Company Net adds Gold Microsoft CRM Competency to Gold Sharepoint Competency



Company Net becomes the first company in Europe to achieve Gold in both Customer Relationship Management and Portals and Collaboration.

Company Net, the specialist provider for SharePoint and Dynamics CRM business solutions, today announced that it has been awarded the highest level of Microsoft Partner Network accreditation, the Gold Customer Relationship Management Competency, to add to the Gold  Portals and Collaboration Competency announced previously.

Company Net joins an elite group of less than a dozen organisations worldwide to be awarded Gold Competency in both Customer Relationship Management, and Portals and Collaboration.  This underlines its position as a global leader in combined Dynamics CRM and SharePoint solutions.

Microsoft Partner: Gold for Sharepoint and CRM

With the release of Dynamics CRM 2011, and its close integration with SharePoint 2010, Company Net is in a unique position to offer its clients the highest levels of technical skills and experience to build effective and innovative business solutions, maximising the complimentary capabilities of both Dynamics CRM and SharePoint.

Derrick McCourt, Regional Director Microsoft, Scotland & Wales commented:

“We are delighted to recognise this achievement and welcome Company Net onto the New Gold Standard within the Microsoft Partner Network.

Company Net’s SharePoint and CRM skills are now formally recognised at the highest level of customer satisfaction, project delivery and technical competence that Microsoft require. We would like to congratulate them on this excellent achievement and on their continued commitment to the Microsoft Platform.”

Yule get Spam for Christmas

I’m trying really hard to be jolly and festive.  But it doesn’t help when - in amongst trying to tie off numerous work-related loose ends – I’m getting bombarded with junk e-mail. 

Not just the usual stream of junk e-mail, but Christmas spam with all the trimmings. 

From companies I’ve bought things from, from companies I haven’t bought things from but who want me to buy things from them, from companies I’ve never heard of.

And with the BBC today reporting that more people in the UK are expected to do online shopping on Christmas day than will attend church, you’ve really got to wonder what it’s all about.

He’s Not the Messiah …

It’s that time of year again when I issue my perennial ‘West Ham are in deep trouble, the season’s going down the toilet’ post.

(If you’re remotely interested, you can read the previous entries here:

• End of the Road …
• The Price of Loyalty …)

Anyhow, despite the fact that we’re currently 5 points adrift from safety at the bottom of the premier league, the club have sought fit to keep beleaguered manager Avram Grant on.  At least for now.  (The omens aren’t good – Grant hasn’t been out of the relegation zone for a single day in the last year since taking over as manager of now relegated Portsmouth in November 2009). 

Instead, they’ve jettisoned Grant’s assistant, Zeljko Petrovik, the fall guy for the team’s run of poor form.

With Petrovic now gone, the rumour-mill has gone into overdrive with regards to who will replace him.  And the fans’ favourite is none other than former player Paulo Di Canio.

The club are doing nothing to dampen the expectation, even going as far as very publically inviting Di Canio as a guest of honour to this Saturday’s “Save Our Season” game against Wigan.

Perhaps the passionate Di Canio, a man who has always worn his heart on his sleeve, would be the ideal antidote to Avram Grant’s dour and expressionless demeanour; the perfect yin to Grant’s yan?  And something has got to change if West Ham are to rescue their season.

But, before we get carried away with ourselves, let us not forget the last time we appealed to Di Canio to save our club and to save our season. 

Struq by the Impact of Online Advertising

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always considered online advertising as a necessary nuisance which I’ve become quite adept at ignoring – at least on a conscious level. 

Last weekend though, for the first time, I was blown away by the impact of the online advertising on the RadioTimes website.  

Gap Logo, Crap Logo

This week’s US launch of Gap’s new logo has met with almost universal derision. 

Old Gap Logo / New Crap Logo

To add insult to injury, Gap has, through its Facebook site, invited ‘crowd-sourced’ feedback on its new logo:

“We love our version, but we’d like to see other ideas. Stay tuned for details in the next few days on this crowd sourcing project.”

And it didn’t take the online community long to accept the invitation. 

That’s not Sharepoint, is it?

Hymans Robertson, which provides advisory and management services to the occupational pensions market, has just gone live with a new public website for its Clubvita subsidiary.

And it looks great.

Hymans Robertson Clubvita Website

Gartner Predicts Bright Future for Sharepoint as Unified Content Management Platform

Following recent research by Gartner, organisations looking for a unified enterprise and web platform effectively have only four realistic vendor choices: Microsoft, Oracle, Open Text and IBM.

Gartner Enterprise Content Management Magic Quadrant (October 2009)

Gartner Web Content Management Magic Quadrant (August 2010)

With Open Text’s market share diminishing, IBM’s continued focus on enterprise scale organisations and Oracle’s lack of favour with those who have invested in a Microsoft infrastructure, the future looks bright for SharePoint.

Software Development Methodologies Make Late Dash for Olympic Inclusion

Phew, it’s an energetic business this software development!  With the growing lexicon of sporting phrases entering the lingua franca, software developers have never needed to be fitter.  We’ve got ’daily scrums‘, ‘sprints‘ and an ever-increasing need to be ‘agile‘.  So with just under two years to go until the opening ceremony, surely it’s not too late to include software development methodologies as a new Olympic Sport at London 2010?    

When is a Question not a Question

The summer holiday period is in full swing, the level of traffic on roads on the way into work is much reduced.  The daily commute is almost tolerable, and hurrah for that. 

However, the rush-hour roads have been displaced by an altogether different kind of menace, in the form of grammatically flawed dot-matrix signs containing all kinds of inane, poorly-punctuated messages.  

Gone are the usual depressing selection of messages warning of traffic congestion, serious accidents and road closures.  Only, we seem to have entered the newspaper equivalent of the silly season, only with worse grammar. 

I give you a small selection of a few variable message signs that I’ve encountered on my daily commute along the A720 Edinburgh City Bypass: 

Have you got enough question marks?: 

“HAVE YOU GOT ENOUGH FUEL” 

“HAVE YOU FASTENED YOUR SEATBELT” 

“COULD YOU RELY ON YOUR SPARE TYRE” 

“COULD YOU CAR SHARE”

“CHECK YOUR VEHICLE IS YOUR LOAD SAFE”

“COULD YOU REDUCE YOUR CARBON EMISSIONS”

Without so much as an apostrophe or a full stop: 

“MOBILE PHONES – DONT RISK IT” 

“DONT ADJUST SAT-NAV WHEN DRIVING”

“DONT DRINK AND DRIVE” 

“DONT USE MOBILE PHONE WHEN DRIVING” 

“WEAR SEATBELTS – ITS THE LAW” 

“USE CORRECT CHILD SEAT DONT RISK IT”

So, the answer to the question in the headline is – when it doesn’t have a question mark at the end.  Oh, and I hope you spotted my deliberate mistake in not adding one to the headline. 

Please can we have some punctuation?

Now I know there is only so many characters you can use on these signs.  And I know we’ve all got a bit sloppy with things in this fast-paced, text-messaging days in which we all live.  

But there’s always space for a full stop or a question mark at the end of a sentence, isn’t there.  Oh look, I’ve just done it again.

Capello’s Own Goal

So, Fabio Capello has been running the rule over Rob Green – assessing whether his embattled first choice keeper has got the bottle to bounce back from his howler against the USA.

Capello has apparently been resolute in his refusal to deviate from his pre-match ritual of not letting his squad know the starting eleven until 2 hours before kick-off.

However, it would seem that Capello’s rules are made to be broken.  He has already announced that “Garry Barry” will start against Algeria. 

So, come on Fabio!  Do the decent thing, and flex your intransigent rules one more time to give your top stopper the Green light.

You Know You’re Getting Old When …

• … the World Cup starts, and you can’t slope off from work early to watch the opening match because you’ve got too many “responsibilities”.
• … you’re carrying around so many keys that you can’t actually fit them into your  pocket.

Keys

• … you’re spending £150 a week on food to feed a ravenous and ever growing family.
• … you go and watch Scotland play cricket, and all the players are considerably younger than you are.  Even Graham Hamilton, the battle-worn skipper, a seasoned veteran who is greying at the temples, looking slightly haggard and carrying a few spare pounds.

Gavin Hamilton

In Search of a Digital Stills/Full HD Video Hybrid Camera

I’ve had a Panasonic Lumix FZ5 for the last five years, and it’s been a great camera. Superb zoom and superior image quality. However, it’s a bulky beast, and I’ve also had to lug around a separate video camcorder to capture movies because the FZ5′s movie mode is pretty paltry.    

Panasonic Lumix FZ5

So, the time has come to think about a replacement.  The driver to replace is a requirement for a single unit, providing comparable image quality, in a smaller form, and with full HD video supported. By full HD, I mean full 1080p (progressive scan), not 1080i (interlaced scan) or 720 HD.    

The specific requirements underpinning my search are as follows:    

• Form:
  • As compact as possible, preferably smaller than the Panasonic Lumix FZ5.
• Image:
  • Superior image quality, at least as good as the 5 year old FZ5.
  • Minimal shutter lag.
  • Decent zoom (at least 10x optical)
• HD Video:
  • Full 1080p HD (not 1080i or 720p)
  • Stereo sound
  • Zoom capability whilst filming
  • Minimal noise transmitted to the microphone from the zoom and autofocus functions.
• Price:
  • ~£300 price-point.

After hours of painstaking research, trawling through the multitude of fantastically detailed review sites which are out there, I have concluded that such a camera does not yet exist. None of the compact cameras on the market support 1080p HD (there were a couple with 1080i), but neither had very good reviews for image quality. So they were out.    

Compacts reviewed:    

• Samsung WB600 – nope.  15x zoom, and stereo sound, but only 720 HD.
• Panasonic Lumix TZ7 – nope.  12x zoom and stereo sound, but only 720 HD.
• Panasonic Lumix TZ8 – nope.  12x zoom, but only 720 HD and mono sound.
• Canon Powershot SX210 SI – nope.  14x zoom and stereo sound, but only 720 HD.
• Sony Cybershot HX5 – nope.  10x zoom and stereo sound, but only 1080i HD, and poor reviews of its soft and mushy image quality.
• Sony Cybershot TX7 – nope.  Stereo sound, but only 1080i HD and only 4x optical zoom.

The one compromise I was willing to make was on size. So, looking up towards the superzooms/bridge category, a handful supported 1080p HD. But where full HD was in evidence, unfortunately, superior photographic image quality was evidently lacking.    

Superzooms reviewed:  

• Panasonic Lumix FZ38 – nope.  18x zoom, and excellent image quality.  But oly 720 HD.
• Canon PowerShot SX20 IS – nope.  20x zoom but only 720 HD.
• Canon PowerShot SX1 IS - a close contender, with excellent shutter lag, 20x zoom and stereo 1080p HD.  Pushing the envelope at a cost of almost £400.  But ultimately, too many questions over image quality – particularly at low light, and with extreme light contrast.  The clincher was Photography Blog‘s review that it’s “no match for a dedicated camcorder”.
• Fuji Finepix HS10 – nope.  Another contender.  An unfeasibly large 30x zoom and 1080p stereo HD.  But there are too many questions over its photographic abilities – in particular a very long shutter lag, images coming up too soft and smeary and poor in low light.  Add to this the fact that the zoom mode is manual rather than motorised, and it becomes an awkward animal for filming smooth movies.
• Nikon Coolpix P100 – nope.  Another contender.  26x zoom and stereo 1080p HD.  But ultimately too many questions over image and movie quality.  Images evidently come up quite soft and smeary, and in movie mode, autofocus is quickly lost (and slow to adjust) when filming moving subjects, and the chatter whilst zooming and autofocussing in movie mode is audible.  The clincher was CNET‘s comment that “those with hopes of replacing a fully-fledged HD camcorder will be unsatisfied”.
• Sony Cybershot HX1 – nope.  Another contender, despite stretching the budget to £350.  20x zoom and stereo 1080p HD.  But evidently its image quality is soft and smeary and ultimately disappointing.
• Pentax X70 – nope.  24x zoom, but only 720 HD, and then it only records at 15 frames per second, instead of the 30 fps which has become standard.
• Nikon Coolpix P90 – nope.  Evidently no HD mode, and evidently you can’t use the zoom in movie mode.
• Olympus SP-800UZ – nope.  30x zoom, but only 720 HD, and only mono sound recording in video mode.

I was very nearly tempted by the Panasonic Lumix FZ38 – superb image quality for a superzoom camera. But it wasn’t any more compact than my existing Lumix, and I would also have had to compromise on the HD video – the FZ38 only provides 720p, not full HD.  

So, to summarise, it would seem that the quality digital camera/true HD camcorder hybrid remains an elusive product - unless you’re willing to make some significant compromises.  

Personally, I’ll keep my powder dry, and keep my fingers crossed, in anticipation of Panasonic releasing the follow up to the FZ38 (the FZ48?), which will hopefully bump up the spec to full HD.

————————————————————

UPDATED 10TH AUGUST 2010:

It would seem that Panasonic has come up trumps with two new releases:

• The Lumix FZ45 (released 16th August): the successor to the FZ38, it increases the spec from 18x optical zoom to 24x, 12.1 MP resolution to 14.1 MP and 3 inch screen from 2.7 inch.  Disappointly, there’s no full HD video though (it shoots at the same 720 HD as its predecessor).
• The Lumix FZ100 (released 2nd August): the FZ100 has a similar looking spec as the FZ45, but it has a flip-screen, AND full 1,920 x 1,080 HD.  Retailing around the £440 mark at present, I think I’ll wait a few months to let the price drop, and keep checking the reviews in the meantime.

Another contender if the form factor is too bulky is the newly released Lumix FX700.  It’s got your proper full HD, will slip nicely into a pocket, but only 5x optical zoom.  Currently retailing around the £350 mark.