Microsoft AlignIT IT Manager Podcast

Host: Ruth Morton. Last March, Ruth and her colleague Damir spent 5 weeks traveling across Canada on the Align IT Tour, talking to IT managers about business productivity and why IT needs to be strategic when building this into their infrastructure. They were joined in each city by a panel of local Microsoft partners and experts on implementing solutions geared to making businesses more productive, whether it be better collaboration, more accessible business intelligence or easier document management. This episode is the third of a 4 part series where Ruth speaks to Greg Larnder from Compugen, Richard Carson from Concept Inc., and Shannon Ryan from non-linear creations in Markham and David Wood from Imaginet in Winnipeg to gain their insights. Comments by email: alignit@microsoft.com

Host: Ruth Morton. Last March, Ruth and her colleague Damir spent 5 weeks traveling across Canada on the Align IT Tour, talking to IT managers about business productivity and why IT needs to be strategic when building this into their infrastructure. They were joined in each city by a panel of local Microsoft partners and experts on implementing solutions geared to making businesses more productive, whether it be better collaboration, more accessible business intelligence or easier document management. This episode is the second of a 4 part series where Ruth speaks to Rob Munroe from T4G, Hugo Bernier from Net Dexterity and Peter Carson from Envision IT in Mississauga to gain their insights. Comments by email: alignit@microsoft.com

Host: Ruth Morton Last March, Ruth and her colleague Damir spent 5 weeks traveling across Canada on the Align IT Tour, talking to IT managers about business productivity and why IT needs to be strategic when building this into their infrastructure. They were joined in each city by a panel of local Microsoft partners and experts on implementing solutions geared to making businesses more productive, whether it be better collaboration, more accessible business intelligence or easier document management. This episode is the first of a 4 part series where Ruth speaks to Fred Yeomans from T4G and Amanda Perran from Infotech in Halifax, and Mike Maadarani from Orangutech and Matt Wolodarsky from Microsoft Canada in Ottawa to gain their insights. Comments by email: alignit@microsoft.com

Host: Ruth Morton Think that centralized project management systems are only important for large enterprises? Think again - even small companies can have many projects on the go. The question is, can you manage your projects better and be more efficient while saving money? Listen in as Gord Schmidt from Agora Consulting Partners shares his insights on managing your projects. Comments by email: alignit@microsoft.com

Host: Ruth Morton It’s no secret that less women than ever are choosing information technology as a career. But few IT managers know why it matters and those that do may be at a loss to know how to recruit and retain a gender diverse team. In this edition, Dr. Wendy Cukier shares her insights into hiring, retaining and managing women. Comments by email: alignit@microsoft.com

Host: Ruth Morton Effective application lifecycle management (ALM) is a struggle in most professional development shops. In this episode, Forrester Research Analysts, Dave West and Jeffrey Hammond talking about what ALM is and why it's important. Comments by email: alignit@microsoft.com

Host: Ruth Morton In this episode of the AlignIT IT Manager Podcast, we’ve taken a recent webcast that Ruth hosted with guests Galen Schreck, a Principle Analyst from Forrester Research and Bruce Cowper, the Virtualization Lead from Microsoft Canada and have condensed it down to 20 minutes of goodness for your listening pleasure. During the conversation where we took questions from the live on-line audience, we cover topics such as how the Microsoft solution stacks up against the competition, the nuances of licensing and where virtualization technology research may be heading in the future. Comments by email: alignit@microsoft.com

Host: Ruth Morton In this episode of the AlignIT IT Manager Podcast, Ruth talks separately with Rob Geller, Microsoft’s Senior Product Manager for Windows Client, and Stephen Rose, Microsoft’s Senior Community Manager for Windows Client. She speaks to each about the latest Windows client operating system - what’s new and can add value for businesses along with what’s compelling for IT shops. They also discuss some of the lessons learned and changes made with the release of Windows 7 as compared to when Windows Vista launched. Comments by email: alignit@microsoft.com

Host: Rick Claus In this episode of the IT Manager Podcast, Rick talks with Ryan Storgaard, Chief Software + Services Officer at Microsoft Canada. Ryan's background and passion about ISVs and Internet based services makes him a perfect guest to explore and discuss a trend on everyone’s mind these days that goes by a couple of different names: Cloud Computing, SaaS - Software As A Service, Services Oriented Architecture, Private Clouds - all to name a few. Comments by email: alignit@microsoft.com

Host: Rick Claus In this episode of the IT Manager Podcast, Rick talks with Anthony Bartolo, Applications Specialist with Rogers Business Solutions and Greg Miligan, Canadian Mobility Solutions Manager. Anthony and Greg share their view of the mobile marketplace and how mobile devices have become accessible to individuals and businesses of all sizes. Comments by email: alignit@microsoft.com

Host: Rick Claus In this episode, Rick has a frank conversation with Microsoft Canada's Chief Security Advisor (Bruce Cowper) and the Vice President of Identity Management Services at Avaleris (Hugh Lindley) on the state of IT Security for the small to midsized business and how security has evolved to be part of everyone's role. Comments by email: alignit@microsoft.com

Host: Rick Claus Randal Robinson, GM of BC Based hosting company RackForce discusses virtualization in such a way that it very approachable and goes beyond it being used as a simple catchphrase. He goes through their transition to using virtualization, identifies challenges they had managing multiple virtualization providers and how they resolved provisioning issues. Comments by email: alignit@microsoft.com

Gabriel Vitus has taken his department through a strategic review and has transformed it into an equal partner with the other business units. Business leaders for all departments work together with the IT Department to create a synchronized business project plan. Gabriel shares insights and recommendations for how you can start your own transformation. Comments by email: alignit@microsoft.com

From interviews recorded during the Montreal International Gaming Summit, we get an update on the use of HPC in the Gaming industry and talk about how it can be used to speed up the increasingly complex game development pipeline. This episode isn't just about technology - we also take the time to talk with Ubisoft Montreal about their approach to managing a team of developers and artists who created the long awaited FarCry 2 game title. Comments by email: alignit@microsoft.com

A chat with the IT Manager from Gerrie Electric and how they came about deploying a Microsoft based Unified Communications solution to replace an end of life PBX system for 17 offices. At first they were only looking for a collaboration / presence solution, but they soon discovered that Office Communication Server 2007 met their needs without having to introduce more complexity to their IT environment by going with one of the typical VoIP PBX vendor solutions. Comments by email: alignit@microsoft.com