SBSC-Central Region-Midwest Area

The following is pasted from an email sent to Microsoft Managed Partners:

Dear Microsoft Partner,

This alert is to provide you with an overview of the Microsoft Security Advisory 973882, released on Tuesday, July 28, 2009. This security advisory provides information about our ongoing investigation into vulnerabilities in the public and private versions of Microsoft’s Active Template Library (ATL). In the advisory, we provide information about what Microsoft is doing in its ongoing investigation into the issue described, and we also offer guidance to both developers and IT professionals.

· Guidance for Developers (bulletin MS09-035): The Microsoft ATL is used by software developers to create controls or components for the Windows platform. Microsoft strongly recommends that developers who have built controls or components with ATL take immediate action to evaluate their controls for exposure to a vulnerable condition and follow the guidance provided to create controls and components that are not vulnerable. For more information on the vulnerabilities and guidance to address issues in ATL, see MS09-035, “Vulnerabilities in Visual Studio Active Template Library Could Allow Remote Code Execution.”
· Guidance for IT Professionals (bulletin MS09-034): To help better protect customers while developers update their components and controls, Microsoft has developed a new defense-in-depth technology. This new defense-in-depth technology built into Internet Explorer helps to protect customers from future attacks using the Microsoft Active Template Library vulnerabilities described in this Advisory and Microsoft Security Bulletin MS09-035. IT professionals should first assess and prepare their own systems, then help their customers deploy the Internet Explorer Security Update offered in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS09-034, “Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer.”
Please see below for important resources and a bulletin summary.

Key Resources

· A single page write-up of prescriptive guidance for customers, IT professionals, and developers http://www.microsoft.com/security/atl.aspx
· Full text of Security Advisory 973882 http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/973882.mspx
· Full bulletin for MS09-034, with guidance for IT professionals http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms09-034.mspx
· Full bulletin for MS09-035, with guidance for developers http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms09-035.mspx
· We recommend Microsoft partners use the Microsoft TechNet Security TechCenter as a source of security information http://technet.microsoft.com/security

Regarding Information Consistency

We recommend that Microsoft partners use the Microsoft TechNet Security TechCenter as a key source of security information: http://technet.microsoft.com/security, and that you sign up for comprehensive alerts at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/notify.mspx. We strive to provide you with accurate information in static (this mail) and dynamic (Web-based) content. Microsoft’s security content posted to the Web is occasionally updated to reflect late-breaking information. If this results in an inconsistency between the information here and the information in Microsoft’s Web-based security content, the information in Microsoft’s Web-based security content is authoritative.

Hot of the presses…

Microsoft and Yahoo to work together on Search and Sale.

Microsoft, Yahoo! Change Search Landscape
Microsoft and Yahoo: Search partners
Microsoft, Yahoo Reach Search Deal

I was in a meeting yesterday where I heard yet another Microsoft Partner say, “We used to sell Response Point, until Microsoft killed it…” Have you heard that too?

Now compare that with this statement, “I used to sell PCs with Windows XP on them, until Microsoft killed it…” For all practical purposes, XP was “killed” about 3 years ago. What’s the difference? Development of both products was “ended” yet one continues to “sell” while the other is be abandoned like one-eyed, three-legged dog with fleas.

If you had the opportunity to sell a Response Point system today, would you do it?

From the Bing Community:

Fill a Backpack with Bing cashback
July 22, 2009, 04:27 PM by Bing

We are nearly halfway through summer, and soon parents and students will start thinking about the all-important task of back-to-school shopping. We know many of you will be working hard to stretch your dollars this year so you can still get everything you or your family needs — and a few things you just really want. Bing is here to help! Knowing you’d probably rather not spend your waning summer days digging for deals inside the mall, we’re giving away not one, but SEVEN $500 Visa cash cards, each in cool Bing backpacks to help you get your back-to-school shopping done with just a bit less stress. The lucky winners can use their cash card to take care of all their back-to-school shopping – and what better place to find great deals than on Bing Shopping and Bing cashback!

Starting July 23 on Twitter, @bingcashback will be hosting a 7-day Bing cashback Twitter Sweepstakes. The contest runs each weekday until July 31. Each weekday, we will tweet a new Bing cashback- trivia question. Whoever @replies with the right answer within one hour becomes eligible to win.*

View the entire article…

According to Eric Ligman:

Microsoft Partner Program Gold/Certified Members will be able to download
Windows 7 RTM in English through the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) Portal on
August 16th. By October 1st, the remaining languages will become available to
download.

Microsoft Action Pack Subscribers will be about to download
Windows 7 RTM in English starting August 23rd. By October 1st, the remaining
languages will become available to download.

Windows 7 RTM’s! Availability for Partners and Customers

Eric Ligman has been at tremendous resource for and friend of the SBSC community FOREVER! If you don’t follow Eric, you should. Now he has made it easy. There is now one-stop-shopping for Eric at http://www.ericligman.com/

Eric Ligman
Global Partner Experience Lead
Worldwide Partner Group
Microsoft Corporation

While you are there, I would highly recommend that you “follow” him on Twitter. I think that Eric and Stuart Crawford are having a contest to see who can TWEET the most frequently. Between the two of them, you can’t help but be well informed as to what is going on in the SMB Space.

I still haven’t completely gathered my thoughts, after a very action-packed week. However, two of my very good friends and fellow HTG members have. I would like to point you to Arlin Sorensen’s Peer Power blog for his review.

I totally agree with Arlin’s comment, “But the real value of WPC is not the sessions …” For me, it was just about everything that occurred outside of the convention all. The early morning fellowship meetings with Arlin, Stuart, Jan, Darren, Scott and Hardin to name a few, were an outstanding way to start each day. The SBSC Advisory Board dinner was an opportunity to meet with some of the very best in the SBSC community. The various Roundtables that I participated in was an chance to have direct access to some of the key people in Microsoft and to have some input in the the direction that the company takes. Thursday, I spent nearly the whole day with key SBSC PAL partners from around the world. We had an exceptional opportunity share our views, opinions and suggestions with executive level staff at Microsoft.

Stuart Crawford has several posts on his blog covering the event. Stuart and I had lots of quality time together and once again, he exhibited his never-ending “Go-Giver” attitude.

Finally another friend an fellow HTG member, Arron Booker was on site the entire week capturing video interviews. Checkout his website at http://www.varvid.com/

I am ashamed to say that I don’t really have one. If you have never been to WPC, it is pretty much non-stop from morning until night. Today is by far my longest day. It began with a 7:00 AM breakfast meeting and won’t end until after 10:00 PM tonight.

For those of you who follow me on Twitter, I have been trying to tweet thru the keynotes and during the day. Hit the hash tag #WPC09 and you will quickly be overwhelmed with what everyone has to say about WPC09.

I’ll try and catch up on the plane Friday and post pertinent info over the coming week. If I forget, someone ask me about SPLA Essentials. I also sat in on a round-table discussion on BPOS. I probably have some tidbits that I could share there as well.

Greetings from WPC. I picked up a bunch of Microsoft Small Business Specialist patches (cloth) in the “yellow lounge” here at WPC. If you would like one, do two things:
1. Visit the Quality Systems Solutions, Inc. website and get our mailing address.
2. Send me a Self-addressed stamped envelope.

I send you one of these very cool patches. To see what the patch looks like, check out the hat on Eric’s Blog.

I’m not sure if this cat is suppose to be out of the bag yet, but I saw the Tweet from Stuart Crawford about the new Microsoft Partner logo and that got me to start poking around.

This is what I found… “Microsoft Partner Network to launch at WPC“