Top five IT channel lessons for the quarter

VARs remain extremely cautious on public cloud computing and are obsessed with which vendor giants will remain standing after more expected M&A activity. Those are but two highlights of this quarter’s SearchITChannel.com Advisory Board call. But there more below:  

1: Fear the cloud: Okay, that verbiage may be overkill, but the VARs said they spend a lot of time educating customers about when and if public cloud computing will really meet their needs. Vendor hype aside, board members said public cloud scenarios run counter to HIPAA and other compliance regulations.

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Sun to cut 3K jobs

Guess Larry Ellison wasn’t kidding  about Sun Microsystems bleeding red ink while European regulators weigh Oracle’s buyout plan.

In an SEC filing, Sun said it will cut 3,000 jobs worldwide over the next year. That’s about 10% of its urrent headcount. More on the Sun layoffs here.

Last Sunday,  Oracle CEO Larry Ellison told thousands of Sun and Oracle customers at Oracle OpenWorld  that Sun was losing $100 million a month while the European Commission considered Oracle’s $7.4 billion buyout of the hardware and Java maker.

Check out more IT channel news on SearchITChannel.com.

SCO ousts Darl McBride

The SCO Group has eliminated the CEO post from its leadership roster and that means Darl McBride is out. This, according to its latest SEC filing.

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The cost of Oracle platinum

Oracle partners are still chewing over  the Oracle Partner Network’s new partner tiering and specialization program. Continued »

OOW highlights: The governator and Ellison’s $10M challenge

Larry Ellison’s milking his latest anti-IBM jihad for all it’s worth. Now he’s challenged anyone to make IBM hardware run Oracle database as fast as it runs on Oracle’s Exadata database machine. If they can do it, they can take $10 million of Larry’s (or Oracle’s) money. He welcomed IBM itself to participate. Continued »

HP to add storage to converged server/switch

Inquiring minds really want to know when HP will add storage to its converged hardware offering.

The answer appears to be as soon after Jan. 2, 2010 as possible. Continued »

Cameos by Blue Angels, Marc Benioff highlight OOW

A late night cab trip from SFO to Union Square was lightened up a bit with the big Michael Dell billboard on the 101. It went something like this: Dell enjoys the best of both worlds: See Salesforce.com @ Oracle OpenWorld. Continued »

Sun partners burnt at Oracle OpenWorld

Oracle OpenWorld 2009 did  not open well for Sun partners who are already reaching for anti-anxiety meds as the Sun Microsystems acquisition finalizes. Continued »

Top five questions for Oracle OpenWorld 2009

This’ll be easy. As Oracle keeps trying to close its Sun Microsystems acquisition, the top Oracle OpenWorld queries are locked up this year. But partners and solution providers still have other nagging issues they want addressed at the show. So, here goes:

1: What will Oracle do with Sun hardware (and Sun’s hardware channel?) Granted, with those pesky EU regulators breathing down it’s neck–mostly on MySQL questions–Larry Ellison needs to reassure Sun partners and customers that Oracle wants their business but without saying anything detailed that could further inflame the law-and-order crowd.

2: Specifically, how will Oracle deal with Exadata? The first, HP-based big-bang “database machine”  was a direct sale from Oracle although any Oracle partner worth his or her salt knows that can be finessed if they file a non-standard deal and can best the Oracle rep. With a new Sun-based box, will Sun hardware partners get to play? If so, how much will they love competing with Oracle partners (and Oracle direct sales?)

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Motorola makes it easier for partners to demonstrate vertical solutions

This falls into the category of “What didn’t someone think of this earlier?”

The enterprise mobility solutions team at Motorola has created a Click2Demo area on its partner portal where its managed partners can download demonstration versions of applications for seven different vertical market sectors: Healthcare, Hospitality, Manufacturing, Public Safety, Retail, Transportation and Supply Chain. Others will be added after the program is tested in the field. Continued »