News from the Microsoft Office Division at TechEd North America 2011!

At TechEd this morning, the Microsoft Office team announced that Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 is expected to be available at the end of June. At first, SP1 will be offered as a manual download from Microsoft Update but, after 90 days, it will be available via Automatic Update. SP1 will contain updates that improve stability, performance, and security. Below is a sampling of SP1 updates:

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* Better IE9 browser experience
* Improved Web Apps functionality and SharePoint database performance
* Updates to all 40 SKU languages for Office, including Galician, Basque, Catalan, Serbian Cyrillic
* Updates to Access 2010, FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint, Office Web Apps, Project 2010, and Search Server 2010, and Visio 2010

For more about SP1, please refer to the Office blog post, SharePoint blog post, and the Project blog post.

In other TechEd news, the Exchange team has announced the virtualization scenarios that Exchange 2010 will support. Check out the Exchange Team Blog for additional information.

Microsoft seen not to blame for Skype rejecting open source company

Microsoft long the enemy of open source software, announces a pending deal to buy Skype and Skype promptly ditches a partnership with an open source company. Those two things have to be related, right?

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Actually, probably not. While the future of Skype integration with non-Microsoft products remains to be seen, analysts say Microsoft has little if any influence over Skype until the acquisition is final, and has few good reasons to limit Skype's ability to work with third-party products.

"The whole value of Skype is interconnectedness, and I believe they will position Skype as an intermediate, neutral, peering meeting place," says Gartner analyst Bern Elliot.

TECH NEWS: Skype voice service crashes; users offered fix instructions

Indeed, after the $8.5 billion acquisition was announced this month, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Skype won't be tied solely to Windows and other Microsoft products. Skype, first released in 2003, provides Internet-based voice and video calls, and instant messaging.

Despite Ballmer's assurance, the announcement this week that Skype will end a 3-year-old partnership to integrate its technology with Asterisk, an open source telephony system, naturally raised some concerns. Digium, the company behind Asterisk, said the product Skype for Asterisk will not be sold after July 26.

However, businesses can still use Skype Connect, a product that allows connectivity between corporate PBX systems and the Skype platform. Skype Connect integrates with Cisco, Avaya, Siemens, NEC and other big names.

Microsoft is not yet the owner of Skype. Regulatory clearances are still required before the acquisition can proceed, and Microsoft has said only that it hopes to close the deal by the end of 2011.

In terms of killing partnerships with makers of non-Microsoft products, "I don't think [Microsoft] could take a position like that" while the acquisition is still pending, Elliot says. Elliot suspects the Skype/Asterisk move had been in the works for some time, because the decision to end a technology partnership isn't something that happens in a knee-jerk fashion.

Even if Microsoft does have some behind-the-scenes influence on Skype's business operations today, Skype can't let Redmond dictate major decisions as long as it is still an independent company, says Forrester analyst Charles Golvin.

"Each of the companies has to at least keep the theoretical possibility open that, for some reason, the acquisition won't close," Golvin says. "They can't do anything that would disadvantage them as an independent player going forward."

While neither Golvin or Elliot say they believe Microsoft will intentionally limit Skype's ability to work on non-Microsoft platforms, there are a few things for customers to worry about.

"I don't think Microsoft will do anything to degrade that user base or discourage customers from using Skype," Golvin says. "But we may see certain new features and capabilities that come out of Skype are available more quickly on Microsoft-based platforms."

Microsoft To Break Back Into Tablet Market Next Week [REPORT]

Microsoft is planning to show off a version of its Windows 8 designed for tablet PCs next week, according to a report.

Bloomberg says that Windows President Steven Sinofsky will present a version of the software with a touchscreen interface at the All Things D conference next week. The software will be running on a tablet based on Nvidia’s Tegra chip. The new operating system isn’t expected to be out until next year.

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Rumors about a new Microsoft tablet have been floating around for some time. In February, Business Insider reported that Microsoft planned to showcase a version of Windows 8 for tablets in June. According to the report, Microsoft is taking a more Apple-like approach to interface design by using the Metro interface developed for Windows Phone 7.

The effort comes after two Microsoft misfires in the tablet market. There was the 2010 debut of the “slate PC,” a model running Windows 7 and Amazon’s Kindle software, which has been compared to a stripped-down PC lacking a keyboard. And long before that came the Tablet PC, first unveiled by Bill Gates at Comdex in 2000. The Tablet PC was a laptop with a rotating screen and stylus functionality.

Meanwhile, Microsoft recently reported weak consumer PC sales partially because of the surge in sales for Apple’s iPad and iPad 2. To spur PC sales among students, Microsoft is now offering a free Xbox for those who buy a PC costing $699 and up from participating retailers. Despite Microsoft’s relatively late entry to the tablet market, at least one analyst, Citigroup, predicts Microsoft can corner a large share of the market in 2013 and beyond.

Binoculars And Scopes Are Providing an All Round Experience

Binoculars and Scopes are coming in different shapes and sizes to suit different requirements. Night eyes accessories is a very much altered version from what many people use as daytime optics, such as spotting scopes, telescopes, binoculars and rifle scopes. If you wish the best technologically avant-garde brace of night eyes binoculars available, look no further. I present to you the ATN Night Eyes Scout, Smart binoculars. Regular binoculars are advised to use the user to appearance things at a continued ambit while the Night Eyes binoculars are advised to acquiesce the user to appearance things in the dark but not far away.

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The great thing about binoculars is that they magnify images at a distance and make them look nearby. The effect is particularly powerful when distant objects are sought to be magnified nearby. It has various purposes ranging from pleasure to crime detection ans surveillance. Covert activity becomes easily recognizable through the usage of such devices which are providing a convenient medium for observation. Having said that such devices maybe misused. The challenge is to ensure that such devices are properly used and not misused by anti-social elements.

The ATN Night Scout Binoculars uses a pair of original bearing night eyes intensifier tubes which has a high- resolution that gives you an magnification or amplification of 35,000 maximum. When the Night Scout binocular, what you see is a blooming TV-like image that's projected onto the eyepiece and you will not see the binocular at all. Rather, the binocular takes in low levels of light and amplifies that light through an intensifier tube that projects the given image that you see in the eyepiece. So the most important quality in the superior night eyes accessory is the tube, which the ATN Night Scout Binocular has.

Binoculars Scopes are not in the same league. Scopes are necessary for more professional purposes such as locating game over long distances. For such purposes binoculars maybe unsuitable as using them over an extended time period leads to shaking of the body and hands. For this purpose scopes are an attractive remedy which eliminates such problems. At the same time the use of all such devices is unsuitable for those with weak vision and who naturally maybe making use of powered glasses.

Spotting scopes are ideal for doing away with immediate physical verification by achieving the same from a distance as to whether a particular target has been hit or not. With the 15X to 60X magnification it maybe difficult to spot the authority for steady, superior viewing. For that role a tripod is consistently needed with a spotting scope. The tripod is placed deeply in a solid area and affords an abiding examination platform for the scope. No concrete holding is required. Position the device to an accurate point, and it is necessary point it to that point. The angle being viewed will be stable, steady, and clear. Your hands are free to about-face and adjust the binoculars if an added field of appearance is desired. You get to view the antecedent appearance and image. Spotting scopes as well play a big role in zeroing in on a target from a distance.

Microsoft offers students a free Xbox with new Windows 7 PCs

If you are about to plunk down some cash for a new Windows 7 PC for your college studies, you may be able to score a free Xbox with that purchase. Microsoft is giving away a free Xbox 360 4GB console with the purchase of a Windows 7 PC $699 or more beginning this week through September 3, or until it determines that supplies have run out.

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The offer requires that the purchaser provide verification of college student status by either purchasing the machine by using an e-mail with an ".edu" address or by showing a student id at participating retailers. Online participating retailers include Dell.com, HP.com (beginning May 26) or the Microsoft Store.

Microsoft also offers a somewhat annoying free tool, called the PC Scout, that can help students find the right Windows 7 PC. But don't use it if you over eight years old and you have a low tolerance for corny jokes. It's "interactive" meaning its got an MC doing a lot of talking in between offering you radio buttons to move the buying process along.

Instead, the Microsoft store does a good job of pinpointing available laptops and specs with a few clicks. It showed me nine laptops/netbooks in the $699-$799 range within seconds. That Dell Inspiron Duo Convertible PC looks awesome, but the Lenovo IdeaPad U260 also looks beautiful and durable.

Get Certified!

With all the turmoil in the job market right now there couldn’t be a better time to get certified. Certification can be that differentiator with your boss over who stays and who goes, can help you prove your skill set with potential employers and I know of more than one HR department that scans for those letters (MCSA, MCSE, MCITP, etc…) when browsing resumes. There are a lot of options and offers when it comes to getting certified. From the Second Shot offer, which allows you to retake an exam if you happen to fail, to the Are You Certifiable challenge, and more there is no end to options.

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I was talking with Brian Bourne from CMS, a Toronto based consulting and training company, about their MCITP Bootcamp. One of the big challenges I found when obtaining my Windows 2000 MCSE was getting the knowledge I needed that matched the skills and experience I already had. The other challenge I had was with time. Time is always a limiting factor and while it would be great to take two months off to prep for the exams but that never went over well with management. After talking with Brian for a while that is exactly what the MCITP Bootcamp aims to solve.

The 10 Day Boot Camp will prepare qualified Microsoft professionals to earn the Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP): Server Administrator and MCITP: Enterprise Administrator certifications for Server 2008. Students will learn by doing through lectures, demos, labs and solid technical instruction that successfully reduces the 44 day certification to 10 days. The course takes place in September but space is limited.

Tuition includes:

· Pre-course reading and exercises

· Training, course content, books and hands-on labs

· 180 day access to all relevant MeasureUp exams.

· All exams needed for certification, along with free ‘Second Shot’ retake voucher for each exam if needed.

· All exams are written on-premise during the boot camp.

· All meals including breakfast, lunch & dinner

· Free Wi-Fi Internet in the training centre

I even managed to swing a $500 discount code for the bootcamp from Brian for our lucky readers, simply use the code MS09 when registering. And if you are a Software Assurance customer you can use your Software Assurance training vouchers against the cost of the course as well. Find out more here –> MCITP Certification Bootcamp

Microsoft to add NFC to Windows Phone smartphones

Microsoft has teased that it is to add NFC compatibility to a future version of its Windows Phone software.

Google has already added NFC to Android 2.3 and it looks like Microsoft is following a similar route with its smartphone portfolio.

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According to Bloomberg, Microsoft will be looking to put the technology – which allows you to make payments with your phone – into the chassis specification for its upcoming Windows Phone handsets.

Nokia has already announced that NFC will be in its Symbian handsets this year and Motorola exclusively told TechRadar that it is looking to add the tech to its handsets, even though there is a premium that goes with the implementation of NFC.

Samsung has followed suit with the Galaxy S2 and the Wave 578, and has already offered NFC support for its Bada smartphones.

NFC implementation

There is something of a buzz around NFC technology at the moment. Alongside Microsoft, MasterCard has said it has teamed with digital security firm Gemalto so it can add NFC to SIM cards – the cards are set to be called MasterCard PayPass SIM card.

The introduction of NFC into Windows Phone handsets is likely to come in a software update later in the year.

Microsoft is currently rolling out its latest update. Called NoDo, it adds features like cut and paste to Windows Phone 7.