Make Friends With SAMIn the Test Center, Mario Morejon has been working with Express Metrix 8.0, a tool to enhance Software Asset Management capabilities in small and mid-sized businesses: "Tools such as Express Metrix 8.0 guarantee companies will meet compliance requirements and help them make the most efficient use of their software dollars... Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:38 AM, October 30, 2007 Microsoft Phones The Channel For VoIP PlayersMicrosoft's VoIP announcements from last week have struck a chord among industry watchers. Our Robert DeMarzo and Larry Hooper were both impressed by the significance of Microsoft's move to enter the unified communications space, and to bring Microsoft VARs along with them. Hooper says some may smirk at Redmond's track record on new products, but forsees that Microsoft may have the last laugh: "The scale of Microsoft's VoIP and unified communications launch here in San Francisco made one thing clear: This is not a me-too game for Microsoft. When it comes to VoIP and unified communications, at least, Microsoft is jumping in to change, and yes, dominate, the market." While DeMarzo says Microsoft has a chance to remake itself into the new Ma Bell: "Microsoft clearly has an opportunity to leverage the channel to deliver on its vision for unified communications. Microsoft needs a clear channel strategy for its voice products for all of its partners. Even more important, it needs [Microsoft exec Jeff] Raikes -- or someone at his level -- to serve as the channel evangelist for unified communications." If you're younger than me, you may not know that 'Ma Bell' refers to the big old AT&T, in the days when every dial tone in America came from the same place... Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:41 AM, October 29, 2007 Tipping The Scales On Net NeutralityVeteran tech journalist Michael Malone had been apathetic on the Network Neutrality issue (I can appreciate that), but recently, he's had reason to make up his mind: "I decided to sit back and let events take their course — figuring that one side or the other would show their hand, make their move, tip the scales, and expose the dark side of their position. Posted by Joe Caponi at 04:47 PM, October 26, 2007 Bloglines Frustrations
Posted by Joe Caponi at 12:07 PM, October 26, 2007 Foruteen Days Until Our Virtual Trade ShowIt's now two weeks until our Virtual Trade show opens it's online doors. Just like our 'real-world' XChange events, our Virtual Trade show brings together solution providers, vendors and speakers who understand the channel, and are committed to helping grow your business. Unlike them, you can attend without the time or expense of travelling. And it should be fun!
For more information, visit our VTS home page; check out this demo of the event provided by our partners at Unisfair; and then register now to be eligible to win an iPod or XBox 360 bundle. Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:17 AM, October 25, 2007 A Watch On The WildfiresInformationWeek editor and San Diego resident Mitch Wagner is keeping a close eye on California wildfire conditions: "When I hear about neighborhood that's been evacuated, I punch in the location and find out the distance between that area and my house. I was using my iPhone for that yesterday, but now I've switched to the laptop computer, to save battery life on the phone in case of emergency." Let's hope this ends soon, and as safely for everyone as possible. UPDATE: Joe Kovar on how San Diego VARs are coping: "Bruce Geier, founder, president, and CEO of Technology Integration Group, a San Diego-based solution provider, said that as of late Tuesday, his office was running with only 20 percent of its staff of 150 people at their desks. Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:51 AM, October 24, 2007 Put Your Video On ChannelWebIf you've been aching to make an internet video (a clean one), the time is now. CMP Channel's own Dan Neel is looking for home videos from solution providers on how they use ChannelWeb and the other tools from CMP Channel. Send us a link, and there's an iPod in it for the best one, along with fame on ChannelWeb. Meanwhile, at Who Are You?, the newest site from our colleagues over at TechWeb, the secret lives of the technology crowd are being made public. Executive Producer Fritz Nelson (an old boss of mine) calls it "a place to understand who we are when we step out of the work place and into our lives." Whether you photograph sea birds, or blast cans across a lake (to name two early entries), or do something even more interesting--if you have a video camera, they want to hear from you. Of course, I wouldn't ask you to do something I wouldn't do myself. I just had a chance to sit in and host the latest report from the Channel Test Center on some Panasonic Toughbooks we put to the spill test. For a first effort, I think it came out all right. But I bet you can top it. Posted by Joe Caponi at 03:33 PM, October 23, 2007 Apple's Excellent WeekThe rabbits just keep jumping out of Steve Job's hat: with hot products and strong earnings released yesterday, and a much-anticipated OS upgrade arriving later this week [Slide Show], even Microsoft is beefing up its Mac staff. Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:43 AM, October 23, 2007 Web 2.0, Web 3.0. Whatever It TakesWrapping up last week's Web 2.0 Summit, Jack McCarthy looks at Steve Ballmer's visit, where he positioned Microsoft as being on an ambitious acquisition strategy among new innovative Web companies: "Ballmer said Microsoft has set out an acquisition strategy that will focus on up to 20 smaller acquisitions of $50 million to $1 billion each annually rather than larger deals... [though] Microsoft is also said to be targeting acquisitions like Yahoo, or social networking phenomenon Facebook." Ballmer was also involved in showing off Popfly, a "Mashup" tool that showcases Microsoft's new Silverlight technology. Nokia demonstrated their N810 Internet Tablet, an upcoming challenger to Apple's iPod Touch: "The Nokia device allows users to connect to WiFi hotspots or over a Bluetooth mobile phone and allows users to check Google Mail or a Facebook account, watch videos on YouTube or update blogs using the device's slide-out keyboard and touch screen. It comes with built-in maps and satellite navigation." Note to manufacturers: I love the idea of these gadgets, but don't call me until I can run Java in the browser on one of them. Finally, what would be the next big thing after Web 2.0? You guessed it: "A number of companies were touting their Web 3.0 or semantic Web credentials. Radar Networks, a San Francisco company which touts itself as a pioneer of Semantic Web or Web 3.0 technology, for example, introduced Friday the "invite beta" of Twine, a service aimed at providing a way for users to share, organize and find information more easily." UPDATE: Web 2.0 Summit Slide Show Posted by Joe Caponi at 03:25 PM, October 22, 2007 In The Lab With Ultra-PortablesFresh off the Tough Notebook Challenge, the Channel Test Center puts four ultra-portable laptops to the test: "Test Center engineers examined ultra-portables--defined as notebooks weighing less than four pounds that are 1.5-inches thick or less when closed, and have screens measuring 12 inches or less diagonally--from four different vendors. The units include Fujitsu's Lifebook P7230, Lenovo's ThinkPad X61, Panasonic's Toughbook W5 and Sony's Vaio VGN-TZ150N/B." See all four in our slide show. Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:50 AM, October 22, 2007 The Siren Song Of Web 2.0Stacy Cowley reports from the Web 2.0 Summit, where the question on the minds of web application developers was can you trust your business to Web 2.0 platform companies? "Within 24 hours of going live on Facebook, iLike had more registered users than it had attracted in the entirety of its previous, independent incarnation... Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:03 AM, October 19, 2007 IT Unemployment At 2%, Say FedsOffshoring continues, and low-end programmer jobs are in decline, but overall, the IT job situation remains strong, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Information Week reports: "IT unemployment was 2%, according to an average of the past four quarters of BLS data... That unemployment rate is down from 2.2% in 2006 and as high as 5.6% in the third quarter of 2003. Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:53 AM, October 18, 2007 Java And Apple: Can This Breakfast Be Saved?Ed Moltzen reports on disharmony between two of the world's premier (non-Windows) technology platforms: "James Gosling, the Sun Microsystems developer often referred to as "The Father of Java," writes that he has given up using Apple's Macintosh OS... Is turnabout fair play?" Ed asks if anyone remembers when the possible purchase of Apple by Sun was considered Apple's last chance. I remember. Instead they got Jobs back, and then launched the iPod. The rest is history... Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:14 AM, October 17, 2007 Underwhelmed By GoreIf Al Gore can win Nobel Price harranguing people about global warming, shouldn't Bob Faletra have one too? "Over the past two decades, I've sat with virtually every significant CEO in this industry and talked turkey about why they need to invest in you, my brethren and audience. I went toe to toe with Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer in the early days and they came around. I single-handedly convinced John Chambers at Cisco to drop his direct efforts and move it all through the channel. I stood former Compaq CEO Eckard Pfeiffer down when he tried to buy Gateway and forced him to give up. I called Carly Fiorina to task for chasing the direct business... Since Gore's never put a dime in my pocket, I'm voting for Bob! Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:54 AM, October 15, 2007 Salary Survey 2007An annual highlight, our Salary Survey is online now. We examine why this has been a good year for channel salaries; highlight some of the most important findings in our salary research; and best of all, provide our salary calculator where you can evaluate your earnings based on title, experience, training and location. Go ahead, you know you want to! Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:24 AM, October 15, 2007 The Gathering StormEnterprise security expert Bruce Schneier has been keeping an eye on the 'Storm' worm, and the worldwide botnet it's been building all year, for reasons yet to be understood. Over on Wired, he reports on why Storm is different: "Although it's most commonly called a worm, Storm is really more: a worm, a Trojan horse and a bot all rolled into one. It's also the most successful example we have of a new breed of worm, and I've seen estimates that between 1 million and 50 million computers have been infected worldwide... David Ewalt calls it "chilling". That's about right. Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:45 AM, October 12, 2007 A Programming Lanugage ShowdownTIOBE Software posts a monthly Programming Community Index, showing "the popularity of programming languages... based on the world-wide availability of skilled engineers, courses and third party vendors." It's great geeky fun. Java sits way out in front, with a 50% higher rating than C, in second place (though C's days at #2 may be numbered if the Visual Basic family has anything to say). Everybody else is in there somewhere. Just as interesting, you can display trend graphs for any particular language -- watch out for Lua! If you're in the market for a new programming language, it's worth checking TIOBE to see if your effort looks like a good bet.
Posted by Joe Caponi at 03:02 PM, October 11, 2007 Fighting Spam With Fire (Well, Moderation)As you may have noticed, from time to time our ChannelWeb forums fill up with some pretty undesirable spam posts. People try and take advantage of our site's reputation to post links to their advertisements -- for products ranging from pharmecuticals to porn to, well, just about anything else. We're partly successful in blocking spam posts before they go online, but not completely. We delete spam posts that make it through ruthlessly, but having such posts live, even for a short time, is deeply aggravating here, and detracts from the professional environment you expect. So we're trying something new, starting today. Any user's first post in the community will need to be approved by our moderators before appearing on site. If you make it past that, subsequent posts will show right up, as they do now. We'll be inconveniencing people joining the discussions for the first time, but we think we'll be able to block just about 100% of spam posts before they get on site. Let us know how you think it's working -- it's very much a work in progress. If you're a regular participant, you shouldn't notice any difference at all. If you're posting for the first time, we'll try and get your legitimate posts live as quickly as possible.
Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:29 AM, October 11, 2007 CRN TV: The Tough Notebook ChallengeI've neglected to mention CRN TV lately, but this can't be missed: the CMP Channel Tough Notebook Challenge. We dropped ruggedized notebooks from Acer, Dell, Panasonic, and Toshiba off tables, down stairs, and, in a replay of the Saturday Night Live Pepsi Syndrome sketch, poured soda into their keyboards. All four notebooks did pretty well, (for awhile at least) and two survived in style. Don't try this at home! Posted by Joe Caponi at 03:00 PM, October 10, 2007 RAID For Small BusinessesBusiness continuity for under $1,000? The Channel Test Center tries out the Stardom SR2760 from Raidon Technology in our newest TechBuilder recipe. In addition to the pricing being right, it's fast: "Engineers had a working 200-Gbyte data mirror in less than 30 minutes." Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:57 AM, October 10, 2007 Google In Microsoft, IBM's SightsSpeaking of Ed Moltzen, he's got the story of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer smack at Google's, well, entire existence: "'Google's had the same experience, even though they read your mail and we don't,' Ballmer said, to chuckles and and a couple of gasps in the audience. 'That's just a factual statement, not even to be pejorative. The theory was if we read your mail, if somebody read your mail, they would know what to talk to you about. It's not working out as brilliantly as the concept was laid out.'" He may as well have added, "Just sayin..." Meanwhile, the folks at IBM have had their own "Just sayin..." moment, declaring at yesterday's XChange TechInnovators event, "Our Search Technology Is Better Than Google's".
Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:06 AM, October 9, 2007 The iPhone At 100 (Days)Speaking of report cards, Ed Moltzen has lugged his iPhone around for over three months, and he's spelling out all the pluses and minuses in his 100-day iPhone report. "Should the iPhone be graded on a curve, measured against the rest of the smart phones in the market? Should it be graded on its own, since it really is a one-of-a-kind product? After 100 days, it's clear that there's really nothing else like it in the market." Ed's posting has already generated a number of reader responses. Highlights incldue: "A feature comparison just doesn't do justice to the greatness of this product."--- "Once Apple can get Verizon up to speed, that would be good for everyone. Visual Voice mail ROCKS. But for many cell companies, it's too advanced for them to understand."--- "Like it or not, Free VoIP is the WHOLE GOAL of the iPhone, if Apple wants it... then MAKE iChat do it." Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:56 AM, October 8, 2007 Vendors Under The Microscope: The Annual Report CardOnline today, the VARBusiness Annual Report Card tells the story of the state of partner/vendor relations. We asked thousands of VARs to rate their vendor partners on product quality, support and partnership. According to Research Editor Jeanette Boyne, while most vendors got good scores on the product side... "When it came to partnership and support issues, VARs were more stingy with their ratings. The average satisfaction score partners gave for product quality and reliability was 74 out of a possible 100... But, among the 17 remaining criteria, which measure partner satisfaction against qualities important to the channel, 10 of the average satisfaction scores were 65 or lower..." Robert DeMarzo says it's a warning vendors would be wise to take... "I don't think I'm going out on a limb by stating that not a single vendor excels in the area of partner satisfaction today... The logical conclusion is that if many vendors don't shore up their approval ratings, their relevance in the channel will soon fade away." To dive into the complete data, you can page through the report cards themselves, or see the top-line results for every ARC category and company over the past 12 years. Also, don't miss our slide show of the Best and Worst of the ARC, or the ARC winner's photo gallery from our XChange '07 event.
Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:45 AM, October 8, 2007 Ideas About Clients and CreativityRecently, Adaptive Path posted some advice on excelling in modern business. The tips apply well to anyone doing creative work with extended client engagements--people like solution providers! Here's one I like that's very happy and sunny: "Aim beyond what you think you can achieve: Most of us are content to compete locally, with our neighbors. Change your scale of thinking and compete with the world’s best." Oh yeah! This one, I'm not nearly as crazy about: "It’s all my fault... If you have touched something, accept total responsibility for that piece of work." Ouch. I was recently slightly involved in a major project abandoned by a departing colleague. Should I have jumped in the driver's seat or run away? I ended up trying to split the difference, which wound up being most of the work with none of the glory. What would you do? Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:23 AM, October 5, 2007 The World Is Your HouseFor solution providers of almost any size, working with customers, suppliers and competitors across time zones and in different languages is increasingly the new normal. To help keep an eye on worldwide solution provider news and trends, we've launched our International News Archive page. You'll find ChannelWeb's own coverage of overseas news, along with feeds of local news from our partners in India, Germany and Australia (with more to come). There's opportunity over the horizon. We'll help you find it. Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:55 AM, October 4, 2007 Should I Stay Or Should I Go?Larry Hooper says that's a question you're staff are likely asking themselves. Frequently, money is neither the problem, or the solution. What is? "A little bit of attention, your employees could become much more dedicated to your business. Even if you don't want to pay any more, laying out clear career paths for your employees not only will help keep them, but will also help recruit new ones." Posted by Joe Caponi at 12:09 PM, October 3, 2007 A Checklist For GrowthCraig Zarley has been going over our Business Growth survey, and talking to VARs intent on expanding their businesses, and has identified the key steps to take: "There is a methodology behind those ambitious growth plans. These solution providers intend to aggressively market themselves, go after new markets, and add new vendors in the next three to five years." He's also identified five land-mines to avoid on the road to growth. Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:37 AM, October 2, 2007 TaaS ManiaSteven Burke has a new acronym for you to chew on: TaaS. That's Technology as a Service, and it's something you need to get familiar with quickly: "It means acting as a virtual, end-to-end, any-and-all technology provider for your clients. The aim with the next-generation TaaS business model is to cover everything from A to Z for a business from technology consulting to procurement and management of everything from systems to printers to phones to firewalls. It's all about taking control of the IT budget for a business and being the one throat to choke for any and all technology that needs to be managed for the client. At the heart of the TaaS model is a deeper and more intimate knowledge of the client's business." Don't think you can do it all? Burke says companies like Dell, Google and Microsoft do, and they won't be shy about talking to your customers. Posted by Joe Caponi at 01:28 PM, October 1, 2007 |
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