Here is your chance to be among the first to receive Visual Studio 2010 Professional upon it’s release, as well as an offer to help you save some money and get something extra.  Right now there is a promotion running for those interested in pre-ordering the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional Upgrade that offers a few really nice benefits:

• Save you up to $250 off the Estimated Retail Price
• Receive a 12-month MSDN Essentials subscription
• Be among the first to get it  (Downloadable on April 12th)

You can see full details of this promotion online on the Microsoft website.

In addition, you can also download the Visual Studio 2010 Professional RC today if you want to get a look at what all is included in the latest version of Visual Studio.

Thank you and have a wonderful day,

For those of you in the UK, Microsoft is launching the first of three Bing television ads that will be hitting the airways today, Wednesday, March 10th across ITV, Channel 4, Five and their portfolio of TV services as well as Sky Media and IDS digital channels including Bravo, Dave, GOLD, Living TV and Good Food. 

Want a peek at the first one?  Here you go:

Thank you and have a wonderful day,

Eric Ligman – Follow me on TWITTER and RSS
Global Partner Experience Lead
Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

As a follow-up to my earlier, “Microsoft Open License Basics – You only need 2 computers to qualify for Volume Licensing” post where I showed you that you only need five (5) licenses, not five (5) computers, to qualify for Microsoft’s Open License and Open Value Volume Licensing programs, in this post I will clear up another misconception out there about that five (5) license minimum.  As my previous post stated, yes, you do need to make a purchase of five (5) Licenses, Licenses + Software Assurance, or Software Assurance at one time to start a new Open License or Open Value license agreement; however, did you know that for your subsequent orders, there is no minimum number you need to purchase?  That’s right!  You can buy one at a time if you want.

Let me show you how this works visually below, but first, let’s refer back to a few data points from my,

Here is a misunderstanding I come across from time to time.  I will be talking with a Partner or see a conversation between a couple of Partners and someone will say something like, “My client does not qualify for Volume Licensing because they don’t have 5 computers,” or “My client is not big enough for Volume Licensing.”  At Microsoft, our Volume Licensing programs, such as Open License and Open Value, are designed to be available to clients that have as few as two (2) computers.  How?  Let me show you:

Both the Open License and Open Value licensing programs require a minimum order of five (5); however, it is not 5 computers, it is 5 Licenses (for Open License) or 5 Licenses+Software Assurance or Software Assurance alone (for Open Value).  In fact, here is an example of how a two computer company could easily qualify for Open License (and there are several today already utilizing these programs for their companies):

Today, Microsoft announced the decision to streamline our server product portfolio and that we will discontinue future development of Essential Business Server, effective June 30^th, 2010.  A few points about this announcement:

• Microsoft remains fully committed to small and medium-sized businesses and the Partners who serve them
• This decision not to ship future versions of EBS will not impact any other Windows Server products and solutions, including the next version of Windows Small Business Server (SBS)
• This decision not to ship future versions of EBS does not come lightly
• The technology capabilities many midsize businesses are turning to (such as virtualization, management, and cloud computing) are already available through other offerings, including: Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft System Center and the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS)
• We are going to provide a limited offer (June 30, 2010 through December 31, 2010) for all EBS 2008 customers where they can get the individual component software from the EBS 2008 suite for free (local taxes, shipping and handling charges may apply)

Here’s a quick note for all of you Partners in the U.S. Central Region Heartland Area.  Based on overwhelming partner feedback, The Heartland Area team has evolved the Heartland Partner Briefing Series into a new format that offers you a shortened event, packed full of valuable content, giving you the information you need and time back in the day to focus on your business!  In this spring round of events will be dedicated exclusively to Cloud Computing and the “Power of Choice”.  You’ll hear about how you can take the power of the cloud to your customers and integrate the Microsoft Online Services Offering for your customers as their needs evolve.

Here is a quick view of the agenda for these Partner briefings:

• 8:15-9:00 AM - Registration and Networking: Continental Breakfast provided and the speakers will be available in advance for networking.
• 9:00-9:15 AM - Welcome and Executive Address: Local Microsoft executive will welcome the attendees, kick off the morning session, and provide insight to how the Power of Choice will be a compelling vision for partners and customers.

The time has come to start submitting your nominations for this year’s WPC 2010 Award winners, and yes, this means you!  As in past years, the WPC 2010 Awards winners will be chosen from those nominations submitted to us and the nomination process  open now until April 2, 2010.  Now just because you can submit until April 2^nd, don’t go put it off and say, “I’ll get to it next week,” because we all know what will happen…  Something comes up next week, then the week after, etc. etc. until it’s April 3^rd and the panic email comes in saying, “Can I still submit a nomination?” and the unfortunate answer will be, “Sorry, nomination submissions ended yesterday.”  So get working on your nomination submissions now to make sure you get yours in and you secure your chance to be chosen as a winner this year.

This year we have expanded the WPC 2010 Awards to include showcase even more partner solutions and we have introduced a new,

Today, Microsoft announced the Windows Phone 7 Series!  If you were watching the Steve Ballmer Windows Phone 7 Series announcement from MWC today, you got to see and hear some of the very exciting things about the new Windows Phone 7 Series, coming by the holiday season 2010.  The new interface, bringing together so many of the items and collections of information and entertainment that you use today, into your phone at your fingertips is fantastic!

Windows Phone 7 Series brings your information together through various “hubs” right through the main interface to make it simple and easy to use.  For instance:

• People - This hub delivers an engaging social experience by bringing together relevant content based on the person, including his or her live feeds from social networks and photos.
• Pictures - This hub makes it easy to share pictures and video to a social network in one step.

If you have followed my blog for any amount of time, you know that getting feedback from you and understanding your experiences with the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center site on an ongoing basis has been something I have been very focused on.  Now, here is another opportunity for you.  Are you interested in participating in a usability study for Microsoft’s Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) website in order to be able to provide direct feedback and input to us on your experience?  Here is your chance.

The Microsoft Customer & Partner Experience (CPE) team would like to interview customers and resellers/Partners in the process of using the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) to learn more about your experience. As you may know, VLSC is an online tool for managing Microsoft Volume Licensing program agreements, downloading licensed products, and accessing volume license keys.

We are looking for people from around the world, both from businesses that are Microsoft customers as well as those that are Microsoft Partners, to participate in these sessions.

I am posting up a quick notice today to let you know about something I will be posting on Monday that may be of interest to you because I know that not all of you have subscribed to my Blog, so you don’t all get the automatic feed of posts, and that all of you do not come here on a daily basis, so you may not be here on Monday.  This way if you are here today, you’ll be aware of this opportunity coming on Monday so you can come back and take advantage of it if it is of interest to you.

The Microsoft Customer & Partner Experience (CPE) team would like to interview customers and partners in the process of using the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) to learn more about your experience.  We are looking for a mix of customers and Partners from a variety of geographic locations to speak with in these interviews.

What are the different Open License Programs, what are the differences, and who are they for?  This is a relatively common set of questions I have seen over the years, and one that you have probably seen addressed in some fashion on the blog over the years in various different posts.  Let me provide a quick overview of that the various programs are, who they are for, and some high-level differences below.  Please note, the Microsoft Open Licensing Programs are designed for companies with between 2 – 250 PCs (with the exception of the Open License Volume Program which spans up to 750 PCs), so if your organization is larger than 250 PCs, you will should also consider the Microsoft Select and Enterprise Agreement licensing programs.

Open Licensing Programs:

1. Open License – Microsoft Volume Licensing program designed for businesses with between 2 and 250 computers that want to purchase in a very transactional way and prefer to pay-as-you-go.

Over the past several weeks, I have been speaking with many Partners and customers through the Blog, on the phone, through email, on Twitter, on Facebook, face to face, and more about various items relating to the Open Licensing Programs that Microsoft offers.  Several of the conversations have begun around VLSC; however, many of them have come down to questions about the Open Licensing Programs themselves, how they work, mis-conceptions, etc.  As such, I thought I would put up a series of posts in the near future surrounding several of the topics that came up in these conversations I have been having so that hopefully many of you can take away some pieces of knowledge that can help you as you sell and purchase solutions through the Microsoft Open Licensing Programs.

To make it easier to  find these specific posts, I will begin the title of them with, “Microsoft Open License Basics” and then the topic/question to be covered.

Last week I announced that Microsoft would be running a series of Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) Webcasts for Partners through Academy Live to take place on February 3rd, and it was great to see all of the Partners who joined us for these sessions yesterday!  Thank you for your participation.  One question that was asked during the session yesterday, as well as by some who were unable to attend live yesterday was, “Is this session going to be available to view as a recording afterwards?”  The answer is, “Yes,” the session was recorded and the replay is now posted and available for viewing.  Here is how to view the replay:

Link to view the replay: CLICK HERE

You may have already seen the January Business School and Technical School SBSC sessions from the Microsoft UK Team post I put up in January about those two series of webcasts that our Microsoft UK Team continue to run for Microsoft UK Partners; however, here is another webcast that the Microsoft UK Team is putting on in February that I thought you may be very interested in.  On February 12, 2010, the Microsoft UK Team will be hosting the “Ask Microsoft” Live Meeting session for Partners.  Here is a brief description of that session:

“Do you have a question about your partnership with Microsoft, the Microsoft Partner Network or how to find information via the Partner Portal? If so, we're starting a series of Ask Microsoft Live Meetings where UK Registered and Small Business Specialist partners can ask questions and receive immediate assistance from Partner Network Manager, Dell Quinn.

As you may know, Microsoft® recently migrated the eOpen and MVLS sites to the new Volume Licensing Service Center website (VLSC) in order to ultimately provide a convenient, online solution for customers and partners to easily manage their licensing agreements and Microsoft products.  We know that as a result of the initial upgrade, a number of Partners experienced some access and usability issues and that  this has been both inconvenient and frustrating in some cases and we appreciate your patience and assistance during this transition.

For those of you that follow me through the various social networking channels, you may recall that last week I asked if Partners would be interested in having a Live Meeting session about the new Microsoft Volume Licensing Services (VLSC) website and I received quite a bit of feedback stating that yes, this is definitely something you would be interested in.  There were some specific requests, such as:

If you did not see the addition of the Microsoft Security Bulleting MS10-002, which includes a cumulative security update to Microsoft Internet Explorer, to the January, 2010 Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary last week, I wanted to post the information here so that you would have it and know where to find this information in the future.  Let’s start with some information about MS10-002:

Executive Summary

This security update resolves seven privately reported vulnerabilities and one publicly disclosed vulnerability in Internet Explorer. The more severe vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted Web page using Internet Explorer. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.

This security update is rated Critical for all supported releases of Internet Explorer: Internet Explorer 5.01, Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1, Internet Explorer 7, and Internet Explorer 8 (except Internet Explorer 6 for supported editions of Windows Server 2003). For Internet Explorer 6 for supported editions of Windows Server 2003 as listed, this update is rated Moderate. For more information, see the subsection,

Thank you to those of you that contacted me regarding challenges you were having with the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) based on my previous post.  I am very happy to hear that many of you have had your issues resolved and that you are now able to access the VLSC site and licenses.  In an ongoing effort to keep you updated on VLSC, here is an update for you.

Thank you for your continued support as we work on the issues affecting the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC). We realize this has been a frustrating experience, and again wish to express our appreciation for everything you have done. We continue to make progress identifying customers and partners impacted by the upgrade, and solutions have been implemented. We have also increased customer service staffing and added new tools and training to help address issues faster. We encourage you to check the

Today, Microsoft and Intuit announced they are joining forces to create new opportunities for software developers to deliver and market Web applications to small business customers.  Through this initiative, Microsoft and Intuit plan to integrate the capabilities of their two cloud services platform, the Intuit Partner Platform and Windows Azure platform, to enable developers and channel partners to deliver solutions to the millions of employees within businesses that use QuickBooks^® financial software.  In addition, the two companies will provide small businesses with Microsoft’s cloud-based productivity applications via the Intuit App Center.

Together, Microsoft and Intuit are creating a huge ecosystem of over 750,000 development firms and channel partners to create more new innovative applications and services that will reach the market more quickly.  It also creates expanded opportunities for both Intuit’s and Microsoft’s current developer communities:

• For Microsoft developers, the ability to develop applications for Intuit’s loyal customers will open a new landscape of sales prospects looking for small business solutions.

One of the first steps in accessing the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) is to register for access to the site.  Below is a short one minute and forty-seven second video podcast that explains how to register online for access to VLSC, in addition to the step by step instruction on how to register for the VLSC site.

Video:

Step by step instructions:

Customers must logon to VLSC with a Windows Live ID and associate the Windows Live ID with a valid business email address. To get a Windows Live ID, please sign up at http://windowslive.com

1. Log into the Volume Licensing Service Center
2. Click Sign In Now to begin
3. Enter your Windows Live ID email address and password, then click Sign In
4. VLSC will validate if you are a registered user

If you are not a registered user, you will be invited to register using the valid business email address associated with your agreement.

One question I am seeing and hearing quite a bit from others since my Latest update on Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) post is, “I cannot see the agreement on the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) and do not know how to add it.  How do I do this?”  Here are the step by step actions to add a license agreement to your view in VLSC by requesting permission, as well as a short two minute video that shows how this works to help ensure more of you know exactly how to do this.

1. Log onto VLSC
2. Go to “Settings > Request Permissions”  (see screenshot #1 below)
3. Select appropriate “Program” (1), enter “Licensing ID” (2), select permissions (3) required and provide optional comment (4) before clicking on “submit”.  (see screenshot #2 below)
4. A request will be sent to the administrator of the Agreement (i.e. Licensing ID) who should approve/reject as appropriate.