The New World. Delivered.

I recently celebrated my 9 year anniversary with my company, which was called USinternetworking, Inc. at the time I signed on. 

Then as now the company was the leading application service provider for the Enterprise.

The acquisition of USi in 2006 by AT&T was a major milestone in the growth of the company and its market niche, and the change has fueled significant growth that continues even in today’s climate, as you may have seen in AT&T’s Q1 earnings report released yesterday.   Many of AT&T’s Customers in the Enterprise space have taken advantage of the many service offerings the USi acquisition brought to the table, which you can read more about on the AT&T Hosting & Application Services web page.

      On January 1, 2009, the company officially became AT&T’s Hosting & Application Services division.  The USi name was officially retired in virtually all communications.

Today, another milestone! 

The USi sign has come down from the face of the building in Annapolis, Maryland, and been replaced by the ubiquitous AT&T logo, as you can see in this photo, taken by my colleague, SharePoint evil genius, Bryan Napier.

The “O” in MOSS 2010? We throw that away!

Microsoft has announced that the next version of the SharePoint server product will be called Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, dropping the word “Office” altogether from the name, and screwing up one of the few widely successful four-letter (as opposed to three-letter) acronyms in recent computing history.

The idea, it seems, is for everyone to just call SharePoint “SharePoint” and just use the “Office” term to describe the client tools like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, et al.

Excellent list of SharePoint Resources

Gabor Fari has assembled a very nice list of useful links to SharePoint materials freely available on the web.

Topics include:

• Training and Adoption
• Compliance, Governance and Administration
• Utilities and Add-ons
• Legacy Migration and Integration
• Technical White papers
• Books

Check it out!

Add This To Your Toolbox: Quest Offers a FREE “Discovery Edition” of Its Popular Notes Migrator for SharePoint Tool

If you have a Customer looking to migrate their Notes content to SharePoint, Quest is offering their Notes Migrator tools in a limited functionality Discovery Edition that gives you the pre-migration analysis that you need in order to effectively scope and estimate your project.

Check it out at Quest.com

Jeff is now with the program, and is blogging with Windows Live Writer

Thanks to the evil genius Bryan Napier for turning me on to Windows Live Writer as a betta edita for my blog.  I will be checking it out over the next few posts, to take it for a good spin.

Got Windows Live Writer tips to share?  Please do!

Technorati Tags: Windows Live Writer,blog editing software,enhanced blogging,Bryan Napier

Gartner's Case Study on Pfizer Highlights Value of Strategic Planning and Governance for SharePoint

Gartner recently published a very nice case study on Pfizer that highlights some great governance techniques and lessons learned on their way to a 41,000 user Enterprise SharePoint deployment.

Good stuff for people involved in Strategic Planning for SharePoint.

PerformancePoint Services is now INCLUDED with your EXISTING Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise license!

Microsoft has not only promised to incorporate what was formerly a standalone BI product, Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007, into Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2010 (?) Enterprise Edition, but they have actually updated the licensing of MOSS 2007 Enteprise, so you can start taking advantage of PerformancePoint Services RIGHT AWAY at no additional licensing cost! ("PerformancePoint Services will be a license entitlement for SharePoint Server 2007 E-CAL customers with Software Assurance.")

http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint/capabilities/bi/overview.mspx

This is a huge win for organizations looking to analyze their business' performance without purchasing an entirely separate BI solution when they already have MOSS Enterprise up and running.

The rumors are true! SharePoint Designer is now a FREE DOWNLOAD!

In what is sure to spur a wave of nifty innovations to corporate SharePoint sites, Microsoft has dropped licensing cost from SharePoint Designer, making the tool a free download.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=baa3ad86-bfc1-4bd4-9812-d9e710d44f42

A word of caution. Just because you CAN do something, doesn't mean you SHOULD do it.

SharePoint Designer is a powerful tool for certain things, but it should not be the only weapon in your arsenal when taking your SharePoint solution to the next level.

Ask your SharePoint consultant and/or your internal SharePoint governance team for guidance on the appropriate uses of SharePoint Designer for your specific solution.

Happy downloading!