Federal Cyber Security Plan Is Big, SecretThe Wall Street Journal reported this week that President Bush will propose a major increase in federal cyber security spending, in an effort to safeguard public and private comptuer networks: Continue reading "Federal Cyber Security Plan Is Big, Secret " Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:05 AM, January 31, 2008 Nexus: Cisco's Big IronOver at Network Computing, my old boss Fritz Nelson looks at Cisco's latest enterprise switching platform, Nexus: "Storage, Ethernet, virtualization, some security; it's all there in one box, up to 15 Tbps capacity and expected to grow... Meanwhile, our Andrew Hickey eyes solution provider opportunities in Nexus' NX-OS: "Key features of NX-OS include zero service-disruption upgrades, virtual device contexts, graceful systems operations and XML interfaces to access switching information or any command... Nexus starts at $75,000, but Cisco promises big savings in power and other expenses in the data center. Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:26 AM, January 30, 2008 Phishing As A Service, Part IINow you no longer need an in with the international Storm syndicate to outsource your phishing attacks. On InformationWeek, George Hulme reports on a DIY phishing service: "The service automatically generates text for the phishing emails that target various Web mail and social networks, including Facebook, Hi5, Orkut, and others... Hulme predicts a significant attack through the social networks. I still think it's coming from instant messaging.
Posted by Joe Caponi at 12:15 PM, January 29, 2008 The Talent Behind The Talent ShortageIn response to Is It A Talent Shortage Or A Salary Shortage? Walterbyrd posts a terrific response on the tough time technologists endure in the job market: "To a job seeker, it seems that: if employers can afford to be this fussy, there must not be all that great a shortage. To the employers, it seems that, if they can not find somebody with extensive, and recent, experience in all the products that the employer lists (and nothing else) then there is a shortage of IT pros." Certainly, many employeers see IT services as an expense to be minimized -- it's something many channel companies count on. But they're not stupid (not all of 'em, anyway). Demonstrating intelligence, drive and flexibility will pay off in the long run. Some approaches to IT job hunting: • Consider solution providers! They 'get' IT and are more likely to understand how skills transfer. What's working in today's IT job market? How do you keep your skills current when you've got a full time job, or when your full time job is looking for one? Let me know. Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:24 AM, January 29, 2008 Is It A Talent Shortage Or A Salary Shortage?Information Week debates the question of whether there's a IT talent shortage in the US. In this corner, Dr. Jerry Luftman says, "Yes": "Skilled IT professionals are scarce already, and the short supply is stressing organizational growth plans. Add to this the impending baby boomer retirement bubble, and the situation worsens. As 70 million baby boomers exit the workforce in the next 15 years, only 40 million people will enter the workforce." While in this corner, Dr. Ron Hira says, "No": "The most relevant market indicators--wages and employee risk--clearly show there's no broad-based scarcity of U.S. IT workers. In their zeal to enlist government help to expand the supply of tech workers through foreign guest worker programs, employers are misrepresenting IT labor market conditions" Along those lines, Information Week also reports that "only 5% of CIOs said their companies have offshored technology jobs", which would seem to indicate that most companies can get their projects done locally. Many of the folks on Information Week's forums think it's more a case of employers unwilling to pay the going rate for local workers. Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:11 AM, January 25, 2008 State of Technology: PeripheralsThis week's VARBusiness features our State of Technology report on Peripherals: The box is out. The solution is in. And as more VARs look to peripherals as an opportunity to go deeper into a customer's enterprise and add value, there are some approaches that may work better than others. The report zeroes in on displays, printers, projectors, power protection and external storage as key areas in which VARs can help their customers. Published each quarter, the State of Technology uncovers solution provider opportunities in different hardware and software specialties, including business software, storage and security. Find our previous reports at the State of Technology landing page.
Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:19 AM, January 23, 2008 Which Way For The Markets?Over the weekend, this was the second-hand advice I recieved from a Wall Street insider: "Sell your stocks, buy gold, and bury it in your backyard." For today, at least, that won't be necessary, but we're likely in for some exciting times in the markets. Barry Ritholtz (who has anticipated today's 'whackage' for a while) is unhappy with the Fed; Larry Kudlow says "The Fed Got It Right". Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:43 AM, January 22, 2008 You. In 25 Words Or LessRobert DeMarzo is back from the Raymond James & Associates investor conference, and has some new insight into how some of the biggest names in the channel identify their organizations' unique positions. He suggests that it's an effort that the average VAR would be wise to emulate: "Generally speaking, VARs do not spend nearly enough time on the subtleties of their position. Some of that comes from the fact that VARs and integrators are poor marketers. They are terrific at selling technology, but marketing comes about as naturally to a VAR as golf does to Charles Barkley." Good advice, not only for companies, but for individuals. What do you do that's unique, valuable and future-facing? Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:14 AM, January 22, 2008 Storm: Phishing As A ServiceAs it contines to develop, the Storm botnet (which we've discussed before) now appears to be becoming a platform for other attacks: "The notorious botnet is increasingly used in multi-faceted phishing attacks, and security experts say that portions of the Storm are actually 'rented out' to phishers... It may take some 'social engineering' to crack this ring, but sooner or later, somebody's going to be in a situation where they need to make a deal... Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:47 AM, January 18, 2008 Rating E-Health PromisesAt InformationWeek, Marianne McGee looks at the presidential candidate's promises of healthcare infrastructure investments, particularly on Barack Obama's $50 billion electronic health records promise: "Wow. $50 billion? To date, federal government spending on e-health initiatives has been in the millions of dollars, not billions. Most government money so far has been in the form of grants and demo projects... If you can think of two more challenging markets to enter than healthcare and the feds, I'd like to hear about it. But they sure provide a lot of solution provider opportunity. Posted by Joe Caponi at 12:08 PM, January 17, 2008 Mapping Upgrades From Apple, GoogleEd Moltzen writes about the lastest iPhone software update, which provides rough location services on the non-GPS-enabled iPhone: "Using its Google Maps feature, the iPhone triangulates your nearest cell phone towers and reports the data back to the mapping application, which gives you an idea, generally, of where you are." Speaking of Google Maps, Lifehacker reports on new functionality Google has dropped into it's popular Maps application: "Head to Google Maps, click the My Maps tab, and select The Weather Channel from the list of maps. You can turn on different overlays (like clouds and radar) and highlight different points of interest. My Maps has lots of other worthwhile featured content, like Gas Prices from GasBuddy, Google Real Estate Search, and geotagged photos from Picasa Web Albums." Location services are (pardon the pun), where it's at. (See my earlier post on Google's Street View.) It's wise for the smart solution provider to get to know their latitude from their longitude. Posted by Joe Caponi at 02:58 PM, January 16, 2008 How To Score With The Channel, 2008Yesterday's CRN issue features three looks at the problems facing vendors and solution providers in the new year: Loyalty. It's such a lonely word. Robert Faletra outlines five key elements for vendors seeing the loyalty of their channel partners: "Thinking through partner programs with a mind-set centered on maximizing partner profitability is important. This often isn't as easy as it sounds given the many different partner models out there. The first action is to truly understand how and what drives partner profitability." Key to building a healthy channel program is selecting the right channel chief. Steven Burke says it's a challenge many organizations are botching: "At the end of the day, what all this turnover madness comes down to is a serious disregard for just how important a channel chief is in driving sales and brand influence among the channel sales force in the field." One company that's looking to get it's channel engine running again is IBM. Robert DeMarzo examines their latest efforts: "IBM's plan boils down to focusing marketing dollars and inside salespeople on generating leads for partners or working with them to help close sales. For the most part, IBM will no longer sell directly to SMB customers. However, the missing piece is an expansion of IBM's product portfolio for midmarket and small-business customers." Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:06 AM, January 15, 2008 Anticipating MacWorld SurprisesWith CES now in our rear-view mirror, attention turns this week to MacWorld, and particularly Steve Jobs' keynote Tuesday morning. Jennifer Lawinski anticipates some surprises: "In a confusing and unprecedented move just a few days ago, Apple brought out its next generation Mac Pro and Xserve server products, updated with Intel (NSDQ:INTC) Core Duo processors that can bring users up to eight cores of computing power, leaving some to speculate that the move was made to free up Jobs to talk about other things." Over on Information Week, Mitch Wanger looks at MacWorld possibilities in the areas of virtualization solutions and third-party offerings (including Microsoft Office)., while John Welch looks at possibilities in the iPhone and laptop direction. Could you trade Apple stock based on anticipation of Jobs' keynote? Barry Ritholtz looks at the track record. Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:10 AM, January 14, 2008 Making Social Networks WorkOn bMighty Naomi Grossman rounds up some coverage suggesting opportunities are developing for small business to take real advantage of social networking sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook: "One of the objections many of us have heard over and over: 'So much of what's discussed online is meaningless. These forms of communication are shallow and make us dumber. We have real work to do!' The response could make a smaller business reconsider: 'If learning how the market feels about your organization, engaging with your customers and driving traffic to your web work - all very realistic goals for social media engagement - aren't work, then I don't know what is.'" Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:43 AM, January 11, 2008 Jobs: Confidence Down, Demand RemainsThough IT workers expressed their lowest job confidence, in recent years, CIO's still say talent's tough to find: "'Yes, there are some jobs that are being offshored, but the preponderance aren't,' [Bob Keefe, new president of the Society for Information Management] says. Similarly, in manufacturing -- an industry where the offshoring of jobs has probably been most prevalent -- there are shortages of some very key talent, such as engineers. 'Even if an engineer can fog up a mirror, we’ll hire him,' Keefe quips about how tough that talent market has become." So where's the disconnect--whose expectations are too high? Posted by Joe Caponi at 12:25 PM, January 10, 2008 Hackers Explore Instant MessagingAs a business tool, I've never been a big fan of instant messaging (as I said two years ago). Even worse, it's a burgeoning opportunity for hackers: "Unlike the simple viruses of years past, the IM threats in the last 12 months have evolved into multi-staged attacks that have the potential to cause significant harm to users' PCs, experts say. We'll see a big IM-based breach this year... Posted by Joe Caponi at 12:32 PM, January 9, 2008 Recession? No Thanks, We've Already Got One...At The Big Picture, Barry Ritholtz looks on Merrill Lynch's analysis that a recession may now be "inevitable", along with some Washington reaction. Posted by Joe Caponi at 09:38 AM, January 8, 2008 New Products Roll At CESThe tech year starts with a bang each January at the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas. Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) is blogging it with the Popular Mechanics crew; David Ewalt is there with Forbes; and, so are we. Kevin McLaughlin reports from Bill Gates's [farewell] keynote; we preview 25 Must-Sees; take a peek at the latest from Intel; and anticipate some digital home announcements from the show. Much more all week. Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:54 AM, January 7, 2008 Big News For SmallBizMy old friend and colleague Gayle Kesten is now blogging over at Small Biz Resource, one of our sister sites at CMP Technology. If your customers are small business owners, (or if you're a small business owner) a visit is well worth your time. Tell her I sent you... Posted by Joe Caponi at 02:08 PM, January 4, 2008 Google's Dark CloudMichael Malone (who wrote one our Top Channel Books of 2007), is dour on the outlook for the tech industry in 2008, predicting hard times for Apple, Sun, AMD and even HP. But he reserves his darkest cloud for Google: "I've followed Google closely almost since day one and right now, every alarm is going off in this reporter's brain. If you were to come up with the most dangerous possible mix of competitive, cultural and structural threats for Google to face, that's where I think the company is at right now." Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:17 AM, January 4, 2008 Sell Your Business, Or Buy One...ChannelWeb has launched a new partnership aimed at assisting you in your most strategic decision-making -- buying or selling an IT services company. The M&A Forum, one of ChannelWeb's earliest partners, has once again joined with us to help current and prospective business owners find and evaluate business opportunities. The Forum also hosts a series of events designed to bring buyers and seller of IT firms together. Take advantage of some of the channel's most experienced M&A experts in making your most critical moves. Posted by Joe Caponi at 12:19 PM, January 3, 2008 2008 Channel ChiefsHappy New Year! CRN will be profiling the leading channel chiefs of hardware and software technology vendors in February, based on their "business innovation and dedication to the partner community." We're looking for your help in putting together a list of the people solution providers need to know to get business done in 2008. Nominate your Channel Chief here. Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:07 AM, January 2, 2008 |
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