ChannelWeb : Tools and information for the solution provider community.

Independence Day Linkfest

Appropriately for Indepencence day, good news for America's veterans--that stolen laptop with personal data on 26 million veterans has been recovered. and at this point the FBI believes the data hasn't been taken.

More good news, this time for VARs: a new study shows government IT executives at all levels prefer purchasing through solution providers rather than from manufacturers. Keep up the good work.

Ed Moltzen asks Should Apple Just Buy Adobe?

"Adobe has proven technology that is critical to Apple - i.e. Photoshop - and getting both lines of technology in synchronization would only add to a combined companies' revenue stream. A combined company could streamline operational costs, leverage their solution provider channels and provide a unique value that neither Microsoft nor the open source community could match. At least not right away."

I'm not convinced, though.

Lawrence Walsh bemoans the lack of standards for voicemail and auto-attendants (yep, those "press 1 for such and such" systems):

"Telephony is a perfect opportunity for the channel to use existing technology for everyone's benefit. For the user's sake, please standardize the navigation of auto-attendants and phone systems. I'm willing to bet that users will be far more satisfied with their primary communication tool and, consequently, the owners of those systems will see a rise in customer satisfaction."

Some development links: The CRN Test Center's Mario Morejon tries out both Adobe Flex 2 web service builder, and VisualText 1.7, a "gem" of a text parsing tool.

Paula Rooney has news of beta 3 for Internet Explorer 7, while TechWeb's Greg Keizer previews the next Mac OS release, 'Leopard'.

Stacey Cowley looks at Microsoft's SourceForge-esque CodePlex shared-source portal that is opening for development projects, as well as at the Callisto release of Eclipse.

"Partners say the release is a major milestone on Eclipse's path to becoming the IT industry's de facto Java development platform."

Earlier in the month, Stacy reported on the early responses to Java Enterprise Edition 5, with developers excited about the capabiities of the new platform.

Have a great weekend!

Posted by Joe Caponi at 05:17 PM, June 30, 2006
Permalink | Comments

Office 2007 Slips

Barbara Darrow pulls open the calendar:

"Officially, Microsoft now says general availability of the Office-2007-alooza will be in December 2006, a slip from October (actually I thought November, but who's counting?). GA for the rest of the world--that is availability at retail, with PCs etc.--is now "early 2007" as opposed to the January date given previously. Smart bets are that "early 2007" means March.
The last slip before now was disclosed in late March, days after Microsoft admitted that Vista was slipping. Any bets that Microsoft will sneak in another Vista delay announcement fourth of July week? "

Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:42 AM, June 30, 2006
Permalink | Comments

Walsh on EMC-RSA

Over on Tidal Waves, Lawrence Walsh explains what EMC was looking for from its purchase of RSA.

"In a recent meeting with VARBusiness, Lawrence Zulch, EMC Insignia's vice president and general manager, laid out for me the EMC storage life cycle: data creation, security, auditing and recovery. Of the four pillars, security, he said, was the weakest.
RSA -- reportedly acquired for $2.1 billion -- fills that gap nicely and provides EMC with a critical tool in the battle to protect data at all stages of its life. "

Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:37 AM, June 30, 2006
Permalink | Comments

VARBusiness.com Wins Grand Apex

It's great when stuff like this happens:

" VARBusiness.com has won a Grand Award in the 2006 APEX awards competition for publication excellence. In all, 363 Web and intranet sites were nominated; VARBusiness.com was one of five to win a Grand Award in the for-profit category. "

VARBusiness.com was also a finalist in the Neal Awards for best web site earlier this year.

Posted by Joe Caponi at 08:23 AM, June 30, 2006
Permalink | Comments

Ozzie On Microsoft

Barbara Darrow spoke to incoming chief software architect Ray Ozzie earlier this month, and adds some more comments on her blog:

"Ozzie denies talk that his becoming chief software architect was the goal of Microsoft's Groove buy all along.
"It was not part of the deal," Ozzie said. "We had been negotiating to sell Groove to Microsoft as far back as '03."

She also sorts out the new Microsoft players and products.

Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:21 AM, June 29, 2006
Permalink | Comments

CompUSA's IT Plans

Inside Heather Clancy's anaysis of the CompUSA - NetSuite deal she eyes CompUSA's ambitions and asks:

""We want to be your single source for SMB IT," Loden [Jim Loden, vice president of CompUSA Business Services] told C3 attendees.

Which leads me to ask another question: Who should CDW be more worried about these days, Dell or CompUSA?"

Posted by Joe Caponi at 09:37 AM, June 29, 2006
Permalink | Comments

Best Midmarket Products Application Deadline

Tomorrow is the last day to submit entries for VARBusiness' 2006 VARBusiness Best Midmarket Products Awards. These will be products sold to businesses having between 100 and 1000 employees, and which offer the best channel business opportunities. If you've got one, apply today.

Posted by Joe Caponi at 09:55 AM, June 27, 2006
Permalink | Comments

Channel Chatter: Best Forums, June 22, 2006

The forums have been active since our last check in, with active threads on the gray market, Best Buy, Windows vs Linux, and more:

Continue reading "Channel Chatter: Best Forums, June 22, 2006"

Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:02 AM, June 22, 2006
Permalink | Comments

VARBusiness 500 Interactive Map

On particularly fun element of the 2006 VARBusiness 500 is the interactive map, providing links to all 500 companies based on which state (or country) they're headquartered in. Take it for a drive.

Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:53 AM, June 22, 2006
Permalink | Comments

ASP.Net and CSS Books From Wrox

Three books arrived recently from Wrox, including a distant descendent of one of my favorite programming books.

Continue reading "ASP.Net and CSS Books From Wrox"

Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:28 AM, June 22, 2006
Permalink | Comments

VARBusiness Best Midmarket Products Awards

VARBusiness has opened nominations for their Best Midmarket Product Awards, to be announced in the August 7 issue of VARBusiness, and on VARBusiness.com. They're looking for products sold through the channel that are appropriate for customers with between 100 and 1000 employees, and that provide the most opportunity for solution providers. But time is short--the nomination deadline is next Wednesday, June 28.

Enter now!

Posted by Joe Caponi at 12:38 PM, June 20, 2006
Permalink | Comments

Build An In-Car PC

TechBuilder is at in again: today's recipe describes building an in-dash PC for on the road. Why? Consumers can take advantage of route-planning, GPS and high-end audio capabilities, and businesses can manage complex delivery, routing, communications and tracking applications on a level not previously possible. And yes, they go over the safety issues!

Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:57 AM, June 19, 2006
Permalink | Comments

CRN Salary Survey

CRN's much anticipated annual Compensation and Salary Survey is live now (and a week early!) In it, you'll find:

What business specialty is growing fastest in compensation; what technology certifications are most lucrative; and what geographical regions are the greenest.

And of course, the annual Salary Calculator lets you run your own numbers and see just how good, (or not) you have it.

Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:25 AM, June 19, 2006
Permalink | Comments

Gladwell and the VARBusiness 500 Awards

Towards the end of my college days, I met a friend of a friend named Shred. Shred was affable and witty, and what's stuck with me was this one line of his: "The best plan of attack is no plan -- because then you don't have to think."

Malcom Gladwell would have known exactly was Shred was talking about.

Continue reading "Gladwell and the VARBusiness 500 Awards"

Posted by Joe Caponi at 04:25 PM, June 14, 2006
Permalink | Comments

Build an Open-Source Mail Server

On TechBuilder, the latest recipe describes how to Build a Mail Server with Commodity Hardware and FreeBSD. Part two, online now, discusses "adding virus protection, spam detection, and Webmail access."

Last week's Part One covers the hardware and operating system build.

Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:01 AM, June 12, 2006
Permalink | Comments

Vista Vs. SUSE

The CRN Test Center pits the pre-release version of Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 against Microsoft Windows Vista Beta 2, and rates the two OSes on installation, features, user and administrator experience, networking, security and add-ons:

"Dave Morrill, Co-CEO of Assured Computing Technologies, a Bedford, N.H.-based system builder and solution provider, said he doesn't believe wide-scale migration from Microsoft to Linux will happen immediately, and customers who don't want to spring for Vista may simply stick with Windows XP rather than switch. However, Morrill said, once Microsoft stops supporting XP, it could be a different story."

Posted by Joe Caponi at 09:48 AM, June 12, 2006
Permalink | Comments

The 2006 VARBusiness 500

If blogging's been light, there's been good reason: The 2006 VARBusiness 500, the annual ranking of the top 500 solution providers in North America, is online now.

Continue reading "The 2006 VARBusiness 500"

Posted by Joe Caponi at 05:31 PM, June 9, 2006
Permalink | Comments

Google Update

Some updates since Monday night's post:

Google is having some second thoughts on its's China deal:

"Google Inc. co-founder Sergey Brin acknowledged Tuesday the dominant Internet company has compromised its principles by accommodating Chinese censorship demands. He said Google is wrestling to make the deal work before deciding whether to reverse course."

The Big Picture examines the Google vs. Microsoft spreadsheet fight:

"Think long term strategy: From a military perspective, Google is opening a second front in the war Microsoft launched against them. You want to come after our core busines? Allow us to return the favor."

Finally, TechWeb tries out the new Google spreadsheet:

"Google Spreadsheet is fun to play with, and has some interesting potential as far as sharing data online is concerned, but right now it's more a curiosity than a working model."

Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:15 AM, June 8, 2006
Permalink | Comments

Google: Fixing For a Fall?

Over on Slate, Glenn Reynolds is anticipating Google's fall:

"It made me wonder if Google's position isn't rather vulnerable. People like Google and use it, but its competition -- sites like Ask.com, Dogpile.com, and Clusty.com -- is just a mouseclick away."

Continue reading "Google: Fixing For a Fall?"

Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:01 PM, June 5, 2006
Permalink | Comments

Channel Executive of the Year Nominations Open

Nominations are open for the CMP Channel Groups' second annual Channel Executive of the Year. This award, to be given in August at XChange '06, recognizes the vendor executive who has demonstrated the "influence his or her channel organization has over corporate strategy" along with "demonstrable innovation, major accomplishments, partner satisfaction and visibility within the industry." The award is presented by CMP Media's Channel Group as a whole, including CRN, VARBusiness, ChannelWeb and XChange.
Last year, Intel's Steve Dallman was the first Executive of the Year honoree. This year's deadline is July 7.

Posted by Joe Caponi at 01:22 PM, June 5, 2006
Permalink | Comments

Ballmer On Vista, Microsoft

CRN talks to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer about innovation, Vista, X-Box and more.

"Take a look at all the good stuff we're doing, Xbox, Windows Mobile, Office 2007—the Atlas stuff we're doing for AJAX development, the stuff we're doing to ease database development…People are super excited."

Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:07 AM, June 5, 2006
Permalink | Comments

Crowdsourcing

Heather Clancy's off to vacation, but she's left us one word to think about until she returns.

"It’s the notion that some sort of "official" talent pool can be undercut by passionate amateurs."

Posted by Joe Caponi at 07:03 AM, June 5, 2006
Permalink | Comments

Tech Workers Eye Greener Grass

Half of tech professionals expect to be looking for new jobs in the next year, according to this report from staffing firm Spherion. Spherion VP Brenden Courtney is quoted:

""Tech workers tend to make job changes more frequently than other workers...They tend to be more mercenary, looking for more money, better work-life balance, working with new technologies."

Or they don't like their bosses.

Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:28 AM, June 2, 2006
Permalink | Comments

Visual Tools For Databases

Microsoft offers expaned database integration and testing functionality, and continues it's reign as king of long product names, with Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals:

"Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals will include tools for managing changes to database schema, a unit test harness, and a feature that generates test data mimicking the volume and format of production-database information."

Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:23 AM, June 2, 2006
Permalink | Comments

Microsoft's Mac Desktop

Microsoft's new keyboard and mouse... for Macs... promises new usability for those Mac users who demand more than one button on their mice... Which includes me.

Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:40 AM, June 1, 2006
Permalink | Comments

Feds Give VARs a 'C'

Here's a wake-up:

"Market Connections conducted more than 500 telephone interviews with representatives from 12 of the largest federal agencies. A Quality Perception Index was determined by responses to questions about 16 companies, including manufacturers, resellers and integrators. Consistent with last year's results, the contracting community earned a "C" overall."

Beaten by manufacturers in quality of service? Not good.

Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:06 AM, June 1, 2006
Permalink | Comments

India Too Expensive for Outsourcing?

The hot hand in outsourcing may move to Eastern Europe and North Africa, according to this report:

"With Central European locations still at least half the cost of the cheapest western European locations, many European companies are willing to pay a small premium over Indian centres to get a service in their local language."

India's advantage, in the American market, at least, is fluency in English. Advantages can be fleeting, though.

Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:01 AM, June 1, 2006
Permalink | Comments

Hot Topics

By Joe Caponi
Managing Editor, Operations, ChannelWeb
Email Joe

CHANNEL SERVICES >>

CHANNELWEB QUICK LINKS >>