Here we go again! As I do each week, I am really enjoying bringing our readers a quick round-up of the blog coverage I didn’t manage to get to during the busy week prior. Apologies for the late-afternoon edition of our “5 Blogs We Missed Last Week,” but today has been quite a whirlwind! I am still on a high from the NY Giants Super Bowl victory over the New England Patriots last night, as well as finishing the Q1 edition of our print publication, which goes to press later today. This issue is the first one for 2012, and will be distributed at our MVP Nation event held March 2-3. With a focus on the new upcoming Windows 8 technology, the event will be held at the Microsoft Conference Center in Redmond, WA. The two-day event will allow attendees to create their Windows 8 road map. For more information, and to register, go to: http://mvp.smbnation.com/. Once again, here are a few snippets of information that we didn’t get a chance to bring you last week. Let us also know if there was something we might have missed, which is not mentioned in this entry…because as you know…we love news!

Microsoft released news today of an influx of new customers to their Office 365 platform.  The American Heart Association, JetBlue, and Patagonia have all adopted Microsoft’s cloud-based suite of productivity tools. These latest companies join fellow Interbrand Top 100 Companies such as Marie Claire, Campbell’s Soup and Wunderman. In fact, Microsoft reports that over 40% of the Interbrand Top 100 Companies utilize Office 365. Microsoft is very pleased with not only the number of companies using Office 365, but the diversity of their clients.  Small, medium and large companies are

Today, Crossbeam Systems, Inc., a provider of network security platforms, and Intel-subsidary, McAfee, a leading computer security software developer, announced that they will be collaborating on a single solution designed to consolidate and secure large networks. In particular, Mcafee will begin reselling Crossbeam’s X-Series platforms on their Firewall Enterprise solution. This solution is marketed for telecommunications, government offices and other large organizations. This latest solution will provide a multi-layered and affordable solution to data centers that need to cut down on data center space as well. Crossbeam’s X-series platform has an innovative self-healing function to aid with consolidation. Greg Brown, VP of Network Security at McAfee, is looking forward to the collaboration: “Crossbeam’s next-generation X-Series platform strengthens McAfee’s existing security tools by providing the world’s most comprehensive firewall protection to large, high assurance networks. This agreement gives McAfee an expanded portfolio of network security at the high end of the market, delivering superior security, performance, and availability to our customers,” he said in a press release today.

A must-read publication, Directions on Microsoft, is little known inside the SMB community. By the end of this blog, I hope to change all that. The publication was started 20-years ago by Jeff Parker and Rob Horwitz. The two recently invited me to their spacious waterfront Kirkland offices just west of Microsoft Redmond for coffee. Directions on Microsoft (DOM) is best known for its publications including: Update. This is the monthly newsletter where the DOM team just seems to be in the know about Microsoft’s product and partner program portfolio. It’s an old fashioned newsletter printed on heavy bond paper that reminds me of the numerous investor newsletters you can subscribe to on Wall Street. It’s written at the reading level of the Harvard Business Review magazine (and in many ways uses some of the same journalistic standards albeit more technical) and it wouldn’t be confused with USA Today. I’ve read it for years and while most topics aren’t SMB specific, it’s occasionally focused on products that the SMB would like to know of. For example, the January 2012 article had a piece on Windows 8. Note that the update service also provides weekly digital updates. This is the “best known” offering from DOM.

Last Friday, leading sales quoting and proposal solution provider, Aspire Technologies, Inc. announced the release of their latest QuoteWerks Quote Importer designed to work with Dell quotes. The new importer is the combination and enhancement of two previous applets, one that QuoteWerks released in 2008 for general Dell quotes, and one released later for Dell Premier Partner Quotes. Currently, MSPs and VARs who either purchase from Dell as general or Premier partners are given quotes in various formats via e-mail. Quotes come in e-quote format or are self-generated, and can be sent in a variety of html formats, depending on the ordered items.  The Dell Quote Importer app is designed to help resellers standardize their sales quotes. Users can copy items directly from the Dell Premier portal and paste them into the QuoteWerks form to build quotes that better work with their individual and customer needs.   Users can also either paste the html into the platform from the Clipboard or import the quote from a saved file. Dell products can be formatted as simple single line items or full-photo items.

Former SMB Nation employee Beatrice Mulzer has been found in Florida. Many readers recall the Amazing Bea as an author, trainer and overall team player at SMB Nation from 2001 to 2008. Beatrice went on to write another Microsoft Press “Small Business Server 2008” book and then elegantly exited the technology industry. A short contract stint in Washington DC in the IT area for the US Census was followed by a complete career change: Bikram yoga. See the video above for my interview with Beatrice! When I visited Beatrice for a day before Lotusphere, I drove to Titusville, Florida to attend her Bikram Yoga class in a studio she owns. When I participated in her Saturday morning 90-min “heat yoga” session, it kicked my ass. Always the geek, Beatrice acquired the yoga studio and implemented technology to improve its operations.

Earlier this week, snom technology AG, a leading producer of VoIP telephones and services, announced the release of their updated snom ONE IP PBX system. This system has been upgraded to offer standard IP PBX calling features on employees’ mobile phones and reduce the telecom costs for many businesses. The update was announced this week at the ITEXPO East in Miami, FL. Key features of the updated snom ONE IP PBX system are numerous. The new system supports a variety of SIP clients, including the iPhone and Android platforms. The management interface is web-based and allows users to easily employ and administer the solution. Cell phones can now operate as fully functional integrated office extensions, capable of call conferencing, internal extension dialing and call transferring. Software can now be updated on the web interface as opposed to requiring connection to the operating system.