ShadowRAM: December 8, 2003

Cisco's John Chambers must be pleased with the performance of his channel because last week he bumped his top channel executive up to the big boys' table, promoting Paul Mountford to senior vice president of worldwide channels. Mountford had been just a lowly VP.

Smash-and-grab gray marketers beware. The former boyfriend of a well-known medical researcher at Case Western Reserve University got four years in prison for his part in a scheme to defraud Compaq of $2.5 million. Leroy Sallee, 45, a computer sales rep from Ashtabula, Ohio, pleaded guilty in Federal District Court in Boston to scheming to buy computer equipment from former Compaq under a deeply discounted pricing program reserved for universities and government agencies. He must report to prison Dec. 29.

The fraud took place in February 2002, when Compaq agreed to the discount after Janice Douglas,a professor of medicine known for her expertise on high blood pressure and kidney disease,and two others claimed they were buying the equipment on behalf of Case Western Reserve and planned to use it in a clinical trial of a new drug led by Douglas, according to the federal indictment.

While Sallee copped a plea, his alleged co-conspirators so far have dodged the legal bullet. Sallee testified in July against Douglas and two other men named in the indictment.

Word from the street is that IBM is exploiting what some solution providers see as a weakness in HP's enterprise business. Solution providers say that former Compaq people have replaced many of the former HP enterprise field sales people. As a result, the HP enterprise sales team too often brings a Wintel focus into a street fight with IBM, which counters with an iSeries, xSeries, pSeries and IBM Global Services brand team and brings along an IBM business partner to the battle. Solution providers say IBM simply outclasses HP in that scenario.

When you've got a big problem, call a solution provider. That's what the U.S. Government did. Joe Draham, vice president government relations and Congressional affairs, has left GTSI to serve in Iraq for the Coalition Provisional Authority. Draham was named counselor to the Coalition Provisional Authority's new COO. His duties will be to carry out high-level special assignments and provide advice in the reconstruction and humanitarian efforts in Iraq.

Does anyone else find it odd that all these open-sourcers who post messages on the SCO suit refer readers to www.groklaw.com for the real story? Just who is this .org anyway? Inquiring minds want to know %85