Next for Oracle: Red Hat?

Everytime you think Oracle has had its fill of M&A, Larry Ellison whips out the corporate checkbook and buys something new. So why not Red Hat? Continued »

NetSuite gives new meaning to ‘cash for clunkers’ program

Never one to miss a good marketing opportunity, NetSuite has stolen a page from the U.S. federal government’s “Cash for Clunkers” incentive initiative. Only NetSuite’s target is out-of-date hardware and software that businesses may be running on site. Continued »

Sun-Oracle deal moves closer to fruition

It would have been great to go to Avnet Technology Solutions’ annual Sun confab last week, especially given what’s going on with Oracle’s $7.4 acquisition bid for Sun. 

According to  ITbusiness, Avnet’s Sun partners are as worried about Oracle’s plans for Sun hardware as the rest of the Sun partner ecosystem. An Oracle VP did the best he could early in the week to calm those fears but couldn’t say much because the U.S. Justice Department still hadn’t approved the acquisition. That happened on Thursday. Now European regulators, who also must approve the deal,  have until September 3 to either sign off on it or launch a deeper look into it. Oracle partners said the Europeans are particularly concerned about MySQL’s future under Oracle.

In the meantime, IBM and HP will keep pitching Sun customers hard. What’ s not so clear is if those customers are responding. Preliminary data from a SearchDataCenter.com survey show that among data center customers who name Sun as their primary server provider, 85% said an Oracle buyout will not affect their purchasing plans

Symantec ties new extended financing to SMB skills

High-tech vendors have been pretty creative this year about establishing new financing options for partners that have been hit hard by the credit crunch. Now, Symantec has started up a new short-term program that is intended for partners that have made the effort to earn its SMB Specialization status. Continued »

VARs laud Microsoft ARC pilot

Vendor partner programs are very big on training VARs on the latest-and-greatest vendor technologies–where they fall short is in helping partners with their overall business strategy. A Microsoft pilot program that aims to fill that gap is winning kudos from partners. Continued »

Even if you don’t think much of Web 2.0, it’s good to know the security ramifications

This has been a very social summer. While many (it will soon be just “some,” I hope) VARs still pooh-pooh the notion that social media or social networks will mean all that much to their business, there is one very tangible way that technology solution providers can participate in the dialogue right away: by figuring out what this means for their clients’ security posture. Continued »

It’s raining Microsoft previews

Microsoft posted a raft of software previews today, including the CTPs or community technology previews  for SQL Server Azure Database bits and SQL Server StreamInsight. The latter will be a component of SQL Server 2008 R2, due in the first half of 2010. The CTP for the overall database posted last week. Continued »

More on Office 2010 timeline

It looks like Office 2010 is on track for its first-half of 2010 delivery. According to documents shared with some TAP participants, milestones are slated for the end of each month from November through April. That leads one tapster to project a May launch.

What’s the dealio behind Exchange 2007 snafu?

So why didn’t Microsoft prioritize Exchange Server 2007 to run on Windows Server 2008 R2? Is it the inherent  PowerShell incompatibilities? A conspiracy? What??? Here are some thoughts.

Microsoft fires up CTP generator with latest SQL Server

The CTP of SQL Server  2008 R2 is now available

Community Technical Previews have become an inevitable, incremental step in the Microsoft trudge towards availability.  VARs can download the CTP and check out new support for up to 256 cores, and geospatial visualization capabilities in Report Builder 3.0.

It was not explicitly stated that the latest-and-greatest SQL Server will run both on Windows Server 2008 R2, due this fall and the current Windows Server 2003 release. One can’t assume anything given the latest Exchange Server 2007 kerfuffle.  In mid July, Microsoft let it slip in the middle of a blog post, that the current Exchange Server 2007 email will not run on future versions of Windows Server 2008, including the upcoming R2. Continued »