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WPC 2010 was Microsoft’s largest partner conference ever with over 14,000 attendees from 130 countries. WPC provided an opportunity to meet with partners, congratulate and celebrate our partners’ successes, and share our business priorities for the upcoming year at our UC Pre-Day and WPC sessions. Walking away from WPC, there is a legion of Systems Integrators, Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), Resellers, Telco and Hardware partners readied and excited to help customers like you realize the full benefits  of Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Communications Server ‘14’. 

 It is evident our partners are not only expanding their Exchange and Communications Server practices, but partners are also investing in Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Office, enabling you to take advantage of our full productivity offerings. Cloud, cloud, cloud was the theme of WPC, and partners were eager to learn how to bring Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) to your organization. 

 We hosted over 350 partners at our UC Pre-Day. Conference highlights include Stephen Elop’s vision keynote featuring a demo by Kirk Koenigsbauer, Chris Caposella’s value keynote, and breakout sessions from Kirk Gregersen and Julia White. Ian Hameroff and Gary Danoys teamed up to present an interactive session highlighting Exchange Online and how Microsoft and our partners are winning against IBM and Google. Jamie Stark’s session on deployment opportunities for the forthcoming release of Communications Server ‘14’ was standing room only, and partners were eager to learn about how CS “14” can be used to replace, enhance or  add to a customers’ PBX. Watch keynotes and breakout sessions at www.digitalwpc.com.

 A growing set of partners are realizing new business opportunities by developing applications on our Communications Server platform. Yancey Smith, Director of Communications Server Product Management, moderated a panel of six CEBP (communications enable business processes) application developer partners including Geomant, Clarity Consulting, Convergent, Post CTI, Wortell and Evangelyze. The panel focused on Communications Server ‘14’ as an extensible platform for building CEBP applications to further streamline business process.. 

Finally, Polycom, Aastra, Brocade, ClearOne, and Dialogic announced partner solutions along with a joint release from Polycom and BT.

Our team is excited to kickoff this fiscal year with a strong partner ecosystem that is activated and eager to deliver our unified communications solutions to you. Partners are coming to the cloud with us and are ready to advise you on how to take advantage of our growing cloud portfolio spanning Exchange Online, Office Communications Online, SharePoint Online, all the way to Windows Azure and Windows Intune.

For more information, visit digitalwpc.com and whymicrosoft.com.

Cheers,

Kristin Murray, UC Partner Marketing

The next 50 years could bring such astounding technology advances as self-aware machines, the end of aging and ‘printable’ human organs, Cisco Futurist Dave Evans postulated during the live Talk2Cisco broadcast this week.

In an animated half-hour conversation with viewers, Evans shared his thoughts on the art and science of being a futurist, speculated on the implications of the explosion of data and described his vision for a future Internet of Things—when trillions of networked computers could free people to focus their energies on pressing issues like climate change or resource shortages.

Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it. -P.J. O’Rourke

Trust me: if you pick up a copy of Inder Sidhu’s (@indersidhu) New York Times best-seller, Doing Both, you will look good…really good…while reading it. But don’t take my word for it, check this interview with the man himself.

SAN JOSE, Calif. – July 28, 2010 – Cisco today announced that its board of directors will offer a shareholder advisory vote on executive compensation during its next annual meeting scheduled for November 18, 2010.  At the meeting, shareholders will be given the opportunity to provide input on the compensation of named executive officers by casting a non-binding vote. Cisco …

SAN JOSE, Calif, – July 28, 2010 – Cisco has scheduled a conference call for Wednesday, August 11, 2010 at 1:30 PM (PT) to announce its fourth quarter and fiscal year 2010 financial results for the quarter ending Saturday, July 31. Financial results will be released over Marketwire, as well as the European Business and Technical Wire after the close of the market on Wednesday, August 11, …

CHENGDU, China – July 28, 2010 – Cisco today delivered its ‘Connecting Sichuan’ year two report to the Sichuan provincial government, detailing the company’s progress in collaborating with a multitude of local partners to improve the state of education and healthcare in the province after the devastating May 12th Wenchuan earthquake struck two years ago. At a meeting held jointly by Cisco and the …

SILICON VALLEY, Calif. – July 28, 2010 – As part of their ongoing collaboration, Cisco, NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP), and VMware (NYSE: VMW) today announced the industry’s first certified end-to-end Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) solution for VMware-virtual environments. This combined solution supports FCoE end-to-end to reduce the number of devices and cables needed and to drive data center …

Last night on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) broadcast of The 7:30 Report, Australians heard from Mike Quigley the CEO of NBN Co Limited which was established by the Australian Government to design, build and operate the wholesale-only National Broadband Network.  In the interview he stated how NBN Co is using high end video conferencing between its Sydney and Melbourne offices “so that we no longer have to get on planes anywhere near as frequently.”  And what viewers saw on their TV screens was a short clip of an NBN Co meeting held over Cisco TelePresence (to view segment, go here and click on video on right-hand side). 

In the interview Quigley went on to state that “this (video conferencing) will start to have a real big impact on small-medium businesses, especially outside cities”.  This is poignantly demonstrated earlier in The 7:30 Report’s segment on the National Broadband Network with a short clip on how Grampians Rural Health Alliance is using Cisco TelePresence to make a dramatic impact in delivering healthcare to rural Australia.

SAN JOSE, Calif. – July 27, 2010 – NightHawk Radiology Services, which provides high-quality, cost-effective services to approximately 1,600 healthcare sites – including 26 percent of all U.S. hospitals – has selected the Cisco Unified Computing System® as a highly available and scalable platform for the company’s new main data center, which consolidates many smaller server sites …

SHANGHAI, China – July 27, 2010 – Earlier this month, Cisco TelePresenceTM equipment enabled the first virtual dance rehearsal of young dancers of the Children’s Palace in Shanghai and their counterparts from National Dance Institute (NDI) in New York. These talented children began preparations for their joint performance from opposite sides of the world using Cisco’s high-definition, video …