In my earlier, “Microsoft Open License Basics – You only need 2 computers to qualify for Volume Licensing” post as part of this series, I showed you how you could qualify for Microsoft’s Open License programs with just two computers (not the 5 that some people think you need).  In this post, I will teach you another little trick on meeting that initial 5 license minimum to start a new Open License Agreement if your initial purchase falls short of the quantity 5 needed.

Let’s say that you are a company with just two computers, like in my example from the “Microsoft Open License Basics – You only need 2 computers to qualify for Volume Licensing” post and you want to order Microsoft Office licenses for both computers and one or two Windows Upgrades for those computers.  This would give you a total of 3 or 4 licenses, depending on if you did the one or two Windows upgrades.

Here’s a cool announcement coming out of the SBS 2008 and TechNet Teams.  Have you been wanting to get some hands-on experience with Windows Small Business Server 2008 but didn’t have the hardware to install the hands-on-labs yourself?  I’m very excited to announce the availability of three virtual labs now available for you to use on TechNet!  These virtual labs are:

Migration from SBS 2003 Administration Console Working with Clients

In addition to these virtual labs, we also have some demos available for you to download as well, including:

• SBS 2008 Administration Console
• SBS 2008 Installation
• SBS 2008 Migration from SBS 2003
• SBS 2008 Working with Clients

Ready to access these?  Then head on out to the Demos and Virtual Labs for SBS 2008 page and get started.

Thank you and have a wonderful day,

Eric Ligman –

This week you have probably seen a lot of the Windows Phone 7 Series excitement coming out of MIX10 and you may have heard it earlier from several other places as well; however, the excitement is there and continues to grow broader and louder each day.  Why?  Well, Windows Phone 7 Series holds a promise to be an amazing mobile phone with new innovative user interface and functionality, as well as a great development platform on which you can quickly and easily build games and applications! 

With all of the new devices coming out and the huge new software platform available for rich applications, demand for Windows Phone will be high, and developers who want to quickly adopt the Windows Phone platform to capitalize on this untapped mobile marketplace may be asking, “Are there any developer resources available right now for me for this?”  I am very happy to post here about the availability of the Windows Phone 7 Series Developer Training Kit, which is available for you to download today!

If you’ve been following me on Twitter (@EricLigman) recently, you’ve seen my tweets about the upcoming live Microsoft Partner Network Q&A sessions with Julie Bennani taking place today from 9-10 am PST and again from 5-6 pm PST via Twitter (@mspartner).  What you will also see today is a new series of webcasts posted to the Microsoft Partner Network Community site by Julie regarding the Microsoft Partner Network.  

Here is the first video in the series, “Microsoft Partner Network – Overview:”

There are several others in this series, including:

• Microsoft Partner Network – Communities
• Microsoft Partner Network – Subscriptions
• Microsoft Partner Network – Competencies
• Microsoft Partner Network – Advanced Competencies

These videos are currently live now and you can check them out on the Microsoft Partner Network Community site.

I hope you can join us today for the live Microsoft Partner Network Q&A sessions with Julie via Twitter and be sure to check out the webcast series posted online for even more information regarding the new Microsoft Partner Network.

Here’s an exciting announcement for all of you developers, developers, developers out there!  Channel 9 is offering a free Silverlight 4 Training Kit. The training kit includes a whitepaper explaining all of the new Silverlight 4 features, several hands-on-labs that explain the features, and a 8 unit course for building business applications with Silverlight 4.

The business applications course includes 8 modules with extensive hands on labs as well as accompanying videos that walk you through key aspects of building a business application with Silverlight. Key aspects in this course are working with sandboxed out of browser features, elevated trust out of browser features, the new RichTextBox control, implicit styling, webcam, drag and drop, multi touch, validation, authentication, MEF, WCF RIA Services, right mouse click, and much more.

Go ahead, download yours today!

Thank you and have a wonderful day,

Yesterday marked the kickoff of MIX10 and anyone on Twitter or any other online source couldn’t help but see a flurry of information coming out of MIX10.  I thought I would put up some of the interesting tidbits and items I saw from the day for those of you interested.

Windows Phone 7 Series Keynote Announcements from MIX10

Announcing Silverlight 4 Release Candidate – John Papa and Adam Kinney follow up the MIX10 keynote announcement of Silverlight 4 RC by discussing what is new and what materials have been released on the Channel 9 learning center website.

60+ page whitepaper that covers the full feature list of all the new features in Silverlight 4 online (or you can download it).

- Free ebook: Programming Windows Phone 7 Series, by Charles Petzold!

- Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone announced!

Single licenses of collective products, often referred to as “Suites” of products, offer considerable savings and easier license management and these savings can be so good, that they truly earn the name of “Sweet",” I mean “Suite.”  Sometimes though, there are some common misconceptions and misunderstandings of how these suites work and what you can and can’t do with them or how things like the upgrade protection in Software Assurance works with them.  In this post, I will try to clarify these questions around suite licensing.

As mentioned above, suites are collections of products pulled together and offered as a single license, often at considerable savings versus buying the individual items separately.  A few very well know suites from Microsoft are: Microsoft Office and Small Business Server (SBS).  Microsoft Office is a suite of desktop applications while Small Business Server is a suite of server applications.; however, both are suites.

Here at Microsoft, we are always working on ways to bring information to our Partners around the world to help them know about things coming, tools and items available, trends and insights, and much more.  One of the tools we have available is the Microsoft Partner Network Video Channel on Showcase which brings information to you through online videos, which allows you to access them at the best time for you from wherever you have internet access, giving you even more flexibility.

As a sample, here is one of the videos posted on the Microsoft Partner Network Video Channel, Allison Watson Unplugged – Microsoft Online Services Webcast where Allison Watson, Corporate Vice President, Worldwide Partner Group discusses Microsoft's online service offerings

- Click video to view

You will also find many other videos already posted to the Microsoft Partner Network Video Channel and more to come in the future.

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.