MVP Summit November 2013

Posted on November 16, 2013 by Michel de Rooij

With receiving the MVP Award in October comes one of the benefits I’ve been looking forward to, should I ever receive it: the opportunity to attend the MVP Global Summit. My employer understands the value of these events and gave their approval, as it takes a week out of my busy schedule. So on November 17th I’ll be on my way to Seattle–Tacoma International Airport for my inaugural MVP Global Summit.

The event is held in Bellevue and at the Microsoft HQ in Redmond, Washington State, from November 18th to November 21st. The previous MVP Global Summit held in February, 2013, was attended by around 1,400 MVPs; worldwide there are around 4,000 MVPs in around 90 countries.

It will be great opportunity from a learning as well as a networking perspective, as you not only get to participate in in-depth sessions on the current and future versions of your product, but also get to meet the other “rock stars” and Microsoft employees from Product Groups as well.

Unfortunately, the event and all disclosed information or discussions are under strict NDA, so don’t expect me to post or tweet anything disclosed at the event.

For those MVP readers also attending the summit, see you there!

The UC Architects Podcast Ep28

Posted on October 15, 2013 by Michel de Rooij

We’re glad to announce the availability of episode 28 of The UC Architects podcast. This is a special episode recorded with a live audience during DevConnections 2013 in Las Vegas.

This episode is hosted by Steve Goodman, Johan Veldhuis, and Michael van Horenbeeck. Special guests are Tony Redmond, Greg Taylor (Microsoft), Jeff Mealiffe (Microsoft) and John Rodriguez (Microsoft).

Topics discussed in this special episode are:

MEC is back – registration is now open, so get signing up! What might await those thinking of going? And with MEC, is there still a gap in the market for conferences like Exchange Connections?
Where is the place for on-premises Exchange long-term and how does this affect the Exchange-centric IT pro? What kind of skills will they need in 2-5 years time?
Is there a need for top level training and certification for Exchange?
Product quality – Is is Exchange a victim of it’s own success?
Exchange in the public cloud. Amazon Web Services have released a guide on deploying Exchange on AWS. Does this give more choice to organizations?
Questions from the audience

More information on the podcast including references and option to play or download the podcast directly through here or you can subscribe to the podcasts using iTunes, Zune or use the RSS feed.

About
The UC Architects is a bi-weekly community podcast by people with a passion for Unified Communications; our main focus is on Exchange, Lync or related subjects.

2013 Microsoft MVP Award

Posted on October 1, 2013 by Michel de Rooij

I am pleased to announce that as of today, I am the recipient of the 2013 Microsoft MVP Award for Exchange Server:

MVP awards are given to individuals by Microsoft in recognition of their contributions to the technical community, such as this blog, forums or our very own The UC Architects podcast.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my readers, followers, fellow MVPs (always wanted to say that) and of course the Microsoft employees that have encouraged, helped and supported me over years.

My MVP profile can be found here.

Outlook.com gets IMAP & OAuth support

Posted on September 13, 2013 by Michel de Rooij

Today Outlook.com, Microsoft’s free web-based e-mail service and evolution of hotmail.com after Microsoft bought the equally named service in 1997, received support for IMAP (protocol for e-mail retrieval – and manipulation) and OAuth 2.0 (an authorization standard.). Outlook.com is reported to have a user base of over 400.000.000 accounts.

This could be interesting for IMAP-based services or clients lacking Exchange ActiveSync support or for which POP (retrieval only) won’t suffice. They can now provide IMAP-based services or applications which can not only operate with on-premises Exchange, Office 365 or 3rd party e-mail systems, but also mailboxes hosted on Outlook.com.

Here is the information to set up IMAP (and SMTP for sending out e-mail) services in your application or service:

IMAP

Incoming IMAP mail server: imap-mail.outlook.com
Incoming IMAP mail server port: 993
Encryption: SSL

SMTP

Outgoing SMTP mail server: smtp-mail.outlook.com
Outgoing SMTP mail server port: 587
Encryption: TLS

TechNet Subscriptions Changes

Posted on September 4, 2013 by Michel de Rooij

In the wake of Microsoft’s announcement to retire TechNet and more recently cancelling the MCM/MCSM/MCA certifications, Microsoft is offering some changes in the TechNet area, in what looks like a move to regain some trust from the community.

After the TechNet retirement announcement, in which Microsoft suggested IT Pros to switch to the far more expensive MSDN subscriptions, use time-bombed eval software or make use of the very limited Virtual Academy and Virtual Labs, the community cried foul which resulted in initiatives like a petition which currently has received over 10,000 signatures (if you haven’t signed yet, please do so).

The changes announced today are published in full here. In short:

Non-Volume Licensing program particpating subscribers who were active on September 1st, 2013 who’s subscription expires on or before September 30th, 2014, may extend their subscription for another 90 days for free;
180 day limited previous versions of software will be made available through the Evaluation Center. No details yet on the number of software generations that will be made available.
Microsoft Certified Trainers (MCT) will also get a 90 day extension for their TechNet Professional subscription. In addition, a replacement is in the works in which MCT’s get access to non-time-bombed software for instructional/training purposes.

While still short of the original subscription, Microsoft is moving. However, if they can quickly make arrangements for MCTs, why not for IT Professionals and their TechNet subscriptions?

Looking at the way many fellows, myself included, work, that 180 day time-bombed is pretty useless or at least annoying and time consuming (like if I have nothing better to do than to redeploy and reconfigure lab environments).

With MCT nowadays mainly being a registration and fee donation process, I won’t be surprised to see a lot of “paper MCTs” after January, 2015 (September 2014 + 90 days) if the situation stays like this.

What do you think? Are these changes satisfactory?