Wortell, Microsoft en meer...

SkyTeam Alliance over op Microsoft Online

Vanmorgen heeft Microsoft een persbericht uitgestuurt waarin ondermeer is aangekondigd dat SkyTeam Alliance is overgestapt op Microsoft Online, BPOS. HIeronder een klein uittreksel uit het persbericht over de migratie die door Wortell is verzorgt.

 

SkyTeam Alliance

SkyTeam is de wereldwijde alliantie van luchtvaartmaatschappijen met negen leden – Aeromexico, Air France, Alitalia, Aeroflot, Delta Air Lines, China Southern Airlines, Czech Airlines, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines en Korean Air – plus twee geassocieerde maatschappijen Air Europa en Kenya Airways. Deze organisatie heeft gekozen voor het gebruik van de volledige Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite voor bijna 450 medewerkers. Dit zijn voornamelijk medewerkers die veel mobiel werken en die dankzij BPOS altijd en overal, makkelijk en snel toegang hebben tot hun bedrijfsgegevens. BPOS is bij SkyTeam geïmplementeerd door Wortell, de eerste Microsoft partner in Nederland die BPOS bij klanten heeft geïmplementeerd.

 

Bruno Faccini, verantwoordelijk voor IT bij SkyTeam: “SkyTeam heeft voor BPOS gekozen omdat we het IT-beheer willen minimaliseren. We hoeven nu niet te investeren in serverinfrastructuur, softwarelicenties en IT-personeel. Hiermee denken we ongeveer 30 procent van de kosten te besparen, ten opzichte van een traditionele omgeving. De bekendheid met de tools - zodat er geen tijd verloren gaat met het leerproces - en de probleemloze integratie met onze IT-omgeving waren voor ons belangrijke redenen om te kiezen voor het online-aanbod van Microsoft. Momenteel gebruiken we al Exchange Online, Office Communications Online en Live Meeting. Volgende week gaat SharePoint Online wereldwijd live met een training bij KLM.”

Nieuwe SharePoint 2010 workloads

De nieuwe versie van SharePoint zal een aantal nieuwe workloads kennen in tegenstelling tot de SharePoint workloads die nu beschikbaar zijn.

Het grootste verschil zit hem in een duidelijker onderscheid tussen Intranet en Internet omgevingen. Daarnaast wordt FAST (de uitgebreide Search Engine voor SharePoint) duidelijker gepositioneert dan bij de andere versies. Als laatste wordt een SharePoint Online (onderdeel van BPOS) duidelijker gepositioneert.

Het verschil tussen de verschillende SharePoint versies is hieronder weergegeven:

2010 versie	2007 versie
SharePoint Foundation 2010	Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
SharePoint Server 2010 (Standard & Enterprise CAL)	MOSS 2007 (Standard & Enterprise CAL)	Onderscheid qua functionaliteiten wordt gemaakt aan de hand van de beschikbare CAL.
SharePoint Server 2010 for internet sites, Standard Edition	N/A
SharePoint Server 2010 for internet sites, Enterprise Edition	SharePoint Internet Connector
FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint	FAST
FAST Search Server 2010 for Internet Business	FAST
SharePoint Online	SharePoint Online, onderdeel van BPOS
SharePoint Online for Internet Sites	N/A	Gehoste versie van SharePoint voor Internet sites

De slide komt uit de openingskeynote van Steve Ballmer tijdens de SharePoint 2009 conference in Las Vegas.

SharePoint Online Language Packs

Following the post the Microsoft Online Services team on their blog that they would expand the number of languages, SharePoint Online is now available in more languages than the languages first made available. I have just created a Dutch SharePoint teamsite. Other available languages in SharePoint Online are:

English Arabic Bulgarian Catalan Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Croatian Czech Danish Dutch Estonian Finnish French

German Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Italian Japanese Kazakh Korean Latvian Lithuanian Norwegian Polish

Portuguese (Brazil) Portuguese (Portugal) Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swedish Thai Turkish Ukrainian

The language of a site can be selected when creating a new SharePoint site:

After this a new SharePoint Online site is populated in the requested language (see example below in Dutch):

BPOS Artikel in NetOpus

In de NetOpus van Juli 2009 is een door mij geschreven artikel gepubliceerd over de Business Productivity Online Suite. In het artikel beschrijf ik wat BPOS kan, hoe het gebruikt en geactiveerd kan worden en wanneer je het in kan zetten. Je kunt het blad bestellen op http://www.netopus.nl/.

Wil je een kopie van het artikel, laat het mij even weten.

BPOS: Jurisdiction and Location of Data for EU

Many of our customers ask us the question in which country BPOS is hosted for the EU. Next to this we often get the question under which country legislation / jurisdiction is arranged for the Microsoft Online Services.

For the European Countries BPOS is hosted in Ireland. There is a backup environment in Holland.

Legislation / Jurisdiction would be the country where provisioning occurs. For European countries this would therefore be Ireland.

Why is this so important? The largest impact is the European privacy law. This law differs greatly from the American law. A good article about the main differences can be found here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15221111/

BPOS SharePoint Online Table of Content Webpart

Last week we ran into a problem with the SharePoint Online Table of Content webpart. It appeared that the webpart didn't show all the results which it was supposed to. After we looked into this problem we found that it is normal behavior for SharePoint to show a maximum of 50 items. However in SharePoint it is possible to expand the number of results. In order to do this a change in the web.config site should be done. This is described in the following blog article: Table of Contents webpart 50 site limit (http://community.officesharepointpro.com/forums/thread/27307.aspx).

After finding this solution we contacted Microsoft support to have this issue resolved. We asked them to either change the webpart or the web.config. At this point Microsoft couldn't give us an approval on this change. Therefore we are stuck with the 50 item site limit.

Microsoft Online Services (BPOS) USA krijgt update

Over the next few days BPOS usa will get an update. This update will provide some extra functionality but does require some changes to SharePoint Online and the Directory Synchronization tooling. Next to this you’ll have to update the SSO tool.

The message send by the BPOS team is copied below:

Upgrade Timeline

3/26 The new version of the Sign In application is available for download 4/15 Optional upgrade notifications appear in the Sign In application 5/15 Mandatory upgrade notification appears in the Sign In application

We are writing to inform you of three changes to the service that may require updates to your environment.

1. Sign In Application

In mid-May, Microsoft Online Services will require an update to the Sign In application. The options for deploying this upgrade are:

Allow users to automatically upgrade the Sign In application when prompted (no administration required) Suppress the display of update notifications until you are ready to upgrade Deploy the Sign In application to your users’ computers

See Upgrade Your Sign In Application to assist you in planning for this change to your environment.

2. SharePoint Online Update

Have you customized your SharePoint Site Collections? If you have changed the SharePoint Online master page or uploaded a custom master page, you will need to take action before the April upgrade. See Update Your Microsoft SharePoint Online Site Collections for more information.

If you have not customized your site collections, no action is needed.

3. Directory Synchronization Update

Do you use the Microsoft Online Services Directory Synchronization tool? If so, you will be interested to learn that Windows Update recently released a high priority update that will stop your Directory Synchronization service. After installing this update, you will need to restart Directory Synchronization. For more information, see Directory Synchronization Update.

Artikel op WinMag

Zojuist kom ik een artikel op WinMag tegen waarin een presentatie over BPOS gehouden voor nederlandse Microsoft Partners beschreven wordt. Op deze partner bijenkomst heb ik een korte presentatie gehouden over de (on)mogelijkheden van BPOS.

Het volledige WinMag BPOS artikel is hier te lezen.

Increase SharePoint Online diskspace

The currently available disk space on SharePoint Online is rather limited. Online 250MB per user is provided. During trials you have no possibility to upgrade the amount of available data. However after the trial there is a possibility to buy extra data. This is offered in chuncks of 1 GB at a price level of about 2 euro's.

The trials in Europe right now don't have a possibility at all to upgrade to larger environments. That's because general availability will start from april. Paid subscriptions in western Europe are not possible at the moment.

BPOS Languages

Currently BPOS (Sharepoint, Exchange, Office Live Meeting and Office Communications Online) is available in several languages. Of course Dutch isn't one of them. As fa as I know now Dutch will not be supported in the near future. However, Exchange Webmail (OWA) is available in Dutch. Next to this there is always a possibility to create a Dutch SharePoint site (at least the content).

Most presumably Microsoft decided on this because the Dutch market isn't large enough and most Dutch people speak English.