20 To WatchCRN's annual 20 To Watch report is live now, highlighting five top trends, technologies, companies and people poised to impact the channel in 2006. I'll be keeping an eye on AJAX programming myself. Posted by Joe Caponi at 09:26 AM, December 31, 2005 They're Cookies!This Associated Press article "U.S. To Probe Contractor's Web Tracking" and it's followup, "White House Will Continue to Track Net" strike me as a bit over the top. So the White House uses WebTrends to track visitors. Nearly every web site tracks users and nearly every one does it, in part, via cookies. We do. I could make a case that the White House would be negligent if they didn't. In this case, the White House is doing the right thing by continuing to 'track' the Net. Posted by Joe Caponi at 09:10 AM, December 31, 2005 Predictions 2006Can Windows Vista and open source both be winners? Can industry consolidation open the door to new opportunities? It's all coming right up, according to VARBusiness' 2006 Predictions Posted by Joe Caponi at 01:57 PM, December 29, 2005 Christmas Eve LinksBarbara Darrow has more on the Salesforce.com outage. Also Ed Moltzen rounds up reactions from the AMD vs. Intel head-to-head notebook test featured on this week's CRN TV. Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukkah from Hot Topics! Posted by Joe Caponi at 07:59 AM, December 24, 2005 Christmas Adam LinksRobert Faletra and Robert DeMarzo take a look at what's coming in 2006 for the channel. Meanwhile, AMD wrestles with chip shortages; Symantec and McAfee each acknowledged vulnerabilities in their security software; and Salesforce.com dealt with problems of their own. Posted by Joe Caponi at 04:32 PM, December 23, 2005 As The Disk Spins...Busy morning: Seagate to buy Maxtor in a $1.9 billion dollar deal. Posted by Joe Caponi at 09:55 AM, December 21, 2005 Intel vs. AMDCRN Test Center director Frank Ohlhorst tests two identical notebooks, one running on an Intel Pentium M, and the other running on an AMD Turion chip, through a full suite of tests to see which processor comes out on top. See the results on today's CRN TV. Posted by Joe Caponi at 03:10 PM, December 20, 2005 Test Center Products Of The YearOn a more serious note, CRN Test Center's Products of the Year are online now. While technological innovation was key, each company's commitment to its channel partners played as much of a role in the evaluations. Posted by Joe Caponi at 05:10 PM, December 16, 2005 Ultimate Holiday Gift GuideOver on Personal Tech Pipeline, they've posted their Ultimate Holiday Gift Guide. Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:10 AM, December 16, 2005 CIO's Cautious On IT Spending In '06VARBusiness reports on a new study of 11,000 IT decision makers, predicting continued steady growth in 2006. "After a strong third quarter, CIO confidence appears to be modestly declining--and that could result in smaller budget increases in 2006."
Posted by Joe Caponi at 05:43 PM, December 12, 2005 Hall of Fame 2005They are simply the best of our industry -- people who have literally changed the world by making their technological visions real. Meet this year's five inductees to the CRN Industry Hall of Fame. Posted by Joe Caponi at 05:08 PM, December 9, 2005 December CalendarIn a month of important events, here are a few more to keep in mind: We'll be presenting two NetSeminars focused on small business solution providers in the next week. Tomorrow, December 8, at noon ET, VARBusiness editor Lawrence Walsh slices our upcoming State of the Market research data to identify security opportunities for small business VARs. Then on Tuesday, December 14, at 4 pm ET, CRN editor Heather Clancy joins Computer Associates VP George Kafkarkou to discuss how VARs can provide comprehensive IT services to small businesses, and earn a strong margin while doing so. Register for both at our Netseminars page.
Posted by Joe Caponi at 03:10 PM, December 7, 2005 Partner Program Guide 2006Vendors--it's time to sign up for next year's VARBusiness Partner Programs Guide. The guide is our annual directory of the details of solution provider partner programs from hundreds of software and hardware vendors. Let us know what services you offer solution providers, and what you require from them, and we'll include it in print and onine. Sign up now! Take a look at last year's Partner Program Guide for a look at how we'll use your information. If you're a vendor with a specific program for government solution providers, sign up for our Government Partner Program Guide. Posted by Joe Caponi at 05:08 PM, December 6, 2005 What Do You Want From 'Live'?It's been a month since Bill Gates announced Microsoft's Windows Live and Office Live products, spearheading the company's foray into subscription services. Today, solution providers weigh in. In Microsoft's Services Gambit, VARBusiness analyzes what we know so far about Microsoft's software-as-services offerings, and how they may impact solution providers. "More than half of VARs in the online poll said Microsoft's services initiative would decrease demand for channel involvement in deploying and selling Microsoft software and/or cannibalize their traditional Microsoft software business." As part of the feature, VARBusiness surveyed 1,000 solution providers to get their perspectives. Are they worried? Do they smell opportunity? Flip through the research data now. Of course, good news for Microsoft is often bad news for someone else. CRN's Larry Hooper analyzes Windows Live as an effort to "steal thunder from Google," while Barbara Darrow looks at the impact on hosted-software companies such as Salesforce.com. Posted by Joe Caponi at 12:50 PM, December 5, 2005 Hiring HeadachesDemand for good employees in the solution provider marketplace is as strong as it's been in years. Luc Hatlestad looks at VARBusiness' upcoming State of the market research: Just less than 60 percent of the survey respondents plan to increase sales and/or services staff in the coming year; roughly two-thirds of midsize and large solution providers plan to do the same. Even more telling: Only 3 percent of respondents plan to cut sales or services staff, perhaps the surest sign that VARs are feeling as stable as they have in recent years But this represents a problem for many solution providers, for whom sorting out team roles and evaluating job candidates are not exactly core competencies. Here are some tips on hiring new people and ways to maximize the satisfaction and productivity of the ones you alreay have. On the other hand, if you are in the market for a job--and have the right skills--things are looking up. You may want to take a look at the job board in our ChannelWeb Forums. Beyond staffing, rapid growth offers a number of other challenges to solution provider organizations. In How To Manage Growth, Rob Wright identifies a number of temptations threatening the hot solution provider, including:
Taking on big customers on low margins, Posted by Joe Caponi at 02:08 PM, December 2, 2005 Welcome to Hot TopicsThere's plenty going on in the technology channel and it's a challenge for anyone to keep up. Consider Hot Topics your inside look at what our editors are paying attention to, as well a window into what's happening here in CMP Media's Channel Group. With four magazines, eight websites, a score of newsletters, internet tv shows, podcasts, netseminars, and an ongoing series of events, we can be be tough to keep up with ourselves. Look below for some of the best articles on the ChannelWeb network that went online while this blog was in development. Today, though, marks our official Hot Topics launch! Posted by Joe Caponi at 01:00 PM, December 1, 2005 |
Hot TopicsBy Joe CaponiManaging Editor, Operations, ChannelWeb Email Joe BlogRoll
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