Leading technology vendors

With Cisco-EMC pairing, what’s up with VMware?

The HP vs. Cisco/EMC/VMware hype fight this week re-emphasized that Cisco and EMC (and its subsidiary VMware) are joined at the hip in their aggressive grab for data center share. 

Recurring rumors have Cisco giving up all pretense at some point (John Chambers: ” Ah heck, let’s just get this over with!”) and buying EMC outright. Continued »

Google and Microsoft trading places in mail

So, Google wins a big, prestigious $7.2 billion email account –for 30,000 Los Angeles municipal workers . Google Apps Premier is displacing Novell Groupwise there.  But Google beat out the Microsoft Exchange-Outlook combo even though by most accounts the dollar difference between bids was itty bitty.

Continued »

Vblock done, Cisco to launch new unified collaboration attack

Cisco and its best friends forever EMC and VMware finally came clean about their Vblock plans on Tuesday.

Now watch for Cisco next week to shift gears–a tad–and unveil a slew of unified collaboration gear from phones to new unified communications servers–or is it now collaboration servers?  Big news on deck on that front for Nov. 9 when Cisco CEO John Chambers will talk up the products. They will probably also include additional new ISR G2 routers on the infrastructure front.

But back to vBlock: Don’t expect HP and IBM to lay down. In fact, you won’t have to wait long for them to up their  competitive responses to Cisco’s aggressive data center push. HP will talk up it’s “converged infrastructure” approach and will say–truthfully–that it, unlike Cisco or EMC–has all the pieces for a converged data center system. Servers? Check. Networking hardware? Check, check. Storage? Check check check.  It’s already down the road with some converged products and probably put pedal to the medal after Cisco’s first unveiled its Unified Computing Systems news last spring. 

Cisco is now opening up its UCS servers to channel partners which is bound to further incite HP .

Check out more IT channel news on SearchITChannel.com.

Economic woes linger, but it’s time to plan for growth

OK, so not every economic indicator we’re seeing right now is positive, although the revelation today that GDP grew 3.5 percent in the third quarter (instead of the 3.2 percent predicted) is definitely cause for at least a “Woo-Hoo!” (Here’s Reuters article analyzing the data.)

And for many different reasons, members of the IT channel are starting to sound like parrots: saying NOW is the time to really start planning for growth.

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Azure gets eclipsed

Microsoft continues its push to make its proposed Azure cloud plat form palatable to developers beyond the Windows realm and an embrace of Eclipse is bound to do that. 

Toward that end, Microsoft signed two proxies–Tasktop Technologies and Soyatec– to help make the Eclipse software development platform Azure friendly. (Or is it the other way around?) Anyway, the goal is to equip Eclipse to work with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 features.

Part of the deal is to develop updates to the Eclipse IDE so that it can incorporate new Win 7 and WS 2008 R2 features. Another is a planned open source plug-in to let PHP developers use Eclipse to create Web apps that would run in Azure. Also on tap: a Windows Azure SDC  for Java.

More details here and here

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.

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 »

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 »