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Happy Thanksgiving From ChannelWeb

We'll have news updates throughout the weekend, but we're also looking forward to spending some quieter time with our families. Over on Information Week, Bob Evans has unearthed a letter that conveys the real spirit of Thanksiving:

"It surely is certain that in your past, someone, somewhere endured sacrifice, pain, and risk with the courage to make a better life for themselves, directly leading to your well-being this very day.
On Thanksgiving tomorrow, I will think of those people who came before me. I am, because they were."

Happy Thanksgiving!

Okay, one more link: my News Quiz for November just went up. Have fun!

Posted by Joe Caponi at 01:55 PM, November 26, 2008
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FAQ: Upcoming ChannelWeb Directories and Awards 2009

Find an updated version of this post at the new Hot Topics home in Channelweb Connect.

Opportunities to be included in ChannelWeb's 2009 directories, rankings and awards programs.

Continue reading "FAQ: Upcoming ChannelWeb Directories and Awards 2009"

Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:58 AM, November 25, 2008
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The Top 25 Executives Of 2008

They range from top vendor executives and channel chiefs to solution provider leaders and corpoate CIOs. Together they make up our Top 25 Executives Of 2008, a varied group of individuals who share a commitment to the channel and a passion for growing their businesses no matter what obstacles they face. We highlight the winners in our slide show, and dig deeper in individual profiles of each of the Top Executives.

Posted by Joe Caponi at 03:09 PM, November 24, 2008
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BlackBerry Storm Arrives

Today's the day Research In Motion's touch-screen smartphone, the BlackBerry storm, arrives in stores. Andrew Hickey asks, "Can The BlackBerry Storm Live Up To The Hype?"

"BlackBerry loyalists and fickle smartphone consumers alike have been salivating over the possibility of a touch-screen BlackBerry since Steve Jobs and Apple birthed the first run of iPhones. Originally, RIM brass said the iPhone presented little to no threat against its smartphone empire, but the iPhone quickly became the most popular mobile device, mostly due to this summer's official release if the Apple iPhone 3G. Somewhere along the line, RIM took notice."

Over at Fortune, they round up early reviews of the Storm. Meanwhile, Hickey also notes that the Storm may be in short supply for awhile.

Posted by Joe Caponi at 09:58 AM, November 21, 2008
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An Upgrade For Our Pricing And Availability Tool

We've just rolled out a major upgrade to our Real Time Pricing and Availability tool. Built by our partners at VARStreet, the application queries major distributors, as well as more than two dozen web retailers, to provide quick access to the best pricing on technology products. In particular, if you're a partner of Ingram Micro, Tech Data, Synnex, or D&H, you'll get back your own preferred pricing from the search engine. You'll build quotes more rapidly, and save money in the process. Check it out, and let us know how we can continue to improve upon it.

Posted by Joe Caponi at 02:22 PM, November 20, 2008
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Notebooks, Netbooks On The Move

In today's CRNTech, the Test Center's Ed Moltzen surveys the state of today's dynamic notebook market:

"Significant market disruption in use patterns, pricing and new product cycles will create both opportunities and pitfalls for solution providers.
For example, there may come increasing temptation to "upsell" customers on notebooks with wireless broadband functionality--a connectivity option that could add between $40 and $60 per month to a customer's cost. But anecdotal evidence... indicates that only about as many as 20 percent of all notebooks that ship with WLAN cards ever see those cards activated.

Included: a look at the leading-edge notebooks from Lenovo, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, and Seneca.

Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:34 AM, November 17, 2008
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ChannelWeb @ LinkedIn: 1000 Strong

Our ChannelWeb Network Group on LinkedIn is now just over 1,000 strong. If you haven't checked it out, join the channel's premier LinkedIn group and connect with your potential partners, employees, and employers!

Posted by Joe Caponi at 12:59 PM, November 14, 2008
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An Rx For Healthcare Opportunity

As we prepare for our Healthcare IT Summit next week, Chad Berndtson takes a look at solution providers expectations for the coming year:

"[C.J. Ezell] converted The ASI Group from primarily a break-fix business to specializing entirely in health care, and he's since seen steady growth... Ezell has a particular focus on dental office clients, which he suggested represent one of the most untapped potential business opportunities for solution providers out there."

Other opportunities identified included wireless networking, unified communications, and electronic medical records (EMR).

"'If you're not into EMR within the next two to three years, you're really going to be too late. Take the plunge and get into it.'"

Just today, Perot Systems (#35 on the VARBusiness 500) announced it was acquiring Tellurian Networks specifically to beef up their medical practice.

Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:21 AM, November 14, 2008
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California ShakeOut Preps For Disaster

Today, possibly millions of southern Californians will participate in the Great Southern California ShakeOut, part of a weeklong disaster preparedness exercise. The Los Angeles Times reports:

"After today's 'Duck, Cover and Hold On' drill, nearly 4,000 people from 100 local, state and federal agencies, including the military, in 12 counties in Southern and Central California will rehearse their emergency responses."

It's not a bad time to review your own emergency planning, both for yourself and your family, as well as your business. In September, Scott Campbell examined how New Orleans VARs prepared for Hurricane Gustav, based on what they learned from Hurricane Katrina:

"One of the big lessons from Katrina, said Bill Long, president of Integrated Network Systems, a Metairie, La.-based solution provider, was that customers who backed up their data locally couldn't get to it or lost it after that 2005 storm. Customers kept tape drives in bank faults or on local off-site servers, thinking that even if the power went out, they could get to the office to retrieve them. Of course, in many cases that couldn't happen as parts of the city were shut down weeks and even months. "

Posted by Joe Caponi at 10:00 AM, November 13, 2008
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Cisco's Cost-Cutting Criticised

In response to Cisco Cancels 2009 Global Sales Meeting, we just received this insightful letter from John Kiser, CEO at security consultant Gray Hat Research:

"I am increasingly amazed at the what has become a typical pattern when the economy becomes tough -- cut costs by eliminating rewards for sales professionals. The one group at Cisco that can most impact the company’s success or failure in the marketplace, their salespeople, will enjoy a year without an annual event to celebrate successes, learn from one another, the company and others. What a shame that someone who likely has had little or no direct interface with people who can make a decision to buy or not buy Cisco products can cause this kind of result.
Many others besides Cisco, I’m sure, have taken similar decisions lately or will be soon -- and they are all wrong. In fact these spreadsheet jockeys should be looking for ways to further incent their sales organization to go out there and succeed, to go out there and over-achieve! Of course, what is to be expected from the bean counting hall of fame. It is these same bozos that brought us complex CRM applications that only diminish sales face time with decision makers so that the accounting can no where those no good snake oil reps really are and what they are really doing. Oh how misguided it is!

I never cease to be amazed at how our industry does the same thing to itself, over and over again. What a shame!"

Posted by Joe Caponi at 03:22 PM, November 12, 2008
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Tactics And Strategies For Tough Times

With lessons learned from Y2K and the dot-com crash, solution providers are in the perfect spot to advice clients about the credit crunch, our Craig Zarley advises:

"The time is now for the trusted solution provider to advise his or her customers on their IT and business future. Solution providers I've spoken to in recent weeks are doing just that. They are sitting down and having frank discussion with each and every one of their customers. And because of the scope and the depth of the economic crisis the discussions aren't confined to just IT."

Meanwhile, Steven Burke has some more day-to-day advice on getting through this rough patch, including:

"Embrace Leasing/MSP Monthly Billing: Clients want a single monthly bill for all their technology services from broadband to mobile devices to SANs. Solution providers that give them that will win. "

At a more strategic level, now's a good time to begin developing your next high-end specialty. Information Week's Alex Wolfe has been talking to tech executives about their plans going forth. He's hearing about needs in data-center consolidation, virtualization, SaaS and PaaS (Platform as a Service), and cloud/utility computing. Taken together, it's what he describes as an inherent unraveling of complexity:

"None of these things are in and of themselves simple. Which may be precisely the benefit. Because what they allow you to do is to move all the nitty-gritty crapwork and complexity away from your local developers and admins. Which allows them to focus on applications you need to run -- and add efficiencies to -- your business."

Finally, out where nuts-and-bolts meet blue sky thinking, CSC (Computer Sciences Corporation) identifies Seven Disruptive Technologies that will change business in the 21st century, including:

"Platform Makeover: virtualization and cloud computing are changing today’s computing model, enabling anytime, anywhere accessibility for users and applications. Nanotechnology, molecular computing, quantum computing and optical computing will take us beyond silicon, providing greatly increased speed and bringing new applications, opportunities and challenges."

Other 'disruptions' includg: New Media, Living in a New Reality, Social Power, Information Transparency, New Wave of Waves, and a Smart(er) World. Having made it to Number 4 on this year's VARBusiness 500, CSC knows something about anticipating high-end technology needs.

Posted by Joe Caponi at 12:23 PM, November 7, 2008
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President Obama--Expect The Unexpected

Congratulations and good luck to President-elect Obama. We're all in for a challenging environment in the upcoming years, likely in ways we can't imagine.

In particular, anticipating what's in store for solution providers and technology companies seems like a fool's errand to me. Craig Zarley's take on the upcoming administration may prove too optimistic, while, Paul McDougall's at Information Week may be too pessimistic. We'll see. For now, I'm afraid that satire site The Onion has hit the mark most closely: Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job.

Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:51 AM, November 6, 2008
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Election Links

The polls were busy this morning when I voted, but I had no trouble getting in, voting and getting out. Here on Long Island, we still use the mechanical voting machines we've used for decades, and though one was already being repaired at my location this morning, they've got a pretty good reliability record.

It's a pretty clear demonstration, though, that voting is one technology badly in need of an upgrade. We've followed the travails of electronic voting since 2000, and unfortunately, progress in developing and deploying secure and reliable e-voting systems has been disappointing.

Nonetheless, well over 100,000,000 Americans will cast their votes, and then turn to the internet for the latest results. CNET has a roundup of web sites following the election results, while at InformationWeek, Mitch Wagner recommends following the Twitter feeds for election updates. Also, don't miss our special report What IT Wants From The Next White House, for insights from tech luminaries such as John Chambers and Bill Gates.

Sadly, though, whatever happens, a lot of people are likely to be very disappointed. It's times like that I particularly appreciate the Speculists' Better All the Time posts, covering under-reported improvements in health, technology, communications, and many other topics. It'll cheer you up.

Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:58 AM, November 4, 2008
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Microsoft Bets On Windows 7

At Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference last week, Vista was barely an afterthought and all the attention was on the upcoming Windows 7:

"Microsoft has stepped forward and provided the first, detailed look at its next-generation desktop operating system and worked hard to emphasize what it's getting right this time."

Best of all, our Test Center was able to try out the pre-beta Windows 7, and has some positive first impressions:

"A battery of tests performed against the pre-beta release of Windows 7 shows the latest iteration of Windows may be the securest desktop offering from the software giant to date."

Don't miss our video showing off the Windows 7 interface. Over at Gearlog, they've got Windows 7 running on a Mac.

Of course, you'll want horsepower for Windows 7. Future PC's based on Intel's Nehalem processor family, coincidently launching this month, should get the job done.

Posted by Joe Caponi at 04:14 PM, November 3, 2008
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By Joe Caponi
Managing Editor, Operations, ChannelWeb
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