Learn How To Create Access Web Databases with Office 365’s SharePoint Online Beta from my Latest Webcast

My Moving Access Tables to SharePoint 2010 or SharePoint Online Lists Webcast (posted 5/24/2011) describes how to move and link Access tables to SharePoint lists. As a bonus, it also includes detailed instructions for and an example of using SharePoint Online‘s Access Services to create a Web Database from a SharePoint (not Access) Online Contacts template.

Click here to watch the Webcast and download the PowerPoint slides.

If you’re familiar with the process of moving Access 2007 or 2010 tables to SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS), Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0, or SharePoint 2010 lists, skip directly to 00:22:16 for a detailed demo:

You also can learn how to create and synchronize a SharePoint 2010 or SharePoint Online Workspace to your local computer, starting with this slide at 00:16:00:

Here are live links to the the bibliography for the latest Webcast and to earlier Webcasts:

• Bibliography for My “Moving Access Tables to SharePoint 2010 or SharePoint Online Lists” Webcast of 5/23/2011
• Upsizing Access 2010 Projects to Web Databases with SharePoint 2010 Server
• Linking Access tables to on-premise SQL Server 2008 R2 Express or SQL Azure in the cloud
• Three Microsoft Access 2010 Webcasts Scheduled by Que Publishing for March, April and May 2011

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Read Office 365 vs. Google Apps: Microsoft Comes Out Firing, an 5/20/2011 interview of Microsoft’s Tom Rizzo (pictured below) by Paul Thurrott of Windows IT Pro. A few choice excerpts:

Cue Microsoft Senior Director Tom Rizzo, who I'd categorize as a breath of fresh air at a company I was getting seriously worried about.

"I am not going to let a competitor determine the dialog about my product," Rizzo told me during a phone interview last week. "I'm going to uncover the truth. We were a bit of the silent giant before. Now we're not so silent."

Those are fighting words. And while it's perhaps a bit of a stretch to suggest that I actually leapt out of my seat and punched the air with my fist, it happened in spirit. This is the Microsoft I've been missing for these many years.

So what was Rizzo talking about? We met to discuss the competitive landscape in the online services space, which is to say he wanted to compare how Google's offering—Google Apps—stacked up against Microsoft's forthcoming Office 365. As a matter of full disclosure, I've been using Office 365 for months, and as a long-time Gmail (and Google Calendar) user, I had previously evaluated Google Apps and found it—how you say?—lacking. So I was already on board with this line of thinking, frankly, because in my (hopefully non-partisan) mind, Microsoft clearly has the superior solution of the two.

But let's see what Mr. Rizzo has to say about this. After all, I love the approach.

"Google is making a lot of noise these days," Rizzo noted. "But the interesting thing is that Google's bark is worse than its bite. And of those few customers who dropped Microsoft solutions to 'go Google,' many are now coming right back." …

"Google Apps has made absolutely no dent in the market at all," Rizzo claimed. "They are failing. If I had to give them a grade, it would be an F. They're just throwing darts at the wall."

So while Rizzo makes up, and then some, for almost a decade of quiet acceptance at the software giant, and I try to wipe this crazy grin off my face, let's consider some numbers. And there are a lot of numbers:

• 30 million. Google claims that it has 30 million users. But it also noted that these users were spread out between 3 million businesses, schools, and governmental agencies. This means that, on average, there are 10 users per deployment. "These guys are just dipping their toes in the Google water," Rizzo said. "And more often than not, they come back to Microsoft because Google doesn't meet their IT requirements, whether it's a small business or an enterprise. And Google promised it would 'kill Office,' but its [online apps] don't have functionality; this isn't coming to fruition."
• 9 out of 10. Furthermore, Rizzo says that a survey of Google Apps customers revealed that fully 9 out of 10 were also Microsoft Office users. This means that these customers are not abandoning Office as Google had hoped. "These guys aren't replacing Office," Rizzo said. "They're just trialing Google."
• <1 percent. According to a late 2010 Gartner survey, less than one percent of enterprise users were using Google Apps. And that's after 4 years in the market. "These customers trust Microsoft," Rizzo noted. "We provide privacy, security, manageability, and a financially-backed SLA. Google is an ad company. They shoehorn consumer stuff into the commercial space and do not understand the needs of commercial users."
• 10. When Google came to market with Google Apps, it offered both free and paid versions. But the numbers of users it allowed into the free version has dropped precipitously over the years, going from 250 to 100 to 50 and now to just 10, Rizzo said. (Microsoft doesn't offer a free version of Office 365; its small business version supports up to 25 users.) So why the retreat on the free version of Google Apps? "Google is not making money in this space," Rizzo said.
• $5 vs. $6. "Google just raised prices [on the paid version of Google Apps] to $5 per user per month," Rizzo said. This compares to $6 per user per month for the small business version of Office 365, or a $1 difference. "So for the price of one cup of coffee at Starbucks, the additional value here is astronomical," Rizzo said. "There are no ads in Office 365, whereas Google makes the customer the product by putting ads in there. We earn your trust, we respect your privacy, and you pay us to run a valued service."
• 97 percent. Google makes 97 percent of its revenues from web ads, Rizzo said. It's an ad company. And when you look at the remaining 3 percent, which includes Google Apps, it has declined 23 percent year over year. "Google is under a lot of pressure to make it a viable product," Rizzo said. "They are feeling the pressure."

Tom runs the SharePoint Product Management team at Microsoft. I worked with him for several years on many stories for Visual Studio Magazine while he was Director of Product Management in the SQL Server team. Tom was the Technical Editor for my Expert One-on-One Visual Basic 2005 Database Programming book (WROX/Wiley, 2006.)

Technorati Tags: SharePoint 2010,SharePoint Online,Office 365,Access Services,Web Databases,Microsoft Access 2010,Access 2010,SharePoint Workspace,Office 2010,Google Apps,Google Apps for Business

Office Productivity Alternatives: Low Adoption Numbers Don’t Tell The Full Story

One of Microsoft Access’s keys to success has been the inclusion of Access 95 and later in the Microsoft Office Professional suite. Forrester Research’s Matthew Brown (pictured below) posted Office Productivity Alternatives: Low Adoption Numbers Don’t Tell The Full Story on 5/10/2011:

My colleague Phil Karcher completed some nice research into the state of Microsoft Office alternatives recently. I'll share a couple of the highlights here.

Competitors to Microsoft Office receive plenty of attention in the blogosphere these days. Whether it’s Google announcing a new mobile or social feature in Docs; Zoho a new API partner; or the recent buzz around the future of Open Office without Oracle -- it’s natural to wonder how much traction these applications are getting with corporate IT.

Open Office has a global presence, although predominantly in government and education. Google Apps for Business has a growing list of customers, although many are using Gmail, not Docs. Overall, alternatives’ take of the office productivity pie — particularly in large enterprises — is still very small.

Yet, we hear from many organizations considering or piloting them. In fact over a third of respondents to our March survey of IT decision makers with influence over the productivity toolkit claim to be “actively looking at” or “piloting” alternatives. So why does adoption remain so paltry?

• Web-based alternatives get the lionshare of interest. Many try, far fewer buy. Despite interest (44% are "somewhat interested" in Web-based tools), a quarter of IT pros tell us they're actively looking or piloting, and a paltry 3% claim they've implemented Web-based alternatives. Those same IT buyers are concerned with numerous obstacles to broader deployment, particularly user acceptance and compatibility with Microsoft Office file formats.
• Alternatives are true replacements for only small segments of the workforce. Of the respondents to our survey who have deployed an office productivity alternative at their company, every one also supports some version of Microsoft Office — reinforcing the view that alternatives actually serve as replacements for specific segments of the workforce (e.g., browser-based alternatives for users with basic needs, WordPerfect for legal pros). For other segments, they're complementary tools used to enrich older versions of Microsoft Office with collaboration features. The alternatives vendors themselves acknowledge that they don't seek to fully displace Microsoft on the desktop.
• The real story: alternatives represent leverage in MS Office upgrade decisions. So what is the real impact on Microsoft? While their market presence remains low, the alternatives' impact on Microsoft Office upgrade cycles is more significant. With more choice, Forrester finds productivity decision-makers delaying Office upgrades as they evaluate the alternatives as part of the sourcing process. Increasingly, we find that clients are using the very presence of alternatives as a way to gain leverage in Office upgrade negotiations. We expect the role of office alternatives in the market only to grow as vendors make improvements to close the functionality and compatibility gap, and as buyers continue to show interest in cutting costs by provisioning differently to different types of users.

What's your take? Will Office alternatives ever gain a material foothold in the enterprise market?

No Office competitor has a RAD database application that even comes close to Access’s capabilities and ease of use. Of course, an issue is the relatively low percentage of Professional versus Standard editions sold.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Access 2010,Microsoft Access,Access,Open Office,Google Apps,Zoho

10 Reasons for Access Developers and Users to be Thankful for SQL Server 2008 R2 Express

Brian Egler posted his Top Ten Scrooge List for SQL Server – “Polar Express” version to NetworkWorld’s Back to Microsoft Subnet on 12/20/2010:

Last year, I listed my first annual "Top Ten Scrooge list for SQL Server". In the spirit of the season, I started thinking about those features that Microsoft charges top-dollar for with SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition that really should be included in the other editions.

Well, now I know Bill Gates does not read my blog because only two of the items have been moved off the list. Let’s take a look at last year’s list and how they stack up today with SQL Server 2008 R2…

1. Data Compression - still Enterprise :(
2. Data Driven Subscriptions - still Enterprise :(
3. Database Snapshots - still Enterprise :(
4. Backup Compression - now Standard Edition! :)
5. Transparent Data Encryption - still Enterprise :(
6. Peer to Peer Replication - still Enterprise :(
7. Distributed Partitioned Views - still Enterprise :(
8. Fuzzy Lookups in Integration Services - still Enterprise :(
9. Scale-Out Reporting Services - still Enterprise :(
10. Infinite Clickthrough in Report Builder - now Standard Edition! :)

OK, in the spirit of the season, this year, instead of listing features in the higher editions that should be in the lower editions, I’ll list the features that are in the Express edition that we are lucky to have for FREE. Scrooge would certainly approve of the price if he were paying…

Here’s my 2010 “Top Ten Scrooge List for SQL Server – Polar Express version” [with emphasis added]

1. An Express Database can be up to 10GB now (up from 4GB)
2. FILESTREAM Data is supported and does NOT count against the 10GB max
3. Database Mirroring Witness can be Express
4. SQL Server Import Export Wizard included
5. Change Tracking supported in Express
6. Column level Data Encryption included
7. Logon Triggers supported
8. Policy Based Management supported
9. Powershell support
10. Reporting Services in Express with Advanced Services edition (still FREE!)

I guess the glass is half-full after all. Let’s be thankful for that this holiday season.

Happy Holidays!
Brian.

PS Here's a nice festive B-Tree with a Heap of presents! http://xkcd.com/835/
(Thanks to my students at www.rim.com)

I’m still waiting for the SQL Azure team to enable Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) and Full-Text Search (FTS) in SQL Azure.

 

Technorati Tags: Access 2010,Microsoft Access 2010,Office 2010,Microsoft Office 2010,SQL Server 2008 R2 Express,Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Express,Access Data Projects,Access 2010 Data Projects

Keyboard Shortcut and Accelerator Key Combinations Aid Readers with Disabilities

A few days ago, I received a message from a blind reader about Microsoft Access 2010 In Depth’s Safari edition:

• Microsoft Access 2010 In Depth
• Keyboard Shortcuts in Access 2010         
• Thank you for using keyboard shortcuts in your book. As a blind database developer, it is refreshing to read a book where I can go right to work instead of trying to figure out the keyboard shortcuts on my own because the book was written with only mouse users in mind. I use speech output and a Braille display to work with Access and your book will definitely make my databases easier to build and design. Thank you!

Here’s an example of shortcut key codes from the book’s Chapter 3, “Navigating the Fluent User Interface:”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Most step-by-step examples also include shortcut and accelerator key combinations.

Technorati Tags: Access 2010,Microsoft Access 2010,Microsoft Access 2010 In Depth,Shortcut Key Combinations

Download the Official “Microsoft Office 2010 Volume Licensing Guide”

Download the “Microsoft Office 2010 Volume Licensing Guide” in .docx format here.

From the Summary:

The Microsoft Office 2010 Licensing Guide provides an overview of the core product offerings, licensing models, and Software Assurance (SA) migrations for customers with active Software Assurance.

Microsoft Office 2010 Product Snapshot

Microsoft Office 2010 provides a wide range of powerful new ways for people to do their best work from anywhere—whether they are using a PC, Smartphone, or Web browser.* To provide customers with more flexibility to best meet their unique needs, Microsoft offers a variety of Microsoft Office 2010 suites.

The Microsoft Office 2010 suites available through Volume Licensing include:

• Microsoft® Office Standard 2010
• Microsoft® Office Professional Plus 2010

Microsoft Office 2010 suites available through Retail and / or OEM:

• Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (OEM only offering)
• Microsoft® Office Home and Student 2010
• Microsoft® Office Home and Business 2010
• Microsoft® Office Professional 2010
• Microsoft® Office Professional Academic 2010

With the release of Office 2010, retail and reseller customers have two ways to purchase and activate an Office suite on new PCs pre-loaded with the Office image. In addition to the traditional disc product, consumers may choose the new Office 2010 Product Key Card. The Product Key Card and traditional disc are both available for Office Home and Student 2010, Office Home and Business 2010, Office Professional 2010 and Office Professional Academic 2010 (Academic is available through Authorized Academic Resellers only).

Office 2010 in Microsoft Volume Licensing

For Microsoft Volume Licensing customers, Office 2010 provides more business value in each product offering plus new, innovative integrated Microsoft Office Web App capabilities*. Software Assurance customers benefit from an efficient migration path to Office 2010 and can take advantage of training, deployment planning, and technical support benefits to get the most out of the software.

*An appropriate device, Internet connection, and supported Internet Explorer®, Firefox, or Safari browser are required. Some mobile functionality requires Office Mobile 2010 which is not included in Office 2010 applications, suites, or Web Apps. There are some differences between the features of the Office Web Apps, Office Mobile 2010 and the Office 2010 applications.

From the Table of Contents:

• Summary 4
• Microsoft Office 2010 Product Snapshot 4
• Office 2010 in Microsoft Volume Licensing 4
• Microsoft Office 2010 Volume Licensing Offerings 5
• Software Assurance Migration 7
• Office Web Apps in Office 2010 7
• Licensing of Office Web Apps 7
• Key Dependencies 7
• Office 2010: Enhanced Business Productivity through Server Integration 8
• Enterprise Search 10
• Volume Licensing Programs and Activation 11
• Software Assurance Benefits for Microsoft Office 12
• Enrollment of OEM Office 2010 Licenses into Volume Licensing 12
• Volume Activation Benefits 13
• Office 2010: Key Takeaways 14
• Frequently Asked Questions 15
• Appendix 17
• Microsoft Office Licensing Glossary 17
• For More Information 18

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Office 2010,Microsoft Access 2010,Access 2010,Office Web Apps,Microsoft Volume Licensing

New Microsoft Access 2010 Resource Center

Chris Downs reported a New Access 2010 resource center for IT professionals on TechNet! in a 11/15/2010 post to the Microsoft Access team blog:

TechNet has just published a new Access 2010 Resources page full of information about migrating, deploying and securing Access 2010 databases. Learn how to plan and implement an Access Services site, and get links to developer resources, training, videos, and how-to articles. Definitely a good one to add to your Favorites!

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Access 2010,Access 2010,TechNet

Enable External Users to Connect to SharePoint Online 2010 Lists

Danny Burlage posted External users in SharePoint Online 2010 #office365 on 11/15/2010:

SharePoint Online allows you to collaborate with users outside of your organization by giving them permission to access your internal organization resources. These users are called external users. If the site collection administrator or site owner wants to allow external users to access a site, the SharePoint Online Administrator must first enable the access in the SharePoint Administration Center this can be done when you set up a site collection or after it is set up. After the ability to invite external users is set up, the site collection administrator can invite authenticated external users to access the site via e-mail. The external user then accesses the site by using Windows Live ID user name and password.

Support partners are business and technical professionals, including Microsoft, who provide support services to Microsoft Online Services users. By default, the Microsoft Online Services administrator grants support partners access to the SharePoint Online Administrator Center from the Office 365 portal. However, if you want a partner to have access to a site collection or site, you must explicitly grant the partner access. You can do this at any time by changing the setting on the site collection in the SharePoint Online Administrator Center.

This new concept which will be launched in SharePoint Online 2010, part of Office 365, will enhance the capabilities for granular corporate governance to great extent. We are really happy with this feature because it will allow us to manage environments of our customers without them needing to worry about us getting access to all their data.

I expect customers to be really excited about this feature because it will allow them to give access to both partners and customers in a manner which is closely controllable.

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Technorati Tags: SharePoint Online 2010,Microsoft SharePoint 2010,SharePoint 2010,Microsoft Access 2010,Access 2010,Office 365,Web Databases

Should Microsoft’s Office Group Market Visual Studio LightSwitch?

Gary Short asserts Microsoft’s Office group should market LightSwitch in his TechEd Europe Day 2 – Is LightSwitch in the Wrong Product Group? post of 11/12/2010:

I spoke to a number of attendees who had been to the Lightswitch session today. They told me that the presenter walked the audience through Lightswitch and it’s place in the Visual Studio family of products. It quickly became clear to the attendees that there was a certain amount of push back from developers in the audience, the general feeling was that Lightswitch is not a developer tool. The feeling is most certainly that Lightswitch is a power user tool and does not belong in the Visual Studio stable. I mean, what does Lightswtich do? It helps you create Silverlight applications, right? Well I’m a developer, if I want to create Silverlight apps I have ways of doing that already.

So, if Lightswitch shouldn’t be in the Visual Studio stable, where should it be? Personally, I’d like to see it in the Office stable, as that’s where the power users on the Microsoft platform hang out. People who are already creating “applications” using Excel and Access should now have the ability to create Silverlight applications using Lightswitch for Office. If it were in the Office stable, Microsoft would get a double win. Firstly, devs would get off their backs about there being a “toy” in the Visual Studio line up, and secondly, power users would win because they could stop writing mission critical software in Excel and Access and get their applications on a more “professional” footing.

So why do so many power users write so many apps in Office tools? Simple. A great many enterprises have outsourced their IT capacity. So now to get even the most simple application written someone has to fill out a form in triplicate, submit it to four different people and pay through the nose for it. Not to mention that when the application finally gets delivered, it’s “a day late and a dollar short”. And why do they go through this pain? Well they have no choice normally as the terms of the outsourcing agreement means that all development and support work on applications must be done by the outsourcing company.

However, under many such agreements, Office is deemed to be “software of personal productivity” and so falls outside of the agreement, mainly because Office is on every desktop in the enterprise and if the outsourcing company had to support it, they’d never been done fielding calls of the “how to I make titles bold?” variety. However, this loophole means that if someone want a new application, this side of Armageddon, then they can write it immediately using Excel or Access.

So what do you think, am I right, should Lightswitch be in the Office stable? Leave you comments in the… well, comments.

The session discussed is Drew Robbins’ DEV206 - Building Business Applications with Visual Studio LightSwitch.at TechEd Europe 2010.

I described LightSwitch as a potential Access 2010 competitor in my forthcoming Microsoft Access 2010 In Depth book.

Technorati Tags: Visual Studio LightSwitch,LightSwitch,Microsoft Access 2010,Access 2010,TechEd Europe 2010

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Service Pack 1 coming for Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010

The Microsoft Office Customer Programs Team sent messages to Office and SharePoint 2010 technical beta testers  on 10/26 requesting applications to participate in a forthcoming (calendar year 2010) Beta program for Service Pack 1:

Hello Valued Microsoft Customer,

We are contacting you about an opportunity to participate in an upcoming Beta testing program. You may be a previous tester of Microsoft products, or someone who has been nominated. Beta programs are unique ways to experience product updates and provide feedback to the development teams. Later this calendar year we will begin an invitation-only beta testing of the Service Pack 1 for Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010. Service Packs contain product updates since the product released. We would like to invite you to participate in the private testing of that service pack.

Call to action

If you are interested in participating in this Beta, and if you are already using Office 2010 or SharePoint 2010, please complete the application survey by following the link below. Upon completing the survey, your participation status will be set to ‘pending’, while we review your submission. If you are selected to participate, you will receive a formal invitation to join the program. Due to the limited number of seats in this private Beta, we may not be able to accommodate all interested testers.

If you are already registered on Microsoft Connect, make sure to sign in with your existing registered Windows Live ID account to submit this survey. If you are not registered yet, you will be prompted to do so.

Hopefully, Service Pack 1 will enable Access 2010’s Macro-to-VBA Converter to work with embedded macros. This feature suffered from a regression bug that wasn’t fixed in the RTM version.

Technorati Tags: Access 2010,Microsoft Access 2010,Office 2010,Microsoft Office 2010,Office 2010 Service Pack 1,Office 2010 SP1,SharePoint 2010 Service Pack 1,SharePoint 2010 SP!