As if they needed more stress, organizations are facing evolving and increasingly stringent compliance regulations from the Payment Card Industry, as well as Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA and others. Here are a few security compliance products that can make the audit process less excruciating.
Here are 10 of the distributor's hottest new offerings winning over solution providers.
New smartphones from Sony, Motorola and the first-ever Twitter-only mobile device -- the TwitterPeek -- headline a busy week for handset makers as the holiday shopping season heats up.
Inside This Issue: April 16, 2007
Cover Story
Who Knows Your Customers?
More vendors are asking for more information on your customers. The question is, what's being done with all that data?
>> Customer Data: Distributors Caught In The Middle
>> Channel Fraud Still A Big Issue For Vendors
>> Slide Show: VARs Sound Off On Customer Data
News Analysis
IBM Loses Touch With Some Key Partners
What’s going on with IBM? That’s a question many SMB solution providers are asking these days as they perceive a looming vacuum in their relationship with a once-strategic vendor partner.
IBM Adds Business Continuity Certification
To boost its midmarket penetration, IBM is launching a new Business Partner Continuity Specialty certification targeted primarily at its loyal stable of regional integrators.
Channel Globe-Trotters
Solution providers tackling multinational projects face many of the same challenges, including time differences, contract structures and resources. But help is on the way.
Market Focus: Midmarket
RFID Gains Steam In The Channel
RFID solutions are hitting their stride in the channel, now that solution providers have figured out they can’t just sell the technology for technology’s sake.
Upstarts & Startups
nComputing Reaches Out To Education VARs
High-tech entrepreneur Stephen Dukker, founder of eMachines, is avidly courting VARs and educational resellers for his latest venture, nComputing, which makes low-cost multiuser access terminals.
Demand Generation
Military Experience Puts VAR In Tip-Top Shape
The husband-and-wife team leading federal solution provider Trofholz Technologies said their military background has helped draw customers.
Tech Focus
Konica Minolta Gains Traction In The Channel
Four years after Konica and Minolta merged, dropped much of their noncommercial lineup and began targeting commercial solution providers, the company is set to expand its channel efforts to help ramp up market share.
Vigor's Monsoon II Offers A Cooler Alternative
Vigor Gaming Computer's Monsoon II active thermoelectric-type CPU cooling system moves condensation -- a common problem -- away from the CPU.
Sony Spruces Up Data Backup
Backup devices always seem to be a step behind hard drives in terms of capacity. But Sony’s new AIT-5 tape drive offers more than a terabyte of capacity per cartridge.
ShadowRAM: Rumors, Truth & Innuendo
NetSuite partner gets Second Life, Web 2.0 sparks recruiting scramble, Goldman Sachs rates Microsoft a "buy" -- maybe.
These articles were mentioned in this issue of CRN.
• Apply For CRN Emerging Tech 100
• HP Rethinks Small-Biz Strategy
• SilverBack To Basics: MSP Vendor Cuts Desktop Monitoring Pricing
• HP, Intel, Arrow Take Their Virtual Iron
• Adaptec Hopes New Channel Program Is A Snap
• Ubuntu Melds With DB2
• Best Buy For Business Extends Partner Hand
• Pomeroy Board Nixes Request To Dump CEO
• Profitability: How Do You Measure Up?
• Novell Stakes Mail, Collaboration Claim
• Windows Vista Sucks Performance
• Mac Pro Goes 8-Core; Google Desktop Goes Mac
• VIDEO: Chambers Talks Web 2.0 And The Channel
• Slide Show: Who Knows Your Customers?
COLUMNISTS
Robert Faletra:
Steven Burke:
Larry Hooper:
Heather Clancy:
Real Values
Embrace SaaS On Your Own Terms
Software-as-a-service is here, and it will spawn new business models for software solutions. Now the question is, will the channel take the bull by the horns?
On The Record
Solve Problems, But Never Sell Technology
Here's some advice that may be completely different than what you are going to hear from many of your vendors and suppliers. To compete, don't sell technology. Steer the pitch toward solving a business problem.
The Final Cut
Being Direct With VARs
One of the most pressing issues facing SMB solution providers is the number of vendors contacting customers directly without informing the so-called “trusted partners” that brought the deal to the table in the first place.
Under The Radar
Channelizing Web 2.0
If there was doubt that the Web 2.0 phenomenon would hit the channel, it went out the window when Cisco chief John Chambers proclaimed Web 2.0 as the next big business technology for the VARs and the industry.
