Mart Muller's Weblog

Interesting news from the IT Forum in Barcelona about two new Microsoft SharePoint certifications. From the SharePoint team blog:

"Introducing the Microsoft Certified Master and Certified Architect for SharePoint

Last week at IT Forum in Barcelona, we announced the Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and the Microsoft Certified Architect (MCA) for Office SharePoint Server 2007.

The Master program is designed to be the top-tier technical certification for SharePoint Products and Technologies for years to come. The goal of the MCM is to provide a means for training, recognizing, and developing the top SharePoint technical experts in the world. Specifically, the MCM is intended for technical professionals whose primary responsibilities include designing, building, configuring, deploying, and supporting large, often complex, MOSS 2007 environments.

Building on the MCM, the MCA certification is designed for professionals who possess an additional skill set focused on the larger business strategies and technical architecture as a whole. This skill set includes the ability to communicate with business and technology leaders, to understand the customer's current and long-term organizational and technical needs, and to design a solution to meet those needs. To receive the MCA for SharePoint, students must first graduate from the MCM for SharePoint program and will then have the option of sitting for a comprehensive Review Board interview conducted by Microsoft experts and MCA's.

If you feel you have the skills and experience to excel in this program, and are interested in being one of the first SharePoint Masters and/or MCA's, I'd encourage you to visit the the MCM homepage for additional detail and prerequisites for the program.  We are accepting applications into the program here."

Collaboration and email for students. Check out http://get.liveatedu.com/Education/Connect/

From the press release:

Microsoft Corp. is adding no-cost Microsoft Exchange Labs e-mail for students and alumni to its Live@edu online communication and collaboration applications tailored for educational institutions. Live@edu with Exchange Labs gives students and alumni access to a reliable and security-enhanced e-mail experience similar to what they may use in the workplace, while university IT administrators can benefit from additional security features and simplified deployment. By bringing proven technologies to current education systems, Microsoft is helping IT administrators build closely connected infrastructures and create exceptional experiences for students and educators.

Microsoft Exchange Labs Benefits IT Administrators, Students and Alumni Alike

Live@edu now offers institutions the option of giving their students and alumni an Exchange Labs inbox. Live@edu offers the following benefits to universities and students:

• Reliable communications. Universities can provide students with hosted e-mail, featuring up to 10 GB inboxes and 20 MB attachments. Students can also access their e-mail, contacts and calendar from Outlook Web Access and Microsoft Office Outlook, as well as from Web-enabled mobile phones, similar to what they may experience in the work force.

• Building blocks for collaboration. Additional Live@edu services that can be used for on-campus collaboration include shared calendars with free/busy lookup between students, student directories with administrative control to create distribution lists, and the ability to add faculty and staff who are using Exchange on-premise to student directories.

• Additional security. Live@edu with Exchange Labs also now allows message tracking to confirm urgent e-mail was delivered, and content filtering, which gives administrators the ability to block e-mail with objectionable content.

• Institution identity. Schools can deepen the relationship with students and alumni through an e-mail inbox with the school’s logo, a custom theme created by the institution and a school-branded e-mail address that students can keep after they graduate.

Although I had to smile (and again) when going through the downloads, the concept is very useful for implementation partner doing SharePoint implementations. I'm talking about 'Gear up for SharePoint', a complete guideline set specified per role for implementing SharePoint in organizations.

The BuzzKit, which is also included, contains useful posters, email drafts, letters etc for setting up an adoption strategy for SharePoint.

The Gear Up site is divided into 4 sections:

• Get Ready
• Engineer
• Release
• Adopt

Seems interesting enough to go through!

After passing the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Development exam a few months ago passed my 70-630 (MOSS Configuring) exam today! Whohoo!

Check out some of the virtual labs for WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007:

• What's New in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Feature Walkthrough Virtual Lab - Learn about the new and enhanced features in Windows SharePoint Services (version 3) such as site creation, site administration, adding Web Parts, the permissions trimmed UI, list settings, navigation, list and library security, notifications, and email integration.
• What's New in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Feature Walkthrough Virtual Lab - Learn about the new features in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 including integration points with Microsoft Office 2007 programs.
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise Features Administration Virtual Lab - Learn about the administration of InfoPath Forms Services and Excel Services, components of the Enterprise edition of Office SharePoint Server 2007.
• Introducing Content Types for Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Virtual Lab - The objective of this lab is to provide a walkthrough of content types and new property editing functionality in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Records Management Deployment and Configuration Virtual Lab - Learn about the Record Management capabilities included in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Topics include creating content types for categorizing documents, configuring a central records repository, setting up records management policies, and available options for automation.