Vendor partner business issues

HP introduces two small-business tech financing promotions

One of the things that will separate the successful high-tech vendors this year from the rest of the pack will be their ability to help their reseller and VAR partners manage credit and cash flow.

Continued »

Will your suppliers prosper this year?

In my last entry, I asked you to examine your organization. Is your company focused and ready to prosper this year? If not, you still have some work ahead of you on that front. Go back to my last post and use that to help you get focused. Those of you who already have the focus can now turn your attention to your suppliers. How are they going to do this year? How can you know?

The first thing is to understand what their debt is. Continued »

Prosper in tough times

I promise, this won’t be another “2009 is going to be full of doom and gloom” post! You don’t need to be told the obvious; you’re living it right now. What you need to know is what you can do to come through the economic downturn better than ever. My next round of blog posts will focus on what you should be doing to not only survive, but to prosper and grow in 2009.

First, know thyself. Continued »

Websense gives partners more reasons to say “yes” to its program

One of the philosophies that I really appreciated out of former Intel Chairman and CEO Andrew Grove when he was still active was his staunch belief that investments in the future should not be sacrificed for the short-term good of a company’s stock price. This is not something that many high-tech vendors usually pay much attention to when the economy is all whacked out (like right now), so it’s refreshing when I hear about a company that subscribes to that notion, especially when the investments are focused on solidifying and supporting its channel relationships.

Continued »

Former Sage channel exec moves to Promethean. Hmmm. Maybe time to reconsider education software?

He’s back! Taylor Macdonald, the former VAR who was instrumental in developing the channel programs for CRM vendor Sage Software, has taken on the post of vice president of channels, America, for education software company Promethean.

Continued »

Nortel’s choice

Once the dust from Nortel’s bankruptcy filing settles, the company is going to face some tough decisions: What excess will it shed and which customer base will it cater to? Continued »

Who needs IBM? Synnex gets nod for new Fujitsu enterprise storage

After being dissed by IBM last fall, which took away its System x distie business, Synnex got a boost this week for its midrange and enterprise storage practice when Fujitsu Computer Systems tapped it to handle several new products typically reserved for closed-distribution model industrial distributors.

Continued »

Some “year-begin” thoughts: Discipline and daydreams are not mutually exclusive

I’m sure that many of you, like me, are trying to figure out WHICH of the 10 or so New Year’s resolutions would not only be the most useful for you to pursue but are actually within the realm of possibility to pull off. You don’t EVEN want to know what’s going on inside my head right now, but might I suggest two mantras we should all choose to live by as we look ahead. (Who really wants to look back at 2008, let’s be done with this year already!)

Continued »

Dell’s New Year’s Eve surprise

Dell Inc. launched a major reorg on December 31. The move “globalizes” operations around three major customer segments — large enterprise, public sector, and small and medium businesses (SMBs). The press release posted quietly on Wednesday morning, making the Dell just the latest tech vendor to attempt to bury major news that could be construed as negative, before a holiday. Or so it seems. (The consumer segment was already handled globally.)

Continued »

Whose cloud is it anyway?

Raise your hand if you’ve heard enough about the proverbial cloud yet.

Understood. The hypefest has been enormous. And the payoff? Not there yet. Continued »