More than 300 IT executives and dozens of vendors met to talk about midmarket solutions at the Midsize Enterprise Summit.
ChannelWeb picked 15 common beliefs about Microsoft and gave channel partners the opportunity to explain why they're more fiction than fact.
ChannelWeb visited Tech Data's headquarters for a strategy update and was given a behind-the-scenes tour of how the distributor operates.
But from the bureau's announcement, here's a nugget that might be of interest to those in the IT space in the U.S.:
Professional and technical services employment rose by 27,000 in April after showing little change during the first quarter of 2008. Computer systems design added 10,000 jobs over the month and employment in accounting and bookkeeping services edged up by 9,000.
The key question: Is this a leading indicator or a lagging indicator?
Companies including Intel, Dell and Lexmark, for example, began headcount reductions or some form of restructuring either last year or early this year - - ahead of the worst of the economic slump. While Dell and Lexmark may have acted more on pressure from the investment community, Intel appears to have shown enough foresight to have positioned itself for even a weak pricing environment.
Sun Microsystems, on the other hand, is moving in the opposite direction.
June 6 is the next jobs report, and perhaps then, after some more shakeout, we'll have a better idea of who are leaders and who are laggards.
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