Innovative Technology Weblog

Helping to propel large-scale mobile phone deployments by businesses, Microsoft announced at CTIA Wireless 2008 the immediate availability of System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008 and plans for a Microsoft Mobile Services Plan (MMSP) to be available from mobile operators worldwide. Together with Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1, the software and services provide the best solution for midsize and large businesses to manage and help protect Windows Mobile phones.

“With Microsoft’s mobile solutions, businesses now have the power, control and flexibility over how they deliver information to their employees on the go,” said John O’Rourke, general manager, Mobile Communications Business, Microsoft. “Together with our partners, we’re helping enterprises extend their reach like never before.”

Microsoft saw positive response to early trial programs for Mobile Device Manager. Companies across the financial, manufacturing and professional services industries also requested that mobile operators deliver a core set of software and services to help businesses meet their management needs.

A study conducted by Microsoft with large and midsize organizations showed businesses would like to move beyond their current mobile solutions to offer more sophisticated services. Mobile Device Manager meets their needs by offering the following benefits:

• Features to manage phones with the same ease and flexibility as Windows-based PCs, addressing IT priorities for saving resources and protecting information

• Capability to help protect sensitive business files and e-mails, contacts and other information through file and storage card encryption on the phone should it be lost or stolen

• Ability to access more of the information mobile workers need for staying on top of their jobs via a mobile virtual private network, which provides security-enhanced access to company data and application updates over the air

Mobile Services Plan Enriches End-to-End Experience

Today leading operators AT&T, O2, Orange, TaTa Teleservices Ltd. and Verizon Wireless announced they are in discussions with Microsoft to deliver the Microsoft Mobile Services Plan. MMSP is a set of core software and services that provides a uniform experience across Windows Mobile 6.1 phones, whether working with one or more operators, saving time and resources so companies can focus on other areas of mobility. Beginning later in 2008, operators plan to offer a subscription plan that will bring businesses the following:

• A corporate-grade network and data plan to support enterprise applications and services to help people get work done with the responsiveness they expect from the network and the efficient use of battery power they want on their phones

• A package from mobile operators, including access rights to Mobile Device Manager as well as the advanced mobile management features of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1), Microsoft Services Premier Support and Software Assurance for Microsoft applications such as Microsoft Office Mobile running on Windows Mobile 6.1-based phones.

Fast-Growing Network of Partners Open for Business

Responding to the opportunity created by Mobile Device Manager and complementing the MMSP, a large network of global partners are ready to integrate and deploy into existing systems as well as create custom solutions for businesses. Among the first companies that worked with Microsoft to support early trial programs are AT&T Inc., EDS, Enterprise Mobile, HP, O2, Orange, SAT Corp. and Verizon Wireless.

“Given AT&T’s leadership in the Windows Mobile space, AT&T is excited that Mobile Device Manager is now a reality for our enterprise customers,” said Jeff Bradley, senior vice president, Marketing and Operations for AT&T’s wireless unit. “Every day, mobile devices become more ubiquitous throughout the enterprise, and the need to securely manage those devices, data and applications is critical for IT organizations. Through our early adopter trials, our customers are responding positively to AT&T’s deployment and optimization plans for Mobile Device Manager and are eager to adopt the first end-to-end wireless-focused enterprise solution that can maximize their investments in Microsoft technology.”

A wave of Windows Mobile 6.1 phones and operator networks supporting Mobile Device Manager is expected to begin in the second quarter of 2008 from Alltel Wireless, ASUS, AT&T, HP, HTC Corp., i-mate, Intermec Inc., Motorola, O2, Orange, Palm Inc., Pantech, Samsung, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, Sprint, Tata Teleservices Ltd., TELUS, Toshiba and Verizon Wireless.

Read more at the System Center Mobile Device Manager Site :

Also Microsoft has posted a few tools to deploy and troubleshoot System Center Mobile Device Manager :
• MDM Self Service Portal
• MDM Server Tools
• MDM Client Tools
• MDM Best Practices Analyzer Tool

These tools can be found at Technet

For a Demo of System Center Mobile Device Manager please take a look at this video:
Mobile Device Manager Demo

This time (cause i’m lazy too) a post that is 99% pictures and 1% words.

As you all have read in Jeroen’s post SP1 is RTM today and downloadable from the Microsoft Exchange Website
In the SP1 overvieuw some of the new features are discribed, but how do they look like in the interface ?

Watch & Learn:

A Default Active Sync profile is created for Mobile use.
Now it’s possible to change the refresh interval.

Public Folder Management Console (need I say more ??

This is all for now, I realy like what I see in SP1 and for sure I’m gonna like what I did’nt see.

Have a nice 1,

Erik Luppes

P.S. The management console now works in Vista

Last Saturday I arrived in Barcelona for this years IT-Forum event.
Today @ 1400 the keynote started with a percussion session just to warm up the crowd, I and some colleagues where a little late ate the auditorium so the nice people of Microsoft directed us to the press boot so we had priority seating

The keynote was held by Bob Kelly, he is the Corporate Vice President Infrastructure Server Marketing and he started off with the trends Microsoft is seeing in the market:

• Hardware Performance
• Web 2.0 Explosion
• Software Breakthroughs
• Broadband/Wireless/Mobility Form Factors

After these trends Bob talked about Dynamic IT and its Core Innovative areas, these areas are:

• Unified & Virtualized
In this part Microsoft explained the need of virtualization and the need of standardized environments.

• Process-Led / Model driven
This area is all about being in control using processes in models. Nowadays processes are being more intelligent and to model these processes help us to reduce costs.
This is done in the full range of products from development to operating systems.

• Service enabled
Microsoft is shifting from SOA to SaaS, this allows companies to connect their services, but still is a challenging process to federate between different user bases. Also being compliance with for example SOX can be challenging.

• User-Focused
To enhance the user experience Microsoft is working on developer tools so the developers can build applications with this enhanced user experience.

During the keynote Bob also did some announcements:

• Windows Server 2008 / SQL2008 / Visual Studio 2008 will be launched on Feb. 27th next year. This is a joint launch with a phased product release. This launch will be the biggest launch event ever, split up in 300 events and will have a reach of 15.000.000 people.
• The new virtual server role in Server 2008 (Viridian) has lost its codename and will be called Hyper-V. The server running this role will be Hyper-V Server.
• Next t o Windows Server 2008 there will also be 2 servers for small businesses, called Windows Small Business Server 2008 (75 seats) & Windows Essential Business Server 2008 (300 seats)
• In the summer of 2008 Microsoft will release Microsoft Application Virtualization formally known as SoftGrid.
• Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) will be renamed to Windows Deployment and will be capable to deploy clients as well servers.

There also were a few demos about Windows Server 2008, Virtualization, SQL 2008 and Home Server. I was really impressed by the Virtualization Demo that showed us the ability to use Virtual Machine Manager to manage Virtual Server 2006, Hyper-V and also VMware ESX from one single console.

If you want to see the entire slidedeck please go to our fotolog :

http://fotolog.buit.org/thumbnails.php?album=6

Well I gonna trie to keep you guys posted, talk to you later

Erik Luppes
Viva Barcelona

Today Microsoft has resleased Windows Dreamscene to all Windows Ultimate customers. To install Dreamscene simply run Windows Update.

As most of you already know, Windows DreamScene transforms your desktop from a static wallpaper image into a full-motion video. In conjunction with Stardock, we’re pleased to also offer a number of cool, new animated DreamScene desktops, including “Aurora�. Additionally, you can use your own videos as DreamScene desktops or visit Stardock’s Dream.WinCustomize.com website to download Stardock’s DeskScapes (an add-on to DreamScene) as well as a collection of fabulous content created by Stardock and members of the Ultimate community.

More @ Source

On request of DaSan (Tweakers.NET) I’ve created a little application for Windows Mobile, that allows you to Softreset you Mobile without using your stylus.
It’s just one single button that by pressing will reset your phone. (it’s only a softreset so all software and settings will be unharmed.

Download here

Mirror provided by http://www.allaboutphones.nl

This was my first project developing a Mobile App using Visual Studio.NET 2005 & Windows Mobile 6 SDK Pro.

I realy liked th IDE of Visual Studio, so probably I will try to develop more tools for Windows Mobile. (I’m not a developer, but like to be creative )