Reseller channel business development

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.

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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.

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Microsoft highlights partners in green IT initiatives

Microsoft partners will play a big part in the company’s green IT initiatives, the company said this morning.

Microsoft held a webcast this morning to talk about its environmental sustainability plans, specifically around green IT and virtualization in Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008. The company’s plans are two-fold: to reduce the 2% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions that come from software-driven devices, and to use software to cut the other 98%, said Francois Ajenstat, director of environmental sustainability.

“We see a role where software can help us reduce our dependency on energy,” Ajenstat said.

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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 »

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!)

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Stopping directaphobia

There’s no worse feeling: You find out that an opportunity you were working on with a manufacturer was just taken direct. You found the opportunity and yet somehow control was lost and the customer placed the order directly with your supplier. How did this happen — and maybe more importantly — how can you prevent it in the first place?

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Gartner: 10 ways IT service providers can win wallet share

OK, so you’ve made the swap-over to emphasize services. Problem is, lot of other resellers are telling the same story. So, how can you differentiate, especially in a nasty economic climate?

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Minimizing tech support calls

While post-sale technical support is one of the key services the channel can provide to clients, sometimes it’s one of those services you wish you’d never heard of: The wrong product, a sloppy upgrade or an unsophisticated user can quickly consume all of the profit that the support center generates.

Whether you have a sophisticated help desk or rely on your installing engineers to play double duty and assist customers with problems, there are some key steps to take to cut down on support calls.

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VMware announces 2nd annual partner show

VMware is making plans for Partner Exchange 2009.

The company’s second annual partner conference will take place April 14-17 at Walt Disney World in Orlando. Last year’s inaugural Partner Exchange attracted more than 1,000 people to San Diego; it will be interesting to see if the economy leads more VMware partners to stay home next year.