. There is still a huge market for desktop PCs and laptops, especially in the business world. Rather, it is growing wider to encompass portable computing devices which are just now becoming practical due to advances in technology.

As to coming up with "magical genius ideas," Microsoft already has plenty of smart, innovative people working on great ideas (check out Microsoft Labs), but the upper management rarely takes these ideas and supports them. Just look at Microsoft Surface. How many years has that been in development? I know it started development WAY before the iPad.

Yet, why isn't it widely available? Why can't I walk into a store and buy it? The reason is simple: the upper management don't want to support it.

You will find the same lackluster attitude towards many of their lesser known products: give it a menial budget, rather than putting the full force of the company behind it and integrating its ideas with its other products.
These are clear symptoms of a visionless CEO and a bureaucratic power structure. " (sigh?)

-  Chronomitch | 11 days ago | permalink

APPARENTLY I AM NOT ALONE ON THIS ONE!

"...We can't confirm reports that employees left "in droves" during CEO Steve Ballmer's speech, as WinRumors has it, but the comments speak for themselves. Seattle PI has published a representative selection here. The one that caught my eye focused on the difficulty Ballmer's Microsoft has competing with the likes of Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG):..."

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/09/27/steve-ballmer-has-done-to-microsoft-what-george-w-bush-did-to-the-united-states/

FULL STORY :

- http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2011/09/steve-ballmer-we-are-reimagining-microsoft.ars?comments=1#comments-bar

Over the 'Labor Day Holiday' an update to Lync CU3 was posted quietly ;)

Lync Hotfixes released.

Some new hotfixes have been released, so this is a reference post that I hope will help someone in the future!


I’ve copied a link to the KB article and the title below for reference. Additionally the current (8/30/11) cumulative update for Lync is KB2592292

http://mbullock.wordpress.com/

---

Publishing Updates from Lync to Twitter and LinkedIn

- Saturday, September 10, 2011 - voipnorm@live.com (Chris Norman)

Gartner Magic Quadrant for August 2011 show Lync taking a lead....

I’m am not a big fan of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant reports, even though they are well written and extremely credible analysis. However, fellow Lyncheads we can not ignore that in traditional MSFT continuous improvement style that everyone's favorite "red headed step child" is taking the lead!

We can glean the following:

• + Alcatel-Lucent have moved up from “challenging” to “leading”
• + Siemens have moved up from “visionaries” to “leading”
• + Hauwei Technologies are new on the UC scene (just when you though these guys only manufactured 3G dongles?!?)
• + Digium (the folks that make Asterisk) have at long last entered the quadrant, specifically within the niche players market
• - Interactive Intelligence have dropped from “visionaries” to “niche players”
• - IBM have been overtaken by NEC
• - SAP have dropped off all together

Not addressed completely, in the report is the issue of free/almostfree VoIP services become increasingly attractive to corporations and their impact of future Lync "Wave 15" product design.

Full Story:

http://imaucblog.com/archive/2011/08/26/gartners-2011-uc-magic-quadrant-released/

Lync for Window7Phone, Android & iPhone.

MS confirmed Mango Windows Phone 7 handsets would sport a front facing camera as well asSkype integration and a mobile Lync client. The confirmation came via the TechEd event in New Zealand, where two Microsoft employees mentioned that Microsoft's Lync VoIP client also be available on other mobile platforms, including iOS, Android and Symbian. But the Lync client would be first available on the soon to be launched Mango Windows Mobile 7 software.

http://www.techzone360.com/news/2011/08/25/5731459.htm

[VOIP-this blog] The Great Aries (Astra & polycom) memory leak mystery / reboot

Today's sleepy Fishing Town Beach Picture

..Another day in UCC land..

Dateline: California your intrepid serial MS consultant is yet again going through another adventure. courtesy of the Polycom CX600.

When for some reason our mery band of VoIP phones, decided to boot themselves randomly during the day.

This was as you can imagine most annoying to our end users! Especially when calls were dropped mid sentence.

After snooping, a viewing report server logs and even running NETMON traces.

( Could've tried Cisco Span Port or what is sometimes called port mirroring.) Mon dieu!

All was feared lost until I found this little Powershell Cmdlet.

Buried in this tools and Windows CE logs output were juicy nuggets of "real data" that hint the underlying process. ( Here )

When I runtest-CsPhoneBootstrap -PhoneorExt +xxxxxxxxxxx -PIN xxxxxx -verbose

this output.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg412852.aspx

.....
Connecting to web service : https://global2sweb.com:443/Cert
Prov/CertProvisioningService.svc
Using Webticket Proof authentication
Tring to download MEX data from https://global2sweb.com:443/
CertProv/CertProvisioningService.svc/mex
Searhing for end point with name CertProvisioningServiceWebTicketProof
Searhing for end point with name CertProvisioningServiceWebTicketProof
Found endpoint with name CertProvisioningServiceWebTicketProof
Using CertProvisioningServiceWebTicketProof endpoint
Successfully created connection proxy and website bindings
Attempting ResolveUser()
Creating WebTicket security token request
ResolveUser() webservice call successful


TargetUri : https://global2sweb.com:443/CertProv/CertProvisioningS
ervice.svc
TargetFqdn : global2poolee1.com
Result : Failure
Latency : 00:00:04.6212873
Error : Uri returned by the web service does not match the given Uri.

Diagnosis :

VERBOSE: Target server fqdn or web service url not provided. Will have to do
DHCP Registrar Discovery.
'DHCPDiscovery' activity started.
Starting DHCP registrar discovery...

And from Windows CE was able to get at the phone dump logs.

UCD_LOG_INFO: 09/01/2011 | 09:48:23 UCDAPI: UCDUtilsGetRegistryLocaleInfo failed with hr 0x80070002, will try UCDUtilsGetOSLocaleInfo via GetLocaleInfoW.

And this from the .CG1 (WinCE Rsrc file):


09/01/2011 | 09:48:23 UCDAPI: UCDUtilsGetRegistryLocaleInfo -> RegOpenKeyExW failed with 2


-gibberish-


UCD_LOG_INFO: 09/01/2011 | 09:48:23 UCDAPI: UCDUtilsGetRegistryLocaleInfo failed with hr 0x80070002, will try UCDUtilsGetOSLocaleInfo via GetLocaleInfoW.


ICD_LOG_ERROR: 09/01/2011 | 09:48:23 UCDAPI: ---Logupload: Platform Info ---  and it gives the mac, serial, model, platform version - the firmware version is listed as not available - 


And this output from the .BAK file:


_:3_K€ekÿ_UCD_LOG_ERROR: 09/01/2011|10:04:38 Aries: 09/01/2011|10:04:38.656 BF000A:5600002 ERROR :: CContactProvider::Dereference: Error: hr = 8000000A
_n¬_K€÷
__UCD_LOG_INFO: 09/01/2011|10:04:38 Aries: 09/01/2011|10:04:38.808 BF000A:7EAD482 INFO  :: CContactsHDB::GetGalSequenceNumber: Full DB sequence = F33, Delta DB sequence = 0
_µ_K€+___UCD_LOG_INFO: 09/01/2011|10:04:38 Aries: 09/01/2011|10:04:38.809 BF000A:5600002 INFO  :: CContactProvider::OnContactQueryFinished: OnContactQueryFinished. query = 06C05D40, hr = 0
_CT ¾_K€1___UCD_LOG_INFO: 09/01/2011|10:04:38 Aries: 09/01/2011|10:04:38.809 BF000A:5600002 INFO  :: NModel::CContactModel::CreateResolutionQuery2: 2nd Resolution query for sip:k.h@sce.com
_G_¾_K€Ÿ___UCD_LOG_INFO: 09/01/2011|10:04:38 Aries: 09/01/2011|10:04:38.811 BF000A:5600002 INFO  :: NModel::CContactModel::CreateResolutionQuery2: 2nd Resolution query for sip:k.H@sce.com
___¼_K€____UCD_LOG_INFO: 09/01/2011|10:04:38 Aries: 09/01/2011|10:04:38.811 BF000A:5600002 INFO  :: NModel::CContactModel::CreateResolutionQuery2: 2nd Resolution query for sip:r.G@emc.com
_¼_K€Ã"__UCD_LOG_INFO: 09/01/2011|10:04:38 Aries: 09/01/2011|10:04:38.812 BF000A:5600002 INFO  :: NModel::CContactModel::CreateResolutionQuery2: 2nd Resolution query for sip:r.G@emc.com
_¾_K€ð&__UCD_LOG_INFO: 09/01/2011|10:04:38 Aries: 09/01/2011|10:04:38.813 BF000A:5600002 INFO  :: NModel::CContactModel::CreateResolutionQuery2: 2nd Resolution query for sip:k.H@sce.com
___¼_K€o*__UCD_LOG_INFO: 09/01/2011|10:04:38 Aries: 09/01/2011|10:04:38.813 BF000A:5600002 INFO  


It seam our little Polycom been busy indeed dowload stuff from DLX expansion. no wonder itsruns out of memory.

It  would be nicer MSFT; still that Aries phone  NOT  constantly reboot as means of "memory leak" resolution.

BTW - CLIENT side "workaround"  is to purge some Lync contacts and do a HARD RESET on the device. That is until MS comes up with a permanent solution...:(

Those interested in know more about how to resolve the tell tale (0x2ee7/0) error  on the Phones System Information dispaly should look at http://ledarma.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/polycom-doest-upgrade-error-0x2ee70/

[Freedom 2.0] Arab Spring - 2 dictators down? one to go.

Where is Gadhafi? Guessing game begins as an era ends in Libya

By Laura Rozen | The Envoy & (Ulf Laessing and Missy Ryan )| Reuters

President Barack Obama said the conflict was not quite finished but that Gaddafi's 42-year rule was over. He urged him to surrender to end the bloodshed. Obama and his NATO allies backed the six-month revolt with air power but eschewed the ground combat that cost American lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Your revolution is your own," he told Libyans, offering U.S. aid but not troops and urging the rebels to avoid settling scores in blood. "The Libya you deserve is within your reach."

"Egypt, still grappling with the fall of its own autocrat, abandoned its caution and recognized the rebel government. Other beleaguered Arab revolutionaries, notably in Syria, may take heart from a hard-fought triumph in the sands of Libya.

After Gaddafi, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must be "the most miserable person on earth," said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a political scientist in the United Arab Emirates: "Gaddafi's fall," he said, "will also inspire the Syrian people" - By Ulf Laessing and Missy Ryan | Reuters

"He's (Gadhafi ) is everywhere, he's nowhere; he's negotiating to get out, he will never surrender; who knows?" former United Nations official Mark Quarterman said of the contradictory reports about Gadhafi's fate in an interview Monday with The Envoy.

What's important for Libya's reconciliation process is not just that the dictator is on the way out, Quarterman stressed, but how he goes.

"Gadhafi's mode of leaving is very important," Quarterman, now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The Envoy. "If he leaves but aspects of his regime stick around—-people who keep the lights on, and pick up the garbage, and they cooperate with the new transitional authority, that's a good thing. ... But if there's chaos in his wake," that would be very bad.

Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, leader of the Libyan opposition National Transition Council, triumphantly declared "the Gadhafi era is over" Monday as rebels poured into the capital of Tripoli, meeting sporadic fighting and pockets of resistance in certain neighborhoods.

The NTC said they had three of Gadhafi's sons in custody or under house arrest--including former heir apparent Seif al-Islam Gadhafi and Gadhafi's eldest son, Mohammed. But they confessed they had no idea of the whereabouts of the dictator who has brutally ruled the North African nation for almost 42 years.

FULL STORY:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/envoy/where-gadhafi-guessing-game-begins-era-ends-libya-164721432.html

UPDATE : MODERN WARFARE 3.0

By Uri Friedman | The Atlantic Wire

When Defense Secretary Leon Panetta stated last week that Muammar Qaddafi's days were numbered, many news outlets--ourselves included--reported the news with some skepticism. After all, all sides in the conflict had declared imminent victory before, the Libyan leader was as defiant as ever, and the consensus among analysts was that the ragtag rebels faced steep challenges in seizing a relatively quiet and heavily fortified Tripoli.

And then suddenly, on Sunday, the unthinkable happened: rebel fighters poured into the capital with relative ease, swiftly taking control of much of the city (as today's heavy fighting suggests, fully rooting out the regime is proving more difficult).

What was behind the sudden shift in the six-month-old uprising, which observers had long dubbed an intractable stalemate? Let's take a look at some of the most intriguing theories:

Related: The Rebels Advance Toward Tripoli: We've Heard This Story Before

• Better NATO Surveillance and Coordination With Rebels American and NATO officials tell The New York Times that the alliance's targeting of Qaddafi's military had recently become more precise as the U.S. used Predator drones to monitor Qaddafi's forces near Tripoli. The sources add that Britain and France, among other nations, dispatched special forces on the ground inside Libya to help train and arm the rebels (this despite NATO's mandate to protect civilians rather than take sides in the conflict). As NATO air strikes gradually wore down the Libyan military's infrastructure and command-and-control structure, the officials explain, the enhanced surveillance and coordination proved lethal for the regime. As a case in point, The Times points to the fact that rebel leaders credited NATO with preventing Qaddafi loyalists from recapturing the strategic city of Zawiyah on Sunday.
• Frenetic NATO Bombing as Deadline Loomed The AP notes that NATO jets hit at least 40 targets in and around Tripoli in the past two days--the highest number on a single geographic location since the bombing began more than five months ago, according to NATO officials. The AP points out that "alliance's military planners have been racing against a deadline next month, when member states must vote on a second three-month extension of the mission," adding that "NATO officials deny there has been a fundamental shift in tactics in recent days to provide close air support to the advancing rebels."

• Sleeper Cells in Tripoli Fathi al-Baja, the head of the rebels' political committee, tells the AP that the opposition had been plotting Sunday's offensive for the past three months, collaborating with NATO and dispatching rebel smugglers to arm sleeper cells in Tripoli. On Thursday and Friday, he explains, NATO escalated its strikes on the capital (a comment that supports the NATO bombing theory), and on Saturday--at what the rebels called the "zero hour"--the rebels activated the sleeper cells, sparking protests in the capital. Baha adds that a special battalion guarding the gates of Tripoli surrendered because the unit's commander, whose brother had been executed by Qaddafi years ago, was secretly loyal to the rebellion. Britain's Channel 4 News is also reporting that a dissident group that had been making secret broadcasts and podcasts in Tripoli over the last several months used Twitter and Facebook to give rebel forces map coordinates of pro-government snipers and heavy artillery in the capital.

  Related: The Libyan Stalemate Suggested by Google Earth
  

FULL STORY :

http://news.yahoo.com/did-tripolis-stubborn-stalemate-suddenly-become-rout-194517115.html

BREAKING NEWS UPDATES 08.21.11

Libya conflict: Saif al-Islam Gaddafi re-emerges!

‎

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14626202

THE BATTLE FOR TRIPOLI, LIBYA - LIVE

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14610722

Cumulative update package (CU3) released for Lync 2010

The latest batch of Lync cumulative updates 3 are listed below:

Server-side updates

Lync 2010 Server – KB2571546 – download

Lync 2010 Core Components – KB2571545 – download

Client-side updates

Lync 2010 (Communicator) – KB25715423 – download (x86 / x64)

Lync 2010 Group Chat Client – KB2500446 – download

Lync 2010 Phone Edition (Polycom CX500, CX600 & CX3000) – KB2529977 – download

Lync 2010 Phone Edition (Aastra 6721ip & 6725ip) – KB2529978 – download

Lync 2010 Phone Edition (Polycom CX700 & LG Nortel 8540) – KB2577593 – download


FULL MICROSOFT LYNC: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2493736

MIKE STACY DESCRIPTION : http://mikestacy.typepad.com/mike-stacys-blog/2011/07/lync-serverclient-cummulative-update-3-lync.html

Updates that are released for Lync Server 2010

o Update for Administrative Tools

2467771 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2467771

Description of the update package for Lync Server 2010, Administrative Tools: January 2011


o Update for Core Components

2571545 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2571545

Description of the cumulative update for Lync Server 2010, Core Components: July 2011

o Update for Conferencing Attendant

2575872 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2575872

Description of the cumulative update for Lync Server 2010, Conferencing Attendant: July 2011

o Update for Conferencing Server

2575870 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2575870

Description of the cumulative update for Lync Server 2010, Conferencing Server: July 2011
o Update for Web Components Server

2571547 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2571547

Description of the update package for Lync Server 2010, Web Components Server: July 2011
o Update for Standard/Enterprise edition Server

2571546 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2571546

Description of the update for Lync Server 2010: July 2011
o Update for Web Conferencing Server


2575871 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2575871

Description of the cumulative update for Lync Server 2010, Web Conferencing Server: July 2011

o Update for Mediation Server


2502810 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2502810

Description of the cumulative update for Lync Server 2010, Mediation Server: April 2011

o Update for Unified Communications Managed API 3.0 Runtime


2571505 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2571505

Description of the cumulative update for Lync Server 2010, Unified Communications Managed API 3.0 Runtime: July 2011


FULL STORY :

http://imaucblog.com/archive/2011/07/25/cumulative-update-package-cu3-released-for-lync-2010-july-2011/

Audiocodes : Lync 2010 been very good to me.

Audiocodes reports higher revenue and profit

The company met the analysts' revenue consensus, and beat their earnings per share consensus.

Hermosa Beach Pic of the day

27 July 11 14:03, Globes' correspondent

VoIP and networking solutions developer AudioCodes Ltd. (Nasdaq: AUDC; TASE: AUDC) today reported higher revenue and profits for the second quarter of 2011. The company met the analysts' revenue consensus, and beat their earnings per share consensus.
AudioCodes's revenue rose to $41.5 million for the second quarter from $36.5 million for the corresponding quarter of 2010.

GAAP-based net profit nearly doubled to $4 million ($0.09 per share) for the second quarter from $2.1 million the corresponding quarter, and non-GAAP net profit rose to $4.9 million ($0.12 per share) from $2.8 million. The analysts' consensus was $0.10 per share.

AudioCodes had $56.5 million in cash and cash equivalents at the end of June, less than at the end of March, and $2 million more than a year earlier.

AudioCodes chairman, president and CEO Shabtai Adlersberg said, "AudioCodes' improved financial performance continued a trend that reflects the strength of our enterprise and carrier VoIP business… driven primarily by the rising demand in the access, broadband, contact....

Full Story...


http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000668035&fid=1725

Microsft releases its Lync 2010 VHD - Full config Demo

Microsoft released as a pre-configured set of Microsoft Lync Server 2010 VHD's, v1.0


Download from here

[EAT CROW-UC] THE GODS THEY BE CRAZY. MS$ TO ACQUIRE SKYPE FOR $8bn

"...this is really smart UCC play for microsoft. Remember SKYPE + LYNC + CLOUD+ NOKIA+WIN MOBILE 7 = Instant ecosystem and instant million+ user base! Now the hard part begins...execution..." - K. Preddie

------

According to the Wall Street Journal and AllThingsD, Microsoft will announce its acquisition of Skype for $8.5 billion later this morning morning at 8 am ET.

This will be the biggest acquisition Microsoft has ever made.

It's also one of the craziest -- Microsoft already has products that offer the same functionality, and apart from Skype's brand and some slightly different peer-to-peer technology, Microsoft would be getting almost nothing new out of the deal.

Well, it would be acquiring some customers -- at about $1,000 a pop.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-15-biggest-acquisitions-so-far-2011-5#ixzz1LvgT0Gu0

TUTORIAL ON LYNC 2010 Part 1 - Design a Site and Create a Topology

Courtesy NEXTHOP

This video helps get you started using the Lync Server Planning Tool to design sites and create your topology.

Check it out. Lync Server Planning Tool: Part 1 - Design a Site and Create a Topology.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/nexthop/archive/2011/05/04/lync-server-planning-tool-part-1-design-a-site-and-create-a-topology.aspx

Why the VCE exec believes quality will beat price in the cloud marketplace

File Michael Capellas under the category of Private/Public cloud converts.

.....That 100 per cent probability figure was one that Capellas touched on multiple times throughout his speech, where he called cloud “not a buzzword” but the culmination of seven to ten years of developments that are “impossible to reverse” at this point.

Just like IP networks led the way with price performance, the abundance of x86-based servers, particularly in blade server formats, have changed the way people think of scale when it comes to computing power, Capellas argued. The movement from scale up to scale out is complete, and today, x86 blade servers represent one in five x86-based systems built.

And unsurprisingly, given Capellas’ position across the Cisco/EMC/VMware joint venture, he predicted that “best of breed” will be the dominant model when it comes to building clouds, differentiated from both the larger public cloud plays of Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple, and the single vendor stacks Capellas said were offered by infrastructure rivals including HP, IBM and Oracle.

“You will see these stacks become more virtual, more vertical and we will deliver those stacks more and more with the ability to go turnkey on those stacks,” he said. “We intend to be the innovator and the pioneer.”

Capellas’ other cloud prognostications include:

Expect to see development cloud projects in the next six months, driving the same kind of momentum around business app that the mobile app stores have driven in the consumer space;

Cloud will drive the converged infrastructure market to $50 billion (U.S.) within three years;

Private cloud will lead, taking up to 80 per cent of the cloud market;

Virtual infrastructure will continue the “flight to quality;” with better quality beating out the cheapest components due to the mission critical nature of the cloud;

Cloud-based applications will drive productivity gains to the tune of 50 per cent or better; Applications built on and around the cloud will lead to a “fundamental shift in application development” unlike anything the market has seen in the last decade; and True cloud standards will emerge.

FULL STORY:
http://www.channelbuzz.ca/2011/03/capellas-to-partners-the-cloud-has-already-won-1346/

INSTALLATION OF MULTIPLE VERSIONS OF UCUPDATES.EXE

VIDEO : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EiHnSKoJ1Y

By default an installation of Lync Server does not contain any pre-installed or pre-approved updates, this must be performed manually by an administrator. This is basically the same process as was used in Office Communications Server except that now there are multiple update packages, which on the surface appear to be identical.

Previously the only supported devices that used the Office Communicator Phone Edition client were the Microsoft reference-design “Tanjay” family of devices: the Polycom CX700 and LG-Nortel IP8540. Both phones were identical and used the exact same software so a single installation package was distributed and updated on a regular basis.....

FULL STORY BY JEFF SCHERTZ:

http://blog.schertz.name/2011/01/updating-lync-phone-edition-devices/

The Office Communications Server 2007 Resource Kit Tools featured a nifty tool called LCSAddContacts.

This WSF script allows you to add contacts to LCS or OCS (but not Lync Server) using WMI. I was hoping to see a version of this tool for Lync Server, but no such luck -- So I wrote one myself.

I'm surprised to find that there is no PowerShell cmdlet that allows you to add contact groups or contacts, and since there are no WMI classes for Lync Server anymore"- Jeff Guillet




http://www.expta.com/2011/01/introducing-lyncaddcontacts.html

Evolution of the Cloud the MS+Nokia Deal

Third Ecosystem, Cloud Platforms and New Mobility Era in the workings
by DrSalonen on February 15, 2011

The market is sizzling with comments of the recent Microsoft/Nokia collaboration decisions. Some blog entries estimate that this marriage will be a problem for other OEM vendors using Windows Phone 7 while some blog entries estimate that this decision is very bad for Google. Only time will tell what this will lead to, but from a market research and analysis perspective, the decision what Nokia did is a game changer for the mobile industry. It is now a game of three, as I am not going to count RIM with is BlackBerry platform to be a real contestant going forward. Others agree like can be seen in InformationWeek article......



.....The more I think about this change, the more I see opportunities that entrepreneurs can take advantage of. One should not be naïve, but estimate each decision from a company perspective what is the best way to approach this new strategic relationship. I am convinced that in a few weeks once more information comes available you will see things happening that would not have happened without this Microsoft/Nokia collaboration. And what is most important, consumers will benefit of this move as the competition will increase and developers can focus on building applications and accumulate intellectual property on top of the platforms.


"Editor: Hopefully MS+Nokia will allow other hand held enpoints ( Andriod, Chrome, iOS and etc.) into their ecosystem. It would be a smart interim move similar to Ray Noorda famous coopetition strategy. -KP"


FULL STORY:

http://www.drsalonen.com/blog/?p=524&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=third-ecosystem-cloud-platforms-and-new-mobility-era-in-the-workings

Lync 2010 RTM features & Whatever happened to Web Access (CWA)

HOW IS LYNC 2010 USED - INTRO BY BILL GATES?






Bill Gates in video call talking up Lync 2010.


IMHOP Lync/Exchange will need to better support clients for Andriod / IOS 4.x devices and services like Twitter / Skype for it to really take off in the market place (See Office365).


LYNC 2010 CLIENT IN 3 MINUTES








Harold Wong IT Evangelist appears in this video.



LYNC 2010 WEB CLIENT RTM LIMITED



Solution blogged November 18, 2010 by Randy Wintle

As man of you know the Lync Web App client in the RTM release doesn't have a full web client (like OCS 2007 CWA). To get around this limitation you can get around this issue by deploying a R2 2007 CWA with a Lync 2010 Front End as outlined below by Randy Wintle.

There are going to be a few scenarios where you may need to deploy the R2 version of Communicator Web Access with Lync Server 2010. The core reason here, is that the RTM Version of Lync Server 2010 contains a feature on the front end called Lync Web App.

Eventually, Lync Web App will become a full featured web client, however, today it is only used for users to join online meetings from the web. There is no ability to access Lync Web App from a URL and sign-in, or use it as a instant messaging too. This is planned to be released SP1 of the product, that timeframe is unknown right now....



FULL SOLUTION:




http://ucmadeeasy.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/using-ocs-2007-r2-cwa-with-lync-server-2010/


CUSTOM LYNC 2010 APPS







Sample Microsoft Lync Server 2010 / Microsoft Exchange 2010 application for automatically assembling issue response crew.




LYNC 2010 POWERSHELL CHEAT SHEET



http://blog.insidelync.com/2011/02/microsoft-lync-powershell-cheat-sheet/

Ah ha, said the blind man. Now I see why Stephen Elop left Microsoft for Nokia.

BLOOMBERG NEWS

Nokia, Microsoft to Join Forces to Challenge Apple Dominance


Nokia Oyj, the world’s biggest maker of mobile phones, said it’s forming a software partnership with Microsoft Corp., a bet that together the two companies can better challenge Google Inc. and Apple Inc.

Shares fell as much as 9.8 percent, after the Finnish company’s plan to move to Microsoft’s Windows as its primary software platform was seen as a sign of the depth of its challenge taking on Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platforms.

“It’s a clear admission that Nokia’s own-platform strategy has faltered,” said Ben Wood, a London-based analyst with CCS Insight. “Microsoft is the big winner in this deal, but there are no silver bullets for either company given strength of iPhone and Android.”...

FULL STORY


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-11/nokia-joins-forces-with-microsoft-to-challenge-dominance-of-apple-google.html

VIDEO

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/66647390/

Microsoft misses opportunity as Twitter for sale

Google, Facebook named as Twitter suitors


#wsj #reports #takeover #talks


According to the Wall Street Journal, both Google and Facebook have emerged as possible buyers of Twitter.

The newspaper’s Website says insiders told it that as well as the ad giant and the user-data sales house, “other companies” have discussed a Twitter takeover...

FULL STORY

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/10/google_facebook_twitter_suitors/

EMC's answer to Microsoft's cloud? The Hybrid Cloud.

Opinion : On Premise, not dead, just yet.

The Road to Office 365

"The combination of Azure, Lync Online, Office 365, BPOS (aka MS Online 2) will force businesses to give Microsoft a second chance at taking the rest of their Enterprise IT budget. The cloud will transfrom Microsoft and the entire industry. As the rate of cloud migrations from on-premise pickup traditional hardware & software vendors will be forced to respond. EMC/VMware has a response...." -Karl Preddie


Article : EMC & Hybrid Cloud

Wednesday, 09 February 2011 Written by Rakesh Dogra

EMC has recently announced a far reaching plan to take leadership status in hybrid cloud migration. This plan relies heavily on VMware’s virtualization platform. EMC is confident that cloud computing is the biggest game changing technology to drive the future. The company has put its weight behind this faith and has realigned business to be able to meet client demand. The hybrid cloud is the goal in sight for most companies and they will go from virtualizing tier 2 and 3 applications to offering IT as a service.

EMC has set itself to occupy a strategic middle position in the confluence of cloud and enterprise data. Data storage, according to their CEO, Joe Tucci, is also a critical area since there is an explosion of data and information taking place. Coupled with the growing trend of virtualization, big data storage is also going to become critical. EMC has also positioned itself to offer effective storage for the cloud.



Read more at - http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Cloud-Computing/EMC-VMware-Poised-to-Lead-Hybrid-Cloud-Migration-in-2011-Tucci-584386/

Google does good! - Speak to Tweet Service Launched for Egypt

Like many people GOOGLE DEVELOPMENT has been glued to the news unfolding in Egypt and thinking of what we could do to help people on the ground. Over the weekend we came up with the idea of a speak-to-tweet service—the ability for anyone to tweet using just a voice connection.

We worked with a small team of engineers from Twitter, Google and SayNow, a company we acquired last week, to make this idea a reality. It’s already live and anyone can tweet by simply leaving a voicemail on one of these international phone numbers (+16504194196 or +390662207294 or +97316199855) and the service will instantly tweet the message using the hashtag #egypt.

No Internet connection is required. People can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going to twitter.com/speak2tweet.

We hope that this will go some way to helping people in Egypt stay connected at this very difficult time. Our thoughts are with everyone there.

Best Practice - Build out Exchange 2010 CAS Arrays.

(BASIC) Architecture Changes:

With Exchange Server 2010 all protocols should go through the Client Access Server and cannot connect to Mailbox servers to MAPI clients directly. This is done by using new Client Access Server(CAS) Windows Server service known as the RPC Client Access service.

(BASIC) Installation:

(ADVANCED) Site-to-Site-Proxying:

How do you deal with a two (2) AD site scenario (i.e cross data center) and you have to redirect Outlook Web App clients between these sites transparently. -> Exchange 2010 SP1 Proxyng

---- THREAD UPDATE ---

GAL Segmentation, Exchange 2010 Address policies

The Exchange Customer Experience Team has heard the feedback our customers have provided to us and are now working to incorporate a set of features that will provide a Global Address Segmentation capability directly into Service Pack 2, which will be available to customers in the second half of 2011. We plan on posting more about Service Pack 2 in the next couple of weeks.

This decision was taken in order to simplify the deployment and configuration of the feature for all customers by providing a consistent and controlled experience through the standard Exchange management interface.

As a result of the decision to build the functionality into the product, we have also decided that we will not release an updated version of the Configuring Virtual Organizations and Address List Segregation Whitepaper that was published for Exchange Server 2007


LYNC REACH CLIENT - http://blogs.technet.com/b/toml/archive/2011/02/04/how-to-force-the-use-of-the-lync-reach-client-just-append-this-to-the-url-sl-1.aspx