2008 was the year of the Rat, 2009 the year of the Architect?

First of all let me wish you a wonderful 2009, may all your architectural – and not so architectural - dreams come true !!

2008 was the year of the rat, will 2009 be the year of the architect? Probably!
These times of deep economical crisis are without any doubt difficult but also interesting times for architects. To survive, enterprises are looking for cost cutting measures and the smartest of them are also aiming at business innovation to gain competitive advantage.
So, now is the opportunity for you (yes, you…) to prove the business that the architect profession can indeed provide huge value to the business, by helping to pinpoint those cost savings in ICT (e.g. by streamlining current ICT environments) and bring those innovative solutions to production in the shortest time frame and at the lowest cost (while leveraging current investments and staying in line with the enterprise architecture to ensure future agility and cost control).

Wow, feeling a little uncomfortable about carrying that responsibility upon your strong but humble shoulders? Well, my dearest friends, fear no longer, for Microsoft Belux Santa Claus has come to help you with that daunting task!

Let’s have a look at exactly what the good man brought for the Belux architects:

It is my great pleasure to introduce the new Microsoft Belux Architect Newsletter for Solution, Infrastructure and Enterprise Architects.  The first issue will be published later this week.  Subscribe here: Dutch, French and English and read more about it here!

It is also my great pleasure to introduce the birth of a Belux  Architect Forum that is focusing specifically on the Infrastructure Architects.  Read more about this here!

Read more about it here.

Microsoft Corp wants to establish a worldwide community of Microsoft Solutions Architect MVPs and I will be happy to facilitate this for the Belux architect community. Read all about it here!

Last but not least, a brand-new and very promising architect paradigm shift: cloud computing.   This might well be an interesting topic for you to support the business in their quest for cost savings and innovation…Read  more about it here!