http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/ Mitchell Ashley talks with interesting people about interesting topics in the world of Microsoft. en Copyright 2008 Jeff Kaplan, managing partner at THINKstrategies joins me to dive deep into what IT organizations are doing with SaaS. The economic challenges seem to have accelerated use of SaaS by IT groups, maturing SaaS to a point where it is much more palatable to IT. (27:45) /podcasts/com/2008/112008com-saas-kaplan.html /podcasts/com/2008/112008com-saas-kaplan.html Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0500 In part 2 of my interview with Savvis CTO Bryan Doerr we jump into the implications of the economy and how the impact helps or hurts enterprise IT, SaaS ISVs, and SaaS providers like Savvis. (19:45) /podcasts/com/2008/102408com-downeconomy.html /podcasts/com/2008/102408com-downeconomy.html Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400 Not to be left in the cloud of dust kicked up the Salesforce, Google, Amazon and others, Savvis announced their entrant to woo ISVs onto their SaaS hosting platform and services. Savvis CTO, Bryan Doerr, joins me for part 1 of the podcast to talk about the Savvis offering, and more specifically, what Savvis is doing to differentiate from others already going after ISV SaaS hosting and services. (23:07) /podcasts/com/2008/102208com-savvis.html /podcasts/com/2008/102208com-savvis.html Wed, 22 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400 Does a simple user name and password cut it in the world of cloud services, SaaS and Software+Services? This week’s podcast furthers the theme of utilizing cloud services for our applications, discussing how cloud identity management services offer richer options for managing user identities in applications that operate using services outside of the enterprise. (28:41) /podcasts/com/2008/092908com-cloud-id-mgmt.html /podcasts/com/2008/092908com-cloud-id-mgmt.html Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0400 BizTalk Server was in the news this week with Microsoft's announcement it will continue BizTalk development and release BizTalk Server 2009 early next year. Every enterprise deals will very difficult integration issues and BizTalk provides the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), or the message bus, that allows disparate systems and databases to communicate and integrate with each other. In this podcast, Technetronic Solutions CTO and BizTalk expert Donald Lutz joins us to explain how BizTalk works, how to download and learn to use BizTalk Server (recommended book: Professional BizTalk Server 2006), why Microsoft chose to bring out BizTalk Server 2009 rather than wait for the much touted Oslo technologies, why BizTalk isn't used in more Web 2.0 applications, cloud based Microsoft BizTalk Services, and what the future holds for BizTalk Server and Oslo. (24:13) /podcasts/com/2008/091208com-biztalk.html /podcasts/com/2008/091208com-biztalk.html Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0400 This week Eugenio Pace, Microsoft Platform Architect and Software+Services guru joins me to talk about building S+S applications using cloud data services. Eugenio is one of Microsoft’s best experts at architecting S+S applications. He spends his days researching, architecting, designing, building software, speaking, and writing about Software+Services apps. In the podcast, Eugenio and I explore why S+S apps are different than traditional web apps, and how software designers should approach SQL Server Data Services using cloud data services. Microsoft doesn’t offer a cloud data service offering yet, but SQL DS clearly is the vehicle for connect S+S apps into Microsoft’s forthcoming cloud services. Eugenio knows his stuff and whether you’re architecting S+S applications or someone who makes decisions about IT technology and spending, you’ll get a ton of good information from the discussion with Eugenio. (28:32) /podcasts/com/2008/082908com-e-pace.html /podcasts/com/2008/082908com-e-pace.html Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0400 HP, Intel and Citrix have joined forces by sponsoring a new event, Power IT Down Day on August 27th. The Federal business units of these organizations created this event to bring awareness to the need and benefit of turning off unused equipment, particularly end users’ desktop and other computing equipment when the leave work for the day. Estimates are that the US could see a similar spike in power costs over the next seven years that we’ve recently experienced with gasoline prices. If 10% of government employees followed the practice of turning off unused equipment during off hours, savings could be as much as $24,000 every day. Join me in talking Tom Simmons, Citrix Federal area Vice President, about why these companies joined forces to sponsor this event, learn how companies can participate, what would be considered a success and how you can help save energy costs. /podcasts/com/2008/082008com-power-it-down-day.html /podcasts/com/2008/082008com-power-it-down-day.html Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0400 This week I interview John Betz, Director Product Management for Microsoft Business Online Services. In our interview, John and I get into the details behind Microsoft's online hosted Exchange and SharePoint. We discuss who owns the customer, what service level agreements are offered or are in the works, the differences between the deskless and full hosted offerings, how partners can differentiate and offer additional services, and much more. If you are a Microsoft Partner considering how you can play in the world of hosted Microsoft solutions, this is a podcast you must listen to. (23:39) /podcasts/com/2008/080608com-betz.html /podcasts/com/2008/080608com-betz.html Wed, 6 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0400 Donald Lutz, Microsoft .NET, SharePoint BizTalk expert, discusses how partners such as Donald’ firm are developing applications and services for customers using SOA and web services. Applications and services that live in the cloud require a different approach to creating and integrating applications, resulting in software and solutions that are primarily configured through BizTalk and other elements of the Microsoft software stack. Donald will be joining me on a regular basis with a new developer series on creating cloud services and SOA based solutions. Donald made the shift from Java and Linux to .NET in 2001 and has his own views on why Microsoft’s .NET framework is a more complete and well put together offering than Java or other open source frameworks. Donald is CTO of Technetronic Solutions, a Microsoft Gold Partner, where they architect and create solutions for businesses and government customers. (20:48) /podcasts/com/2008/073108com-lutz.html /podcasts/com/2008/073108com-lutz.html Thu, 31 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0400 There's valuable data buried in your email besides what's just sitting in your inbox. I talk with Mat Brezina, co-founder of Xobni, and exciting Outlook plugin that mines social networking data from your Outlook pst/ost files, giving you new information and tools to better interact with others though email. Trying to remember that "one person" who was coped on some email thread a while back? Looking for the latest file your buddy sent you? What time would be be good to email that person so they'll read your email? Don’t go sorting your email by columns to dig for that information, use the Outlook Xobni plugin to bring it to you. Xobni also integrates with the business social networking LinkedIn service. We’ll delve into Matt's vision for Xobni, why he dropped out of college to co-found the company, and talk about the exciting things Xobni is doing. (22:46) /podcasts/com/2008/072408com-xobni.html /podcasts/com/2008/072408com-xobni.html Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0400