Backup Your Data to the Azure Cloud

I work extensively with the Small & Mid sized Companies . One thing which is a worry is that in majority of the Companies , Data backup is a very inefficient process . And in many cases, it is actually not done . Reasons could be that process is Expensive or Cumbersome or tedious or manual . That’s dangerous!

Well, no worries ! We finally have a Solution which is efficient , cost effective , reliable and automatic. Its Azure Cloud Backup.

To know more about how Azure Cloud Backup works, click here.

To know more about Azure , click here

Please leave your valued feedback by clicking  here

with warm regards

 Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/user/techgyani/videos

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

TechGyan achieves Gold Competency in Cloud Solutions

 

I am super proud to announce that our Company TechGyan is now a Gold Certified Partner for Microsoft Cloud Solutions for Small & Medium Enterprises . This places us right in the top 1 percent of Microsoft Partner Ecosystem .

This Microsoft Gold Cloud Small and Mid Market Cloud Competency showcases our expertise in today’s technology market especially in the area of Social, Mobility , Analytics and Cloud ( SMAC ) and demonstrates our knowledge of Microsoft and its products especially the Cloud Productivity Suite Office 365 .

A Special thanks to my Media friends for giving fantastic coverage in their publications :

In DQ Week :

http://www.dqweek.com/techgyan-achieves-microsoft-gold-cloud-solutions-competency/

In Channeltimes:

http://www.channeltimes.com/story/techgyan-achieves-microsoft-gold-small-mid-market-cloud-solutions-competency/

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/user/techgyani/videos

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,TechGyan,Suresh Ramani,Office 365,Cloud

Skype for Business is here

 

We all love Skype , especially the ease at which it facilitates communication . It has become an integral part in the lives of many Consumers and Small Businesses.

Now Microsoft has released Skype for Business which combines the simplicity and ease of use of Skype with the Business features of Lync Online , its Corporate Platform for Unified Communication.

There are 2 very apparent benefits available to the Organizations who use Skype for Business a) The Skype User Experience a) Ability to communicate with Skype users . This was not so simple when using Lync Online.

What’s more, Skype for Business is a part of Office 365 , the super loved Cloud Productivity Service from Microsoft.

To know more about Skype for Business , please visit the following link :

http://www.techgyan.com/Pages/uc.aspx

To understand how your Organization can benefit by adoption Unified Communication tool like Skype for Business, visit

http://www.techgyan.com/Pages/uc_benefits.aspx

Please leave your valued feedback by clicking here

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/user/techgyani/videos

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

 

Technorati Tags: Skype,Skype for Business,Lync Online,Office 365,Cloud,SMAC,Suresh Ramani,TechGyan

Social, Mobility , Analytics, Cloud ( SMAC) adoption by Indian SME’s

 

As a Technology Consultant and Cloud Evangelist, I work extensively with Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). My definition of an SME is a company with 10 to 500 users — a user being someone who employs IT. In my opinion, Indians SMEs differ from Enterprise Customers in their approach to using technology. Indian SMEs rely heavily on their IT partners for technology adoption, unlike Enterprise Customers where CIO-led IT teams manage it.

I have recently authored an article which has appeared in “CIO Research Centre” , an online Publication for Indian CIO’s where I have laid down my thoughts on how an Indian Small and Mid sized company can adopt latest IT Technologies .

The full article appears in the following link : http://cioresearchcenter.com/2015/03/new-age-technology-for-indian-smes/

Please leave your valued feedback by clicking here

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/user/techgyani/videos

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Windows Server 2003 will soon be End Of Life.. your Options?

 

Windows Server 2003 will be End Of Life on 14th July , 2015. It means Microsoft will STOP releasing Security Patches for it. That would mean:

a) Server will be open to massive attacks

b) New release of Server Applications will not work

c) Organizations will be non- compliant . Various legislations make it mandatory for Organizations to be compliant.

In such a case , if your Organization is running a Windows Server 2003, what are your options? Clearly you need to plan to move from Windows Server 2003 at the earliest . So that part is clear . Now what are your options?

To help you take an informed decision, some of the options have been discussed here:

http://www.techgyan.com/Pages/WindowsServer.aspx

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Yammer … The Enterprise Social Platform

 

The usage of Social Media has in recent years skyrocketed. Almost everyone is familiar with Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Tools like Facebook make it very easy for people to collaborate with features  like tagging, sharing information, making comments, newsfeed etc. One thought which comes in mind is that would it not be great to use such tool in Business for collaboration? But many Businesses are not willing to do so because of following issues:

1) Privacy concerns of Social Media

2) Workers could easily get distracted and spend time on personal non work stuff

Yammer is a perfect Solution in this scenario. It is a Facebook like Social Network but is restricted to the Company and external stake holders like Suppliers, Consultants, etc.

It is a part of Office 365 , the Cloud Productivity Platform from Microsoft.

To know more about Business Benefits of Yammer please click on the link below :

http://www.techgyan.com/Pages/Yammer.aspx

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Conference room booking using Microsoft Exchange Online

 

Meetings are an essential part of Business . In order to streamline the process of fixing a meeting , there are 2 important steps which need to be managed . The first is to find a suitable date and time when all the attendees will be available . This process can be automated using Meeting Scheduling Assistant , which is a part of Exchange Online. The second is to find which conference room is available on a particular date and time. Office 365 allows us to manage the Conference Room booking.

To know more about how you can streamline the Conference Room booking , please read the short article here:

http://www.techgyan.com/Pages/Conference_roombooking.aspx

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Office 365 explained in 5 minutes

 

Office 365 Cloud Services is the fastest growing Software or Service in the history of Microsoft . It is being used by Individuals, Small Businesses, Medium Businesses , Enterprises, Education, Not For Profits, Government . It is on the way to becoming the Productivity Platform of choice.

So what is Office 365 ? To answer that question , we have created a short, 5 minute video which gives an overview of Office 365 . Do watch the video and leave your comments on the same.

You can watch the video at any of the following locations :

YouTube : Office 365 explained in 5 minutes

Vimeo : Office 365 An Introduction

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Office365 plans compared and decoded

 

Office365 , the Cloud based Business Productivity Service from Microsoft is getting more and more subscribers with every passing day.

Since one size does not fit all and the needs of different users is bound to be different , Microsoft has introduced a variety of plans . This has caused some confusion among the users who are not sure as to which plan is most suitable for them .

No worries ! I have tried to simplify the complex plans in a manner which will help you understand the various options . Have a look at the various plans and features at the link given below:

http://www.techgyan.com/Pages/Office365PlansComparison.aspx

I would also suggest that you have a look at the link given below which will help you in understanding of the plans and give you a quick overview:

http://www.techgyan.com/Pages/Office365Plans.aspx

I hope that you would have a much clearer picture of the Office365 plans once you have reviewed the information. If you still have questions , feel free to ask .

So get going and implement Office365 in your Company ! Now !

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Managing Team Tasks in Office365

 

Teams are a reality for every Company , Large or Small. These Teams usually have a Team Leader whose job it is to ensure that Team members work in unison and complete the Team tasks .

In order to effectively manage the Team Tasks , the Team leader can make use of the Team tasks which is available in SharePoint , a part of Office365 . Let me show you how we make use of Team Tasks in our Company TechGyan.

Given below is the snapshot of our Team site “Admin “ . You can see various tasks that are created along with the name of the person to whom they are assigned ; status; priority; due date; % complete.

These tasks can be easily added and updated on SharePoint itself. For example, given below is the snapshot of one of the Tasks which has description of the Task . And being an update on SharePoint , you can see that it has various bells and whistles like Description , Workflow, Shared with, etc.

 

Alerts can also be set so that as soon as task is created , an alert can go to the person assigned the task. You can have various alerts configured as can be seen in the following snapshot below:

By itself, the above system is very efficient in managing the tasks between the Team members thereby improving the efficiency of the Team . But the functionality can be taken to the next level by integrating the Team tasks with the Outlook of the User . In the screenshot below , the Admin Tasks have been integrated with the local outlook on my PC :

 

In the above snapshot , the Admin Task list of SharePoint has been synced with my local Outlook . It appears to me as a regular Task item of Outlook. What that means to me is that I allocate tasks using Outlook without having the need to go to the SharePoint. However , in case I wish to allocate a task while I am on the rod, I can do that by going to SharePoint and updating the Task. This will then sync up with my outlook .

What this means

By implementing the Team tasks in SharePoint and then integrating the same with MS Outlook, we have created a very effective Platform within our Company which allows us to share and manage Team Tasks without bothering about the location of the Team members. This has considerably added to our productivity and mobility because ultimately Work = series of tasks . So if we can streamline Team Tasks , it means we have streamlined work . How’s that for Productivity !

So get going and implement Office365 based Team Tasks in your Company ! Now !

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Benefits of Alias in Office365

 

There is a very useful feature available in Exchange Online . Its called alias. Today I will discuss the benefits of using alias in a Business. I shall show you how we use Alias within our Company TechGyan.

We have created a few aliases as follows:

Helpdesk : This is for existing Customers. They can send a mail to this alias if they wish to record a support call; they have some queries in billing ; they need any kind of information. In short , if an existing Customer needs to communicate with us , there is only one email id he should remember.

Sales : If a new Customer wants some information on our products or service or if we have to send a proposal , then this alias is used.

Services : If the Customer is discussing any issue with the Services Team

Infoline : General information

Officeadmin : Communication with Vendors

Advantage of alias :

In every Company , people change or leave . So it always creates a disconnect between the Company and the external stake holders . Mails bounce or go unanswered. To overcome this problem, we have created the above aliases in Exchange Online. They are also called as Distribution Lists . So if an existing Customer sends a mail to Helpdesk , there is a Distribution List linked to this alias by which , any email to Help Desk will get auto forwarded to the people in Distribution list . If any person in the list changes , we have to just remove old name and add new name . The alias name remains unaffected.

The above screen shot shows the general information about the alias Helpdesk

Other Features of Alias in Exchange Online:

1) Membership

The above screen shows the list of people who are members of this alias. Here you can add or remove people as per your requirement .

2) Membership approval

As shown above, various options are available. Group can be open or closed. Members can join it by themselves or only owners can add them.

3) Delivery management

You can create alias such that only senders inside the organization can send the mail . Or , as in our case for Helpdesk , you can specify that Senders from inside and outside the organization can send the mail

4) Message approval

Any messages sent to this alias could be moderated before being delivered. In our case, we have not kept any moderator as we want any Customer to contact our Helpdesk without restriction.

5) Group delegation

By creating Group delegation, a group member can send outgoing mail also as an alias

So in the above case , we have given kkalani and bnaik the required group delegation. What happens with that can be seen in the next screen shot:

In the above image, you can see that Kavita is sending mail from her outlook. But the outgoing mail has mail id of helpdesk@techgyan.com .

As you can understand, the alias feature in Exchange Online is very powerful and can be customized with various options. And the best part is that it is FREE . Which means , you can create as many aliases as you wish to and there will be no charges for the same.

So get going and implement Office365 aliases in your Company ! Now !

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Task Sync in Office365

 

 

Work plays a very important role in our daily life . So what is work? It is nothing but a series of tasks . Tasks have different priorities , different due dates , different owners, etc.

One of the most efficient ways to manage Tasks is to use MS Outlook, which is part of MS Office . And most of the working people do in fact use Tasks . So typically , as soon as people reach workplace , they spend about 15 to 20 minutes to plan their schedule for the day using Tasks of MS Outlook. Needless to say , MS Outlook is the best tool for Task management.

When you use Office365 , the Tasks of Outlook are in complete sync with the Tasks of Outlook on a browser , also called as Outlook Web Access or OWA for short . So even if you do not have access to your PC with Outlook, it does not matter as your Tasks are available on the browser.

However , it does not stop here . If your Smartphone , like Windows Phone , is configured with Office365, you can get your Outlook Tasks even on your Phone . And this takes productivity to the next level. Let me explain this with a scenario.

So normally when you come to work, you would spend about 15 minutes planning your Tasks for the day using MS Outlook. All of us travel at least for 1 hour every day to Work. Now while travelling , you could easily plan your tasks on your Smartphone . So you could set a Task reminder like say a) at 3 PM to call Mr. Mehta or at 4 PM speak to Peter . And guess what , at 3 PM and 4 PM respectively, you will get reminders on Outlook of your Work PC. Similarly if you have set a reminder in MS outlook and at that time you are Out of Office, you will get reminder on your mobile. There is seamless integration of tasks between Outlook, Browser and mobile.

So what is the BIG DEAL ? I believe this is HUGE .

Savings

So if we assume that an average person takes about 15 minutes to plan his To Do list for the day , then for 100 people Company , the time taken will be 100 x 15 = 1500 minutes . That is 25 hours per day spent on planning the tasks for the Day.

Now if these 100 people use their Smartphones to plan their To Do , what will happen is that when they reach office , they will already find their To Do list updated . Which means a saving of 15 minutes per person which is 25 hours per day .

Now 25 hours x 25 working days = 625 hours saved per month .

That is 625 x 12 = 7500 hours saved per year

So at average cost to Company per hour per person being about Rs. 200, this translates to a saving of Rs. 15,00,000 . This is a HUGE increase in productivity .

So get going and implement Office365 Tasks Sync in your Company ! Now !

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Enhancements to Office365

 

Office365, the Cloud Service from Microsoft , has been enhanced in a major way recently. Let me share the improvements with you.

1) Exchange Online Plan P1 goes up from 25 GB to 50 GB per mailbox

2) Exchange Kiosk goes up from 1 GB to 2 GB per mailbox

3) Shared Mailbox storage doubled to 10 GB

4) Resource Mailbox storage doubled to 10 GB

5) Site Mailbox storage remains at 5 GB

6) SkyDrive Pro storage goes up from 5 GB to 25 GB

7) SkyDrive Pro file size limit increased to 2 GB

8) SkyDrive Pro can now store 20,000 files from personal libraries

9) Versioning now enabled by default on SkyDrive Pro documents with default of 10 file versions

10) Shared with me view of SkyDrive Pro helps to easily locate files shared by your colleagues with you

11) Recycle bin retention increased from 30 days to 90 days

Let's look at what that means for the overall storage for each user. With Office 365, you get 25 GB of SkyDrive Pro storage + 50 GB of email storage + 5 GB for each site mailbox you create + your total available tenant storage, which for every Office 365 business customer starts at 10 GB + (500 MB x # of user(s).

I am really excited with these announced enhancements . What about you?

To know more about Office365 Service , click here .

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Microsoft to buy Nokia Mobile Business

 

The biggest news of the day is that Microsoft is buying the Mobile Phone business of Nokia. There are many articles floating around the Internet about this deal. Here are my thoughts on the same:

I am personally happy with the news since as our Company TechGyan is heavily invested in Microsoft Technologies . And last year we made our foray into the world of Smart phones by entering into Enterprise Partner Agreement with Nokia. Since then we have done a decent business in selling Nokia Lumia Phones to Business Users . And personally , I am using Nokia Lumia 920 and I absolutely love the hardware and software.  So first impression is that I am positive about the news .

Nokia has come out with great Phone models like Lumia 520, 620, 625, 720, 820, 920, 925 . These models beat the hell out of the phones from Androids . So when we have the hardware capability of Nokia which combines with Software capability and deep pockets of Microsoft , we have an awesome combination  . From here , the market share of Lumia Phones can only increase provided:

1) Microsoft innovates faster on the Windows Phone OS

2) Microsoft comes out with an effective Partner Program for Lumia Phones and also Surface Tablets . This means that they should NOT go direct like Apple since that is not in their DNA . Instead , they should leverage their FANTASTIC Partner Ecosystem  to sell the devices .

3) The Nokia team which will come into Microsoft should be given a lot of freedom since Nokia has the history of coming out with great hardware at attractive price points .

4) Nokia Brand should not be killed , but should be leveraged as it has great pull in many Countries like India.

 

I also believe that many Customers will now adopt Lumia knowing that now with Microsoft’s backing , the Platform will only become bigger . And while the regulatory issue are sorted out and integration starts , I will tell my team to get more aggressive on Nokia Lumia Phones .  

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

SkyDrive is my PC

 

Greetings !

Over past many months , various “so-called” experts have been predicting death of the PC. While I have own strong views about this which are contrary to the views of these experts , today I will share with you something pretty fundamental which has happened to the way I use Computers . In fact I will go to state that in past few months , the PC for me no longer means “Personal Computer “. It now means “Personal Cloud” . And while there are few popular “Personal Clouds “ out there , what I will focus is the personal cloud , or lets call it PC , that I use. My PC of choice is SkyDrive.

How do you get SkyDrive

First question is , how does one get SkyDrive ? This one is a no brainer. Anyone who uses Hotmail or live id , already has SkyDrive . And now with Hotmail being retired, you can go to www.outlook.com and signup for new email id with @outlook.com . Once you login to your account, you will get the following option as shown here :

Click on the SkyDrive option and you are good to go !

My SkyDrive

Let me now take you inside my SkyDrive. This is how my SkyDrive looks:

At bottom left corner, it tells me that I have 21.6 GB space available. I can also get SkyDrive apps for PC, Windows Phone and other platforms as SkyDrive is true cross platform solution.

Just above that is the list of my various PC’s which access SkyDrive. Above that are some of the groups I have created .

In the center are the various folders I have created for my Data, Pictures, Videos.

 

SkyDrive Office WebApps

One killer feature of SkyDrive which is lacking in other Cloud Solutions is the support of Office WebApps . I can open and edit Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote in a browser. Yes. You read it right. You can edit MS Office documents which are stored on SkyDrive directly in a browser without needing to use MS Office stored on your PC . And Office WebApps on SkyDrive support co-authoring meaning multiple people can edit the same file at the same time. How cool is that !

 

SkyDrive PhotoApp

The Photo sharing app on SkyDrive is wonderful. I use it extensively to store my digital pictures . In functionality , it is comparable to the best dedicated photo sharing applications available.

SkyDrive App for Windows OS

This is by far the killer feature as far as I am concerned. I have downloaded SkyDrive App on my PC . This creates a SkyDrive folder on my PC . Next I decide which SkyDrive folders I wish to sync with the PC SkyDrive folder . So I can select folder a, b, c , d to sync with my Office PC. Next I can select folder a and b to sync with my home PC.

Now whatever data I create in my SkyDrive folder of my PC gets synced with my SkyDrive Cloud. This gives me an effective online backup solution. And if I add or edit anything online, the same gets reflected on my local hard disk .

I typically work on my hard disk as it is much faster . But while I am working on the hard disk of my PC, the SkyDrive app is pushing the data into my Personal Cloud giving me an online backup.

SkyDrive App for Windows Phone

I have also downloaded the SkyDrive app for my Windows Phone. So using SkyDrive app on my phone, I can access the complete SkyDrive which in my case is of 25 GB. I can not only access my files, but also work on them using my phone. And the edits I do using my phone get synced with all my Computers which are connected with my SkyDrive Account. I can also send a link to my SkyDrive file to anyone by email.

 

Conclusion

For me, SkyDrive has become one of the most useful applications . It has truly made me mobile . I can now work on my Data from any device . While there are other Cloud Solutions out there which offer some of the functions of SkyDrive , I prefer SkyDrive due to following reasons :

1) Ability to use Office Web apps , which is missing in other services.

2) I can buy extra storage at a nominal cost from Microsoft. And I can increase my storage to mind boggling 100 GB

3) I trust Microsoft more than other services like Dropbox, Box, etc. The reason is that most of the other services are currently running on VC money . They do not have any revenue model . So they may go down any time . But Microsoft is one Company which will not disappear in a hurry. And they cannot allow negative publicity to affect their other profitable business . So my data will remain secure with Microsoft as compared to others.

So go ahead and give SkyDrive a try. You will fall in love with it . Take it from me.

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Office365 new plans announced

Greetings !

Yesterday Microsoft announced a few major changes in their Industry leading Cloud Service Office365 . I will highlight some of those changes which to me appear most exciting .

1) Office365 E1 Enterprise Plan

This Plan was available at USD 8 per user per month and it consisted of :

MS Exchange for Messaging

MS SharePoint for Collaboration and Public website

MS Lync for Communication

What’s new is that without changing the price , Office Web Apps are now bundled in this plan. This means that that if you subscribe to this plan , you can also get the Web edition of MS Office consisting of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote . So you can edit any Office document using any browser . How cool is that ! Great Value and a BIG Thumbs Up from me.

2) Office365 Mid Business Plan

This is a new member of the Office365 family . It is meant for Companies upto 300 users . The plan price is USD 15 per user per month and you get:

MS Exchange for Messaging

MS SharePoint for Collaboration and Public website

MS Lync for Communication

Office Web Apps

MS Office Professional Plus

To understand what you will get in Office Professional Plus, click here .

You can download the copy of MS Office on your PC and use it. Also you can install it on upto 5 devices . Besides, you will always get the latest edition . To know more about MS Office as a Service, click here .

I believe Ofice365 Mid Business has “winner “ written all over it .

I shall come back with other changes in Office365 later.

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Nokia Lumia 920 The Best Smartphone in the World

Greetings !

 

Yesterday I was invited for a preview of new Windows Phone 8 models being launched by Nokia next week in India.  There are 2 models being launched   :

 

a) The Lumia 920

b) The Lumia 820

 

This post will focus on 920 as it is truly a mind blowing phone !

 

The event began with the Nokia representative gives some details of the Lumia Sales. Nokia has sold more than 100,000 Lumia units only during the 4 days of Diwali in November . That's pretty decent ! They also cracked the largest Corporate deal involving 4500 Lumia devices . Very Impressive . Makes me wonder about the crap dished out by experts saying that Lumia sales are very poor!  These experts can be really biased ! And they are biased against Windows Platform for sure!

 

Next we were given some hardware specs of the models . I have summarized some of these in this post below. We were told of various awards won by Nokia Lumia 920 . These have also been summarized below.

 

Pricing:

 

The indicative pricing of the models which will be released next week are:

 

Lumia 920 @ Rs. 37000/=

 

Lumia 820 @ Rs. 27000/=

 

Demos

We then saw some jaw dropping demos:

 

a) Camera quality vs. Samsung Galaxy  for night picture

No comparison here . Lumia was miles ahead

 

b) Optical Image Stabilization

The video shot with 920 was rock steady. The one with Samsung Galaxy was wobbly.

 

c) Nokia Lens by which one can remove unwanted objects from the picture.

 

d) Great Sound

 

Given below is the summary of the hardware specs

 

Specifications:

Lumia 920 has many things which are better or You don't have at all with iPhone 5 or Samsung Galaxy S3:

 1. The best screen - 2.4x faster than Samsung S3's screen and 5.4x faster than iPhone 5's screen (tested with Lagom test). Super sensitive and bright screen that can be used with gloves or finger nails.  It's the first smartphone in the world to deliver a full 60 frames-per-second (FPS) without any blurring.

2. It has 3pcs HAAC (High Amplitude Audio Capture) microphones and so the recorded audio is distortion free also at the loudest music performances and it can record also very low bass sound vs its rivals has nonHAAC mics and so the recorded audio at music concert recordings is mostly distorted and they can't capture low bass sound.

3. Nokia Lumia 920 is the first smartphone which has pentaband LTE support.

4. Nokia Lumia 920 is the first smartphone with OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) system which makes it possible to get better photos in the low light and makes more stable videos. Floating-lens PureView camera with optical image stabilization

5. Nokia Lumia 920 is the first smartphone with integrated wireless charging.

6. WP8 is smooth, efficient and simple. MS Word & Excel seamlessly integrated.

7. Free Apps: City Lens, Nokia Drive, Nokia Maps, Nokia Music, Smartshoot etc. Augmented reality City Lens is very cool.

8. Aluminium cover of iPhone 5 and Samsung S3 gets broken easier than Lumia 920's polycarbonate cover - polycarbonate is used for example with bulletproof windows

9. Premium GPS that can be used also without internet!

10. NFC ( Near Field Communications)

11. Rich sound recording in vids

12. Wireless Purity Pro headphones

 

 

The awards:

 

Before that , lets see some images. First lets see the Windows UI vs. Apple UI . Clearly the Apple iPhone UI looks very tired as compared to super sleek LIVE Tiles of Microsoft.

 

 

 

Now lets see the 920 in full glory. Its looks absolutely gorgeous !

 

 

 

 Awards Won By Nokia Lumia 920

 

The Top Smartphone of 2012, V3, UK

Top rated product on Amazon based on Customer reviews

The Best Mobile Phone of 2012, Readers Choice Award, Gizmodo, Australia.

iF Award for Outstanding Design, International Forum Design, Germany

Mobil Award for Best Smartphone Design, Mobile Magazine, Denmark

Best Smartphones of 2012, The Next Web, USA

Top Score Award, Mobil, Sweden

The Best High End Smartphones for the Holidays, CNET, USA

Best Productivity Phone, Best Camera Phone, Best Mapping Phone, Best Windows Phone, Runner up, Arstechnic, USA

Top 25 Tech of 2012, Mashable, USA

Top Smartphone of the Year, Mybroadband, South Africa

Best AT&T Smartphones of 2012, BGR, USA

 

 

I am totally convinced that over next few months, Windows Phone 8 will keep gaining marketshare and in particular, the Lumia range will be a big Winner . Willing to bet ?

with warm regards

 

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

 

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Windows 8 for Business

Greetings !

Just before the year ended , we did a wonderful event on "Windows 8 for Business" on December 27, 2012 , at the ITC Grand Central .

First , Mr Satabdee Hait  of Microsoft started the proceedings by doing a detailed presentation cum demo on Windows 8 features specially those which are meant for business. He spoke about the following features:

• Direct Access
• Hyper V
• Windows to Go
• SkyDrive
• SkyDrive Pro

and many more.

Next it was my turn . I focused on the Microsoft Ecosystem and its advantages over the Apple and Google Ecosystems. And of course I spent some time on showing how comfortable it was to use on my old laptop which had no touch . Some of the business benefits I spoke about were :

1)  Much faster boot up time
2)  20% more battery life
3)  Live Tile User Interface
4)  Great apps for Windows 8

After the formal part was over , we cut the cake welcoming Windows 8 . After that we took a few Group pictures. These have been put up on the events page of Facebook at  https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151389583268530.488937.118067228529&type=1

There was also a small Nokia Counter where we had latest Windows 8 based Lumia Smartphones on display . Many Customers showed interest in the devices on display.

All in all , the Customers were hopefully clear that Windows 8 is THE BEST EVER Operating System for a Business User.

with warm regards
Suresh Ramani www.TechGyan.com
Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

 

 
 
 



Google Apps vs. Office365

 

Greetings !

With Cloud Computing gaining momentum with every passing day , one question which the Customers have is how should they start their journey on the Cloud. Their first question is which applications to consider shifting first to the Cloud.

The easy answer is to first shift Email, Collaboration & Communication to the Cloud . The benefits of shifting these applications to the Cloud are HUGE as compared to an On Premise Model.

Next question is which Solution is the BEST ?

Frankly , for Cloud based Email and Collaboration , there are only 2 vendors that matter : Google Apps from Google and Office365 from Microsoft.

I have created a short 4 minute video which compares Google Apps with Office365 . This will help you in your evaluation. Please click here for the same: http://youtu.be/GKacjb08aCI

For a more detailed feature by feature comparison between Google Apps and MS Exchange , I have created a 20 minute video . Click here http://youtu.be/HL5LdfF6ThI

I would love to hear on on these videos,

with warm regards
Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com
Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Windows 8 is here

 

Greetings !

Last week has been pretty eventful for Microsoft . They had 3 big announcements :

a) Launch of Windows Surface

b) Launch of Windows 8

c) Launch of Windows Phone 8

I will focus mainly on Windows 8 and to a lesser extent on Surface as it is not available in India .

People are asking various questions. So let me talk about the product in form of FAQ:

1) What is the difference between Windows RT and Windows Pro

Windows RT is the brand new Operating System from Microsoft. It has significantly faster boot time . It is optimized for Touch. Important point to note is that only applications from the Microsoft App Store can be used on a RT device. It will power devices based on ARM processor like Surface RT . Another interesting this is that all RT devices will come pre loaded with MS Office Home & Student Edition. So you can use this MS Office at Home, in School, etc. But you cannot use it at Work from Licensing point of view as it is Home and Student Edition.

Windows 8 Pro on the other hand is the upgrade from Windows 7. So all your legacy applications will work on Windows Pro . You can also use the apps available on Windows App Store . Some apps will not work on Windows RT . So these will not be available to RT devices for download. Only for Win Pro devices.

2) What is the use of having Modern Tiles for a Business User

A Business User , especially the  Mobile User like Sales person or   Top Management  can use the LIVE Tiles on their touch enabled  laptops/ Tablets or Convertibles  and they will simply see a jump in their productivity .

Another interesting scenario is that you use the legacy application in Desktop mode ( classic mode) and then use the same data and do analytics using a app for say Business Intelligence  in LIVE Tiles.

And if you have no use at all for LIVE Tiles, then you can continue to use Desktop mode with keyboard and mouse . Here the advantage is that you have faster boot time as compared to Windows 7 . And there are features like Windows to Go which allow you to boot from any PC with your Windows 8 on a pen drive. Wow !

3) What is the BIG STORY about Windows 8

The BIG STORY is unification of User Interface across XBox Gaming Console ; Smartphone ; Tablet ; Laptop ; Desktop; Workstation.

And with Unification of User Interface comes Unification of your Data which will be on Microsoft Cloud. So if you use any device , you access the same Data. That’s HUGE…

4) Where can I get Surface Tablet

Surface is only available from Microsoft Store or Online in 5 Countries. So Indian Customer has to wait. But you can always buy any device from multiple vendors who are ready  with their devices.

5) What kind of devices will I get for Windows 8 and when will they be available

There is a plethora of devices available with Windows 8. There are broadly in 3 types:

a) Windows RT based on ARM

b) Intel Atom

c) Intel or AMD Processor

Various form factors are available and shipping today . Some are shown below:

                     

The above device on left is from Acer . On right is the same device but with the screen removed and being used as a well designed Tablet. Cool !

                   

The above is RT based Asus device with detachable screen  . Very light weight

 

                           

The above is Toshiba Device on the right . And the same device is in my hand on the left with the screen sliding in and converting into a Tablet

The above picture is a DELL  Device appearing as a Tablet . The same unit becomes a Laptop when you slide out the screen.. Based on Windows 8 Pro.

So there is a great choice available. There were a few devices from Lenovo and HP too . The Lenovo Ideapad Yoga   is one great device which is very flexible. And HP also has a few innovative devices for the Business User.

So all in all , Windows 8 is a totally new direction for Microsoft and Windows . The LIVE Tiles will take a few days to get used to. But it is a fantastic Interface . I have been using that Interface on my Windows Phone for past 8 months and I simply love it .

My feeling is that Consumers will love it from day one. Business user will adopt it slowly . So the real Business adoption will happen only after one year .

 

with warm regards
Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com
Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007