Top News Stories
Microsoft Finally Uses SharePoint on its own Public Site (CMS Watch)
Perhaps it doesn’t strike you as a surprise, but Microsoft just launched the new SharePoint product site using SharePoint 2007.  Some might be surprised, since Redmond’s previous Web CMS product, “MCMS,” did not get this kind of love.  What’s telling, though  is that Microsoft is making this move so late in the product’s lifecycle, when otherwise Redmond is famous for making their internal teams run on “dog food” versions of software – really early alpha release).

Ozzie Lays Out Microsoft’s Vision at J.P. Morgan Event (Redmond Mag)
Microsoft’s chief software architect, Ray Ozzie, fielded questions from financial analysts at the J.P. Morgan Technology, Media and Telecom Conference on Wednesday. Ozzie’s job intersects between the business and technical sides at Microsoft. He also steers the company’s overall vision. He provided the number-crunching crowd with a lot of the vision part, but few specific details on how Microsoft actually plans to monetize its strategies.

Microsoft to Bring BI to the Cloud (CIO)
Microsoft Corp. will bring BI and analytic services to its Windows Azure cloud computing platform, though it is unlikely to arrive before 2013, an executive said Thursday. Microsoft BI software hosted on Windows Azure is “clearly on our roadmap,” Guy Weismantel, Microsoft’s director of BI, told Computerworld. However, it’s “not a fully fleshed-out story. So it won’t be the next release of Office 2010, but the one after that, that you’ll see us get into cloud-based BI.”

Microsoft Online Customers in the Thousands (Softpedia)
Microsoft Online customers number in the thousands, the Redmond company reveals, admitting that adoption is slow. Ron Markezich, corporate vice president of Microsoft Online and Microsoft’s former CIO, indicates that there are a number of concerns for companies that result in a sluggish adoption rate. Concerns related mainly to security, reliability, and data control are capable of preventing business customers from embracing Cloud computing. Essentially, through Cloud computing, companies would host data and run services and applications in the Cloud, namely on third-party datacenters, including Microsoft’s, in contrast to having them available on-premise.

Azure Commercially Available from November (Cloud Computing Journal)
Microsoft is set to deliver Windows Azure to the public by the end of this year, with an imminent announcement at Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles on November 17, 2009. When Steve Ballmer mentioned this February that Windows Azure “will reach fruition with the PDC this year” I didn’t really believed it, considering where the product was and how much we knew about the progress Microsoft was making on delivering Windows Azure and related services. Even TechEd this year was surprisingly quiet about Windows Azure, but this is just the silence before the storm. Microsoft is revving up the software development and marketing machine so at this year’s PDC cloud computing and Windows Azure will take again center stage.

Google Claims 30 Percent Chrome Speed Boost (CNET)
Google has shifted the JavaScript engine that powers its Chrome Web browser into a higher gear. The company announced Thursday that an update to Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine, combined with a new version of the Webkit browser engine, should improve the loading speed of JavaScript-heavy Web pages by up to 30 percent. The updates will be automatically downloaded to existing copies of Chrome.

Around the Blogosphere
Attention: Important Information on Service Pack 2 (Stefan Goßner)
We have recently discovered a bug with Service Pack 2 (SP2) that affects all customers that have deployed it for SharePoint Server 2007. During the installation of SP2, a product expiration date is improperly activated. This means SharePoint will expire as though it was a trial installation 180 days after SP2 is deployed. The activation of the expiration date will not affect the normal function of SharePoint up until the expiration date passes. Furthermore, product expiration 180 days after SP2 installation will not affect customer’s data, configuration or application code but will render SharePoint inaccessible for end-users.

Microsoft Infrastructure Administrators Need to Face the Facts…SharePoint is Here to Stay! (Made 4 the .NET)
I have been on the Microsoft Partner Services training for Collaboration and Portal technology for two days presented by Ian Morrish from MCS NZ. @IMorrish is well known in the community for http://www.wssdemo.com/ . One thing that just niggled at me over the two days was the massive pressure that is on SharePoint Architects’ to take responsibility not only for SharePoint as a Platform but also for all the underlying technology stack. I’ve discussed this before, but it just rang loud and clear after hearing Ian speak. Ian is a walking SharePointPedia for all things Infrastructure as well as an amazing depth of knowledge in the SharePoint Platform across the board.

24 Minute Screencast: SharePoint Designer Workflow – Part 4 (End User SharePoint)
This is the fourth screencast in a five part series on SharePoint Designer Workflow, produced by Bjørn’s of the USP Journal.

7 Ways to Get More from SharePoint #7 – Consider 3rd Party Solutions to Increase Productivity (Offline SharePoint)
This is the next entry in my 7 part series on getting more from SharePoint now. My last post was on SharePoint governance. This time around, I’d like to look at increasing user productivity.

(9) Phase 6: Operational Support (Manage Projects on SharePoint)
Table 6 below shows the key activities and milestones in Phase 6 Operational Support, demonstrating that at this phase of the WAG process, there are standard activities and milestones with which all development teams are familiar. There are, however, some differences between activities during a traditional operational phase and that in the WAG process, due primarily to the iterative nature of the architecture and development, including:

SharePoint Job Listings**
SHAREPOINT ARCHITECTS (H/F)
As a SharePoint Architect you will lead and participate in the architectural design, development, customization and integration tasks of enterprise solutions involving Portals, Enterprise Search, Enterprise Content Management, Business Intelligence and Business Process and Forms. The solutions you will design shall be based on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007), Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS 3.0) and other .NET components.

SHAREPOINT DEVELOPERS (H/F)
As a SharePoint Developer you will be involved in the implementation of projects using the Microsoft SharePoint platform at leading organisations. You will have the opportunity to work with the latest tools, attend training and work on technology leading projects.

Microsoft Updates
Not all 2007 Office SP1 .msp files in the MSE package are installed if you apply the package on a computer that has the February 2009, March 2009, or April 2009 public update or the February 2009 cumulative update installed (KBAlertz – Microsoft Knowledge Base Article)
If you apply the 2007 Microsoft Office Service Pack 1 (SP1) Microsoft Self-Extractor (MSE) package on a computer that has the February 2009 public update, the March 2009 public update, or the April 2009 public update installed, or that has the February 2009 cumulative update installed, not all 2007 Office SP1 .msp files in the MSE package are installed. Additionally, the SP1 MSE package installation result message shows a successful installation without any errors.

Problems occur at export, at import, or with content deployment because the word “Pages” and the word “Tabs” in the UI of the Hungarian version of SharePoint Server 2007 are incorrectly translated as the same word (KBAlertz – Microsoft Knowledge Base Article)
In the Hungarian version of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, the word “Pages” and the word “Tabs” are both translated to the same Hungarian word in part of the UI. For example, the Collaboration Portal Site Template contains two lists that have the same name. Therefore, problems occur at export, at import, or with content deployment. The English words “Pages” and “Tabs” are both translated as the Hungarian word “Lapok.” The English word “Tabs” should be translated as “Flek.”

Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package (Coreservermui.msp): April 30, 2009 (KBAlertz – Microsoft Knowledge Base Article)
This article describes the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 issue that is fixed in the Office SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package that is dated April 30, 2009.

Bamboo Partner Events*
May 26, Online, Introduction to Building Better SharePoint Solutions – IMPACT Management
May 27, Online, Tips & Tricks for Building Better SharePoint Solutions – IMPACT Management

June 13, Chicago, Illinois, SharePoint Saturday
June 20, Charlotte, North Carolina, SharePoint Saturday

July 18, Harrison, Arkansas, SharePoint Saturday

August 24-26, Washington, DC, Best Practices Conference – Mindsharp

SharePoint Events**
May 26, Online, Deep Dive with jQuery: Create a Preview Pane
May 26, Online, SharePoint Project Management Webinar
May 26, Online, Introduction to Building Better SharePoint Solutions
May 27, Online, SharePoint Project Management Webinar
May 27, Online, SharePoint Project Management Webinar
May 27, Online, SharePoint Administration Webinar
May 27, Online, Tips & Tricks for Building Better SharePoint Solutions
May 28, Online, SharePoint Project Management Webinar
May 28, Online, ‘What’s New from Bamboo?’ Webinar

June 11, Evansville, Indiana, Evansville Indiana’s SharePoint Group
June 13, Chicago, Illinois, SharePoint Saturday
June 17, Reston, Virginia, CloudCamp Washington, DC
June 20, Charlotte, North Carolina, SharePoint Saturday
June 22-24, Boston, Massachusetts, SPTechCon
June 26-27, Dulles, Virginia, Regional SharePoint Users Conference 2009

July 2-3, Wellington, New Zealand, New Zealand Community SharePoint Conference
July 13-16, New Orleans, Louisiana, Worldwide Partner Conference 2009
July 18, Harrison, Arkansas, SharePoint Saturday
July 20-24, Las Vegas, Nevada, SharePoint Branding Bootcamp

August 24-26, Washington, DC, Best Practices Conference

September 21-25, Chicago, Illinois, SharePoint Branding Bootcamp

October 19-22, Las Vegas, Nevada, SharePoint Conference 2009

* If you are a Bamboo Partner please contact Janet Goda (janet.goda@bamboosolutions.com) to have your event included in the Bamboo Partner Events.

** Please contact Chris Dooley (chris.dooley@bamboosolutions.com) to include your event  or job listing in SharePoint Daily.

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