May, 2009

Survey: SMBs poised to rebound when economy turns

Small-business owners are a remarkably resilient breed. Even though the federal government sometimes seems to be out to get them (an extra week of vacation anyone?), a new study that was conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit and sponsored by services company Verio, finds that 83 percent of small-business executives are optimistic about their potential for growth once the economy turns. Continued »

Neutron Jack to headline Microsoft partner event

Former General Electric poohbah, author, and Red Sox fan Jack Welch will take center stage at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans. In July. Continued »

OS choice for netbooks expands

First there was news that Hewlett-Packard, Dell and possibly other hardware makers would consider slapping Google Android on netbooks.

Last week, Intel said it’s jumping into the netbook OS market as well with Moblin, it’s own take on a Linux-based netbook OS. 

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Channel advocate looking for others to help preach the cause

Pat Taylor, a former system builder who has been a member of Intel’s Premier Partner Board of Advisors for years who also has been its president for three years, wants the channel to stand up for itself with vendors.

Taylor has founded Atypical Business, a company he is using together to bring together a network of “channel entrepreneurs of all sizes” to share ideas. I guess you could call this a private social network, one that is being formed with the aim of helping “the high-tech channel” (aka resellers, managed service providers, VARs, system builders and the like) come up with ideas to help strengthen their collective bargaining position with their technology suppliers and partners. The public expression of his work comes in the form of YouTube videos that can be found at this link.Topics include arguments such as why businesses benefit when they buy local or why the vendor support contract that may seem less inexpensive on paper doesn’t necessarily play out that way in the real world.

You can “join” the social network, which Taylor will use to gather research and ideas that will be used to work on positioning projects for the community. He will use the data in work he does for vendors; he’s hoping to help change policies by providing them with access to community feedback if not to the community itself. Since the group is brand-new, he hasn’t shared the focus of those projects (with me at least, because I’m not technically part of the channel). But you can join his circle of friends and find out more.

Top five lessons from TechEd

The pallid economy took its toll on TechEd 2009 attendance. But there were still lessons to be learned or reinforced. My top five:

 1: Microsoft burns with Silverlight fever. This is not a good thing. Microsoft, everyone knows you have Flash envy, but remember that many Web surfers hate, hate, HATE flashy multimedia sites that are more about showcasing technology than providing information. Remember, just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should do it.  Show goers blasted the TechEd 2009 web site’s poor usability. Want to scroll down the sessions, put the cursor just there. No, not there. Scootch over–THERE! Try the schedule builder? Fuhgeddaboudit.  One of the greatest things about Google (yes, Google, get over it!) is its sparse interface.

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Google fails; panic ensues

The reporters in my row are agog as the Google news outage continues.

Folks wanted to know which  alternative search engine to use. The consensus winner was Ask.com, although Altavista and Yahoo got a few votes. Note the lack of clamor for Microsoft Live Search. That is probably not an anomaly.

SharePoint 2010 to join 64-bit only club

The next release of Microsoft SharePoint will leave 32-bitness behind. Microsoft dropped the news that  SharePoint 2010 will be 64-bit only in its blog and at a TechEd 2009 session. The new SharePoint will also require 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2 and 64-bit SQL Server 2008 or 64-bit SQL Server 2005. Continued »

Vista who???

The most interesting thing–and there were several interesting things–in today’s TechEd 09 keynote was Bill Veghte’s words of wisdom to current Windows shops.

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Can you claim the title of trusted partner?

One moniker that gets bandied about plenty in the channel, especially in times like these when everyone is trying to define their “value,” is the idea that an IT solution provider should be considered a “trusted adviser” or “trusted partner.”

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Ballmer’s white board magic

Last month, the New York Times brilliantly reproduced Steve Ballmer’s white boarded vision of the company’s cloud services plan. It depicts the company’s “software plus services” vision with Azure at the center of the universe, making use of SQL Server services, Exchange services etc etc. Continued »