Reseller blogs

Your organization should be blogging

I am constantly amazed at how many of your customers get the bulk of their IT news from blogs. That’s right, blogs. In fairness, they tend to take the source into consideration when evaluating the quality of the information; corporate blogs may be less trustworthy than an independent source, but your customers are reading them, and you need to be in the fray.

I am surprised by the number of reseller websites I visit that do not have a blog, or, worse, that have a website that hasn’t been updated in the past few months. 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 »

VMware hires Google exec to head overseas channel

VMware has appointed Maurizio Carli as general manager of its Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. In that role, Carli will run the region’s sales, channel, services and marketing programs.

Carli joins VMware from Google, where he was managing director for its enterprise division in EMEA. Virtualization.info’s Alessandro Perilli says Carli will have his work cut out for him at VMware, whose relationship with European channel partners is “not always idyllic.”

Carli’s 20-year career in IT has also included stops at Business Objects and IBM. His hiring by VMware was not this week’s only channel shake-up: F5 Networks channel chief Steve Hale has left the company and been replaced by his predecessor, Dean Darwin, according to The VAR Guy.

VMware MVP at least a year away

Sure, VMware announced its mobile phone virtualization plans this month, but don’t hold your breath waiting for any products to hit the market.

Virtualization.info found this nugget from an article in New Zealand’s Reseller News:

With the long lead time of phone manufacturers … the products should arrive in around 12 to 18 months.

Continued »

Microsoft-Yahoo coming back to life?

As Yahoo’s stock dives, speculation is rising that Microsoft could make another acquisition bid.

In May, at the height of negotiations, Microsoft offered Yahoo $33 per share — a significant premium, but still a price that Yahoo execs said undervalued the company. Now, with Yahoo stock hovering around the $13 mark, the Associated Press says Yahoo would be under even more pressure to accept a new Microsoft bid.

Continued »

HP ProCurve-Colubris acquisition closes; channels unify

HP’s acquisition of Colubris Networks was finalized Wednesday, and the basics of how the products and channels will be integrated are beginning to firm up.

HP will integrate Colubris’ product line into ProCurve’s networking portfolio, and Colubris partners are invited to join the ProCurve channel, ProCurve said in a statement Wednesday afternoon. Continued »

Domino is dead

So, once again, Domino is dead.

That’s the gist of Ron Herardian’s article in — get this – Dominopower.com. This may be trolling but there’s a lot of truth in what Herardian, a longtime contact and a Domino partner by the way, has to say.

Continued »

Maybe it’s time to call it something other than Web 2.0

For the past eight or so months, I’ve been writing a column called Web Sight (spelling intentional) for Entrepreneur magazine. (Here’s a sample piece from the latest issue.) The focus has been on how so-called Web 2.0 technologies, such as blogs or social networks or customer feedback tools or real-time analytics, can drive revenue or cut costs for small businesses. It hasn’t been all that hard to find examples to use as case studies, but it has been astonishingly hard to convince anyone in the solution provider channel that Web 2.0 are useful.

Granted, as I write this blog entry, I consider all the VARs and solution providers that have recently befriended me in Facebook or LinkedIn. So, the climate may be changing. Kudos to you, I say, because you are exposing yourself to all sorts of possible new connections and reinforcing existing ties. But as I’ve interacted with various channel executives about this topic over the past few months, invariably they tell me they’re too busy in the real world on sales calls or customer visits to worry about what’s commonly called Web 2.0.

Continued »

HP-EDS deal moves closer to approval; outcome still unclear for the channel

Hewlett-Packard’s (HP) $13.9 billion bid to buy Electronic Data Systems (EDS) made it through U.S. antitrust review, the companies reported Monday. The deal still hinges on approval by European regulators and a vote by EDS shareholders, who will meet July 31.

It remains unclear how the deal will affect channel partners from both companies. HP CEO Mark Hurd has said that there will be no bumps in the road for channel partners since EDS and HP play mostly in different fields. Still, concerns run high among partners and will until the future unfolds after final approval. It is also unclear what will happen to the long-term relationships EDS holds with HP competitors like Cisco Systems, Dell and IBM. Continued »

Microsoft’s branding ’sucks,’ partner says

Here on Channel Marker, we love taking vendors to task for their mumbo-jumbo technobabble. You know, announcements like, “This new suite of solutions will provide a platform for customers to leverage their CRM, ERP, SOA and BPM in the cloud, exponentially increasing their workflow and productivity.”

We do it for fun, mostly. But when a vendor’s product names become confusing to partners, it can create serious problems with customers. One Microsoft partner who forsees such issues is Dave Sobel, CEO of Evolve Technologies, who wrote on his blog today that “Microsoft sucks at branding.” Here’s his description of what happened during a Microsoft training session today:

I’m spending my day with Microsoft around their new products, Windows Small Business Server 2008 and Windows Essential Business Server 2008.   They are part of the “Windows Essential Business Solutions” family.   The presenter, who is quite good (and I’ve seen before), took the time to apologize for the potential confusion, and made a point to tell us to be clear with customers.

Those names are all way too similar, especially when you realize that “Windows Essential Business Server” and “Windows Essentials Business Solutions” have the same acronym: WEBS. And this is quite a tangled one indeed.

But wait, it gets worse. Before I wrote this blog, I wanted to do a little research on these products. So I typed “Windows Essential Business Solutions” into Google, and here’s what I got:

That left me just as confused as Sobel. I poked around the Internets a little further, and I eventually found out that the product line is actually called Windows Essential Server Solutions.

I also discovered that Windows Essential Business Server is comprised of several different technologies, including Microsoft System Center Essentials, and that it comes in two different editions, standard and premium. The only difference between the two editions is that premium comes with SQL Server 2008. But even though it’s the premium edition of Windows Essential Business Server, it only comes with the standard edition of SQL Server 2008.

Got it? Me either. Good luck explaining all that to a customer.

And that’s Sobel’s biggest issue: Microsoft gave confusing names to all these products and acknowledged they are confusing, but the company is leaving it up to partners to sort out said confusion for customers. He asks, “How come this becomes my problem?” It will be interesting to see what Microsoft’s answer is.