Still much gnashing of teeth about the economy

Thought y’all could use a bit of non-Microsoft news this week. (No offense, Barb.) In any event, there are two new research tidbits out from CompTIA that relate to our national obsession: the economy. Continued »

Microsoft makes bite-sized services available to partners

Microsoft has tweaked its “Services Ready” deliverables to make the more flexible and affordable for VARs and integrators.

Continued »

Microsoft partners will once again go for the gold

So remember all that stuff about Microsoft ditching the “Gold” partner designation because it didn’t mean anything? Well, never mind.

Continued »

Microsoft positions Azure as the cloud for all

A couple of positioning statements from Monday’s Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference keynotes.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was careful to claim that virtualization does NOT equal cloud computing. That’s what I would say too if I were trying to displace the VMware juggernaut.  Continued »

Top five questions for Microsoft at WWPC

As the kickoff for Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2010 approaches, here are some questions Microsoft partners would love Steve Ballmer, Bob Muglia et al.

#1: Why should partners go for the Microsoft Partner Network’s “advanced” badge?

The zillion dollar question this week is: “Why should we keep selling Microsoft stuff?” Continued »

Microsoft partners expect cloud deluge at WWPC

There’ll be a lot of cloud talk at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in D.C. next week.

What Microsoft lost in being late to the party–compared to Salesforce.com, Amazon, Google–it will try to make up for in hyper vigilance now. That’s why partners have already heard a lot about why they must sell Business Productivity Online Services–Microsoft hosted Exchange mail and SharePoint collaboration services.

Continued »

Going to Breakaway? Put my green IT session on your schedule

Thanks to the CompTIA services professional group for asking me to handle a session on green IT issues during the upcoming Breakaway 2010 conference in San Antonio next month (it’s almost August, for Pete’s sake!)

Continued »

Badass VAR earns martial arts honor

If you see Kevin McDonald on the street, or on a customer call, behave yourself.

As proof that tech nerds can also kick butt, McDonald–who is executive VP for Alvaka Networks and member of SearchITChannel.com’s advisory board– was just inducted into the Masters Hall of Fame, a group dedicated to martial arts aficionados.

McDonald is a third-degree black belt in (gulp) Outlaw Street Style Tai Chi. If you don’t believe me, here he is.

Check out more IT channel news on SearchITChannel.com and follow us on Twitter!

Gartner: Service providers still need to focus on cost, not innovation

A new survey from market research firm Gartner shows that the main things that IT buyers are looking for more external service providers are cost reductions and technologies to help “keep the lights on.”

Continued »

Cisco changes channel leadership

There must be something in the air. Within weeks of Microsoft tapping new channel leadership, another tech giant, Cisco Systems, is following suit.

Edison Peres, SVP of worldwide channels has been dubbed the de facto “channel chief.” reporting to Keith Goodwin,  SVP of Cisco’s worldwide partner organization, according to a Cisco blog post. Continued »