Microsoft Newsletter June 2011

Give your IT department carte blanche.
Rather than just moving your current IT environment to the cloud, Microsoft® cloud solutions are about creating new technology options that help drive your business forward. We believe Microsoft offers the most comprehensive set of cloud services on Earth. Products like Microsoft Office 365, Windows Azure™, and Windows Server® 2008 R2 Hyper-V™ give you the flexibility and control to use them exactly the way you want to.

Be the architect of an elastic infrastructure.
With these solutions, we can show you how you can move capabilities and data to the cloud on your terms. And distribute them where it makes sense for your organization—whether in your own datacenter or elsewhere. Build, extend, or migrate to the cloud by using powerful development and management tools that work across physical, virtual, and cloud environments.

Start today. You already have the skills.
Microsoft cloud solutions are built on familiar, best-in-class products. So you can tap your existing skill sets and the technology you already have to ease the transition. Invest in Microsoft cloud technology, and you can be confident about keeping up with whatever's next.

• CRM Online Promotion - As a limited time offer from Feburary 1, 2011 to June 30, 2011, Microsoft offers up to 22% discount on the price of CRM Online under Enterprise Agreement, Enterprise Agreemnt Subscription, Campus and School Agreement and Enrollment Education Solutions Volume Licensing programs.
   
• Expression® Studio 4 Ultimate Promotion  - As a limited time offer from October 1, 2010 to June 30 2011, Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010 Premium, Microsoft® Expression® 3 Blend, Microsoft® Expression® Professional Subscription  qualifying customers licensed under Open, Open Value, Select, Select Plus, Enterprise Agreement or Enterprise Subscription Volume Licensing programs, are eligible to acquire Expression Studio 4 Ultimate (license only) at up to 50% discount. 
   
• VDI Standard Suite Joint Citrix Promotion - This offer includes Microsoft Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Standard Suite subscription and Citrix XenDesktop VDI Edition annual license.  The discount is limited up to 20% of desktops or 250 devices, whichever is less.
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• Simplify & Save Offer Save up to 15% on Software Assurance for the entire duration (all three years) of an Open Value agreement, for all Open Value products and benefits on the qualified order.
  Track, manage and budget single or multiple volume license agreements with Microsoft’s Simplify and Save Offer when you renew and/or consolidate into a single Open Value agreement! Take action between October 18, 2010 and June 30, 2011, and you can receive up to:
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• Windows 7 Professional – Get enterprise-class IT on SMB terms. Take advantage of the Windows 7 Professional Upgrade promotion today and upgrade your business’s PCs with a 20% discount when you enroll in a new Volume Licensing and Software Assurance agreement. Windows® 7 Professional or Windows 7 Enterprise provides increased stability, security, flexibility, and control. Now your organization can realize the benefits of enhanced collaboration, any-where access and productivity without blowing your IT budget. Through June 30, 2011, you can save 20% if you upgrade your agreement with Software Assurance to Windows 7. Learn More

• Office 365 - Microsoft® Office 365 for small businesses is an easy-to-use set of web-enabled tools that let you access your email, important documents, contacts, and calendar from almost anywhere and any device—including PCs, Macintosh computers, iPhones, Android phones, and BlackBerry smartphones. Designed to meet the needs of a diverse range of small businesses, Office 365 lets you choose which tools to use. It works seamlessly with the programs you already know and use, including Microsoft Outlook®, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel®, and Microsoft PowerPoint®. It’s easy to try and simple to learn and it works with your existing hardware. Office 365 also offers improved collaboration capabilities, including a password-protected portal to share large, hard-to-email files both inside and outside of your organization. Powerful security features from Microsoft help protect your data, and when the service is released for general availability, it will be backed with a 99.9-percent uptime guarantee.
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• Microsoft Lync - Users seek communications tools that make their work easier and are available anywhere, anytime—including within the context of other applications. Microsoft Lync 2010 provides a single interface that unites voice communications, IM, and audio, video, and Web conferencing into a richer, more contextual offering.
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• Let’s talk about your Windows 7 Plans
  Windows 7 Upgrade Promotion As a limited time offer from January 1, 2011 to June 30, 2011, Microsoft offers up to 20% discount on the price of any Windows 7 upgrade with software assurance enrollment under Open, Open Value, Select and Select Plus and Worldwide Government Partner programs (exclude charity). 
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• Windows Intune - Manage and Secure Your Employees PC's from anywhere.
  Your employees depend on you to keep their PCs running at their best, whether they are in the office or on the road. Windows Intune™ simplifies and helps businesses manage and secure PCs using Windows® Cloud Services and Windows 7. Windows Intune can help your business in three key areas:
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• Forefront & Lync will now be included in Core CAL.  - What's Changing? Effective August 1, 2011, Microsoft will add Forefront Endpoint Protection (FEP) and Lync Standard to the Core CAL. This is the first change to the Core CAL in 10 years. For current Core CAL customers, everyone under SA on Aug 1 will receive the "L" for free and their SA price will not change until contract renewal. At renewal, the SA price change depends on how customers license the Core CAL:
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• Microsoft Project 2010 – What’s New - Microsoft Project 2010 gives you an intuitive and easier way to effectively complete all types of work. In Microsoft Project Standard 2010, user-controlled scheduling puts you in control and brings together the flexibility and ease of a tool like Microsoft Office Excel 2010 with the power of the Project scheduling engine. And, with a completely new and visually enhanced timeline view, you have an easier, more intuitive way to see and share key dates and deadlines. En Pointe Special Offer, Buy 9, receive the 10th Free
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• Top 10 reasons to try Visio 2010 - Microsoft Visio 2010 advanced diagramming tools help you simplify complexity with dynamic, data-driven visuals and new ways to share on the Web in real time. Whether you’re creating an organizational chart, a network diagram, or a business process, the new tools and more intuitive interface in Visio 2010 make it easier to bring your diagrams to life.
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In addition to En Pointe’s licensing expertise we offer our customers consulting services including long-term managed services and shorter-term project based services including assessments, implementation and deployment, design and architecture, staff augmentation, training knowledge transfer and blocks of time for on demand consumption.
Our specialties include Exchange Upgrades & Migrations, Cloud, Virtualization (Hyper-V, App-V), Desktop Deployment, Active Directory Services, Software Asset Management, Server Management, Collaboration (SharePoint, Office, Lync), Systems Management (Intune)
(Contact us today to find out how to qualify for a Free IO Assessment)