Microsoft Business and Technology Assessment Toolkit

Microsoft Partner, the Microsoft Business and Technology Assessment Toolkit includes EBS 2008. 

The latest version of the toolkit offers a range of new features:

• New assessments to evaluate your customers’ server, mobile, desktop, and Exchange needs and to help you identify solutions based on Windows Small Business Server 2008, Windows Essential Business Server 2008, Windows Mobile 6, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, Windows Vista, and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 technologies.

• A product-driven, customizable question bank that enables you to better tailor assessments to your customers’ specific needs, based on your product and solution expertise.

• A Windows-based platform that’s compatible with Microsoft Windows Vista, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, and 64-bit processors.

• New decision tree functionality to better guide a customer in choosing which solution—Windows Small Business Server 2008, Windows Essential Business Server 2008, or stand-alone Windows Server.

• New report generation for partners to customize and give to their partners.

Have you found this toolkit to be useful in the past?

Windows EBS at Convergence US

EBS has four sessions at Convergence 2009 in New Orleans during the second week of March:

ST07 - Lower TCO and Increase Productivity with Windows Essential Business Server 2008 and Microsoft Dynamics AX

Learn how Windows EBS 2008 helps midsize businesses lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and increase productivity of both end-users and IT Professionals.  Measured results from current customers will be featured.  Greater reduction of TCO and increase in productivity with the Microsoft Dynamics Administration Console Add-in for Windows Essential Business Server will also be discuss along with a roadmap of additional Microsoft Add-ins for Windows EBS 2008.  Hear from a current EBS 2008 and Microsoft Dynamics AX customer and see a live demo of Remote Web Workplace, the EBS unified Administration Console and the Microsoft Dynamics Add-in.  

Chris Grillone, me; John Elmer, Rodgers & Hammerstein 
3/10/2009 3:30PM-4:30PM Rm. 276

ST09 - Technologies to Drive Costs Out of Midsize Environments

In this session we'll be looking at what EBS can do to drive costs out of midsize environments. We'll show how with EBS and its component products we can automate many of the costly operational tasks that consume much of the time for midsize business. Workplace, the EBS unified Administration Console and the Microsoft Dynamics Add-in.  

Chris Grillone, me; Eric Watson, Group Product Manager (from dev); John Elmer, Rodgers & Hammerstein  
3/11/2009 2:30PM-3:30PM Rm. 276

ST08 - Lower TCO & Increase Productivity with Windows Essential Business Server 2008 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Learn how Windows EBS 2008 helps midsize businesses lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and increase productivity of both end-users and IT Professionals.  Measured results from current customers will be featured.  Greater reduction of TCO and increase in productivity with the Microsoft Dynamics Administration Console Add-in for Windows Essential Business Server will also be discuss along with a roadmap of additional Microsoft Add-ins for Windows EBS 2008.  See a live demo of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Add-in.

Chris Grillone; Sergei Dreizin (CRM Add-in Program Manager)
3/11/2009 9:00AM-10:00AM Rm. 276

IDST02 - Features and Technologies in Windows Essential Business Server (EBS) 2008

Interactive discussion with product manger and product group manager.  Ask questions, no presentation.

Chris Grillone; Eric Watson
3/10/2009 5:00PM-6:00PM Rm. 350

Financing Promo from Microsoft

Last re-port for this out of office period.

Are you also feeling the squeeze of the credit crunch?  Are you looking to finance EBS, hardware, partner services and other Microsoft software, e.g. Dynamics CRM? 

Microsoft is offering a SmartPay promotion.  This promo provides no payments for the first 6 months of the term of the loan.  Please read all the details and legal stuff here.

Microsoft Finance and this promotion are valid in:

• North America: US, Canada
• EMEA: UK, Germany, Spain, Belgium, France, Italy, Switzerland and Netherlands
• APAC: Korea, Australia, and New Zealand
• LATAM: Brazil

Re-posting higher viewed posts

While I am out of the office for the rest of the week, I am going to re-post a couple of blogs I noticed received high interest.

Green IT & Lower Total Cost of Ownership

IBM's latest commercial on Green IT hits the mark on addressing both environmental and total cost of ownership.  Whether you are concerned about the environment and energy dependence, lowering maintenance, repair & operations (MRO) costs, or all of the above, you want Green IT.   Don't be fooled by Greenwashing though.

BusinessWeek discusses Green IT in this article.  eWeek.com discusses 5 Steps to Green IT for infrastructure, including power consumption.

EBS 2008 helps you consolidate servers.  Less servers, less energy to power the servers and cool your server room.  EBS 2008 is not just hype on consolidation and Green IT.

“We were consuming about 12,000 to 14,000 BTUs [basic transmission unit] per hour in our data center, and we’ve reduced that to about 7,000 BTUs per hour by reducing our physical server count from 16 to 7. We’ve cut our power consumption in half.”

Tim Dreyling, Information Systems Manager, WASSER Studios

Read more about Five Ways to Reduce Data Center Server Power Consumption and how to make an impact, calculate your carbon footprint.

You need to start somewhere.  EBS 2008 helps lower TCO throughout the product lifecycle.

While I can one conventional car from 1999, I drive a Prius and motorcycle.  Unfortunately, the Prius doesn't have a lower TCO, but my past and present motorcycles have significantly lower TCO.  I could be greener, but it's a start. 

The value of EBS in today's economy

From the New York Times: Australia announced a $26.5B stimulus package and lowered its benchmark cash arate by a full percentage point to a record low of 3.25 percent.  Japan's central banked announced yesterday a plan to buy up to one trillion yen ($11.1B) of shares that Japanese banks hold in other corporations. 

Microsoft lay-offs no longer rumors, Microsoft announced planned lay-offs over the next 18 month of 5,000 employees which does not include contractors, 1500 laid-off less than two weeks ago.

My point here is that we are all feeling the effects of the economy, from governments to multi-national corporations to midsize businesses to individuals like you and me.  We are trying to save more while spending less as discussed in this NY Times article.  I hear about midsize business concerns and opportunities in today's economy from my parents who own and manage a midsize business, PaperSource Hawaii. 

Whether seizing opportunities in today's economy or hunkering down and just trying to survive, money is tight, and many midsize businesses are looking for ways to cut costs and increase productivity, sometime with less workers.  EBS helps midsize business with BOTH, not just one, but EBS requires a slightly higher initial server infrastructure investment than typical incremental maintenance.  We have customer evidence of overall cost reduction typically within the first year of deploying EBS, not just breaking even on your investment but creating additional savings.  Of course, you need to evaluate if our customers and evidence fits your specific situation, but our case studies and testimonials show significant savings.   Our evidence also supports measurable increased productivity of both end-users and IT Professionals.

Post a comment, whether is be a question or skepticism.  The comments are not moderated on my blog, and I only delete spam.

HP + EBS video

EBS on HP blade servers. HP is doubling down on EBS.

Find out more: www.hp.com/go/winessentialfamily