Random recent SBS notes

In recent days, I've posted about the issue with Exchange SP1 and SBS. (Susan copied it excellently in her blog) We're working to get a patch that resolves those issues out ASAP, but we want to make sure we only do it once. We'll be asking a small # of folks to try it out in the next few days - once we've gotten their OK and done some final verification on our end, we'll be releasing it.

On another note, last week I sat down with a (very) small group of folks from the Puget Sound SBS Users Group. We really just sat around and I talked a bit about what I do and how our team works, and how we create SBS, the creative design process and the engineering work and such. I had a fun time, would have loved to be able to do it with a larger group. I'm not certain how to translate that sort of discussion to a blog, but I'd be open to trying that.

My apologies to all the folks who aren't based in Seattle that don't get to interact with us Microsoft folks on such a regular basis - we're not trying to play favorites, but I can't argue when I can stroll over to a building on campus to meet up with some folks. It may be interesting to try and setup a user group road tour at some point. But if we did set something up like that, what would people want to hear us talk about? (Imagine you can have 2 people from the SBS engineering team come visit your group for 2 hours - what would you want us to say/speak about?)

I did a talk to a group in Portland about a year ago, which was a very fun trip (helped that I had friends in Portland). Since SBS 2003 was about to release, it was mainly a preview, but I heard a lot of feedback loud and clear (especially about licensing). People may not realize it, but that feedback does get heard at Microsoft. I wrote up a lengthy trip summary that got forwarded to several people in our management and marketing groups, I know it sparked several conversations about ways we can better address the needs of our small business customers. So please don't think we're not listening...

That's random post for today. Time to spend a little more time playing with ASP and SQL...