Interviews

Interview with Don Armstrong on the Government Security Program (GSP)

2007-05-22T22:39:00Z

I met up with my colleague, Don Armstrong, the person in Microsoft that leads our efforts around the Government Security Program (GSP).

"The GSP fosters partnerships between governments and Microsoft based on collaboration, information exchange, and a mutual trust fortified through ongoing interaction. Representatives of participating government agencies are invited to visit Microsoft development facilities to review Windows and Office source-code development, testing, and deployment processes. In addition, these representatives have the opportunity to discuss existing and potential projects with Microsoft security experts and interact with Microsoft staff."

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Duration: 13:00

A common misperception with the program is that it is ALL about access to our source code for Windows and Office, but as Don outlines, there is much more to it than this. Topics that Don and I covered included:

What is the GSP all about?
Who is eligible for the GSP?
Useful deliverables that have spawned from the GSP
What do customers get if they sign a partnership with us?

One of the most useful things that is now available to the public, and which came directly out of GSP, is the Windows Vista Security Guide, which has been very well received by the IT community at large.

Enjoy the video!

Interview with Lorenzo Madrid on Public Sector Interop Strategy Workshops

2007-05-03T16:34:00Z

Interop is on the agenda of many public sector organizations around the world, for many, knowing where and how to start building a strategy that effectively addresses the needs of citizens, businesses, and government can be a daunting challenge.

To address this, and as part of Microsoft's Connected Government Framework initiative team, Lorenzo Madrid specializes in developing and delivering Strategy workshops.

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Duration: 17:11

In this interview, Lorenzo outlines a number of important areas for consideration, which of course he will expand on to some depth in his workshops.

Interop as an opportuity for Public Sector
Typical issues public sector want to address through a successful interop strategy
Impacts a successful strategy can have on key stakeholers
Constraints that can impede or slow strategy execution

If you want to contact Lorenzo you can do so directly at lorenzo.madrid@microsoft.com or through the public sector division within your local subsidiary.

In the next few weeks, I will also be recording interviews with Alan Grose and Marth Naelbuff on related workshops that we offer on Technology and Intellectual Property respectively.

Jonny

Loan Tong on Microsoft's Local Language Program

2007-01-30T04:22:00Z

One of the reasons for what has been termed the digital divide is a language barrier. At Microsoft we produce most of our products in what are regarded as the most widely spoken languages, but that still leaves a lot of people grappling with an interface that is not in their native, or in some cases, preferred tongue.

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The aim of the Local Language Program (LLP) is to increase the number of languages we support, but our strategy in achieving this is quite innovative as we do this through direct collaboration with linguistic experts in each country where we engage on the Program. In this video, Loan Tong, gives a brief overview of what it is all about.

I personally have led the LLP during my time in Ireland where we localized Windows XP and Office into the Irish language; I found it to be one of the most rewarding projects I have ever worked on in my career. You can find all about this at www.microsoft.com/ireland/gaeilge.

You can find out more about the overall program here.

Jonny Chambers

Craig Bartholomew on Microsoft's Education Products Group

2007-01-20T01:18:00Z

As somone that has spent the majority of their working life at Microsoft, Craig Bartholomew has been involved in a lot of our better known products...in his current role as a General Manager in the Education Products Group, he is driving towards serving a very important set of customers that are the basis for our future - that of the student and the educator.

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Education is currently the only vertical market that has a dedicated product group in Microsoft, and the aim of it is not only to deliver new products that are directly cater for our customers here, but also to add value to our existing installed base of customers.

The Education Products group has been in existence since 1991, starting with Encarta, but there is now much more besides. Products Craig discusses here in some detail include:

Microsoft Encarta - our online and offline encyclopedia
Learning Essentials for Microsoft Office - a free addon for our Office applications
SharePoint Learning Kit - a SCORM 2004-conformant e-learning delivery and tracking application built as a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 solution.
Microsoft Student - a superset of Encarta, which also helps student with things like Math, foreign languages and more

Through a combination of products like these, and initiatives such as Partners in Learning in learning, we really want to make the lives of students and educators better. Learning styles are a very personal thing, and through the application of technology, we hope to be able to better individualize experiences.

You can keep track of all of the latest developments here: www.microsoft.com/education.

Jonny Chambers

Interview with Jason Matusow on what Interoperability means to Microsoft

2007-01-10T22:06:00Z

I am not saying anything profound or ground-breaking when I make the statement that "interoperability is a complex business". All sorts of people in the public sector are directly and indirectly involved with issues pertaining to it, and this is at a number of levels including policy, standards and technology. Jason Matusow has worked in the interop arena for a number of years now, and he is one of our better known personalities in the blogosphere.

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Duration: 30 mins

In this interview he deals with topics such as:

Definitions of interoperability
What do we (Microsoft) mean when we say our products are 'interoperable by design'?
The Interop Vendor Alliance and how it impacts Microsoft's Partners
The Open Specification Promise
Background to the agreement between Microsoft and Novell

For more information on this topic, please refer to our website that we have dedicated to it at www.microsoft.com/interop. Jason also runs a very popular blog of his own which you can find here.

Jonny Chambers

Microsoft Partners in Learning - interview with Kristen Weatherby

2006-12-18T17:08:00Z

Partners in Learning (or PiL for short) is a program through which we engage with our education customers through the highest levels of government in countries, and Kristen Weatherby is the person leading the charge on this at a corporate level....(read more)

Microsoft's Child Exploitation Tracking System: An interview with Tim Cranton

2006-12-11T17:24:00Z

An email from D.S. Paul Gillespie (now retired) from the Toronto Police service to Bill Gates requesting Microsoft's assistance in tracking down criminals that were involved in the exploitation of children kicked off a 2 year effort to development an application that is now being picked up by many other law enforcement organizations across the world. Microsoft have called this the Child Exploitation Tracking System or CETS for short....(read more)

Shared Source - an interview with Jon Rosenberg

2006-12-08T01:50:00Z

I was able to spend some time recently with Jon Rosenberg, our Director of Shared Source programs at Microsoft. Shared Source is essentially an unmbrella initiative through which we share a lot of our most valuable IP with not just Public Sector customers, but also the broader developer community. ...(read more)

Interview with Roberto Bamberger - Public Sector Executive Briefing Centre Manager

2006-11-03T20:11:00Z

I had the great pleasure of chatting with my old friend, Roberto Bamberger, late last week. Roberto manages all of our public sector briefings at our Executive Briefing Centre at our Redmond campus. In a past life, Roberto has also been a Solutions Architect, so he is well versed on all manner of technologies and public sector business issues, so one of the things I asked him to drill into were just what were the trends he was seeing in demand for topics.

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Duration: 18

Some of the topics that our public sector customers are starting to request are not what you might expect...how does Microsoft do Talent Management, Outsourcing, manage a datacentre, etc.

Some of the more exciting things that Roberto has agreed to do for me is to identify the hot topics for public sector, and the hot speakers on those topics so that I can get these folks to commit their thoughts to virtual celluloid! He has also committed to provide me with some of the presentations that are used for everyone to see. So I guess solshare.net will end up hosting a kind of 'Virtual EBC'.

Jonny Chambers

Interview with Aidan McCarthy - WW K-12 Industry Manager

2006-10-30T20:23:00Z

Aidan McCarthy is our Worldwide Industry Manager for Schools, and in this interview he outlines some of the work we are doing to drive innovative solutions and program offerings into the sector.

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Duration: 30 mins

Topics he covers at a high-level include:

Learning Gateway
Partners in Learning
School of the Future
...and more.

I have also lined up a more in-depth video on a couple of more in-depth topics with Mitch Benson, our Education Solutions Manager, so if Aidan's interview whets your appetitite, know that there is more on the way!

Jonny Chambers