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.
Another facet of the program will challenge networking vendors to design, develop and deploy products that lower energy costs and power consumption; comply with increasingly stringent environmental directives; reduce eWaste; and heighten the green effect of network infrastructure.
The initiative, which was announced last week at Interop Las Vegas 2008, also named its first product to be Certified Green: the Cisco Catalyst 3750-E, 3560-E, 3750, 3560 and 2960 Series Switches.
According to an announcement from both Miercom and Cisco, testing and evaluation found the fixed switches offer efficient power draw under various real-world conditions; high-efficiency power supply operation with intelligent power management capabilities; and superior product efficiency, including VLAN, remote management and other "green-enabling" features.
In a statement, John McCool, senior vice president and general manager of San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco's campus switching systems technology group and co-chair of the Cisco EcoBoard, praised Miercom for recognizing green networking. He added that Cisco is working diligently to promote green networking initiatives.
"Focusing on the improvement of power efficiency and green practices in our products is a top priority for Cisco," he said. "We are proud that our Catalyst switches are the first to be certified under this important new program. The certification not only rewards our current work, but also serves as further incentive to push forward on innovations aimed at delivering even greater green returns for our customers."
The Miercom Green Certification is powered by Ixia, an IP performance test system and service verification platform for IP infrastructure and services. Ixia solutions are designed to fully load and exercise Layer 2 through Layer 7 network elements and infrastructures. The solutions emulate real-world data center application traffic and the Ixia test can test multiple application profiles to provide accurate performance per power benchmarks.
According to Miercom, the Certified Green program will combine detailed measurement criteria with a holistic view of product impact in enabling the green IT and business practices of a network operator. The program will certify products based on power efficiency, including power usage and management, heat dissipation, cooling requirements, energy efficiency and overall product efficiency.
Some analysts suggested that small and mid-size businesses, NetSuite's core market for its on-demand applications, are more likely to rein in IT spending as the economic downturn drags on. While there may be something to that, expanding its channel efforts might provide a boost to the vendor's growth prospects.
For the quarter ended March 31, NetSuite reported that sales of its on-demand ERP, CRM and E-commerce applications reached $34.1 million, up 47 percent from the same period one year ago. The company continued to narrow its losses, reporting a net loss of $2.0 million for the quarter compared to the $9.3 million loss it reported one year earlier.
But Wall Street was apparently disappointed by NetSuite's prospects for the rest of the year, dropping the company's stock as much as 22 percent in Friday's trading before it closed down almost 16 percent. NetSuite's $76 million in reported deferred revenue -- the amount in the company's sales pipeline -- was lower than some analysts expected. And while bookings increased more than 41 percent year over year, some analysts expected more: Sanford Bernstein analyst Charles Di Bona said in a report that he was counting on 64 percent growth.
What's more, the company plans to invest most of its revenue growth back into the company, increasing its annual net profits by only 2 percent.
While many companies would kill for growth stats like these, NetSuite, since going public last year, is now competing against Wall Street's expectations almost as much as it is against Salesforce.com, SAP and others.
One way NetSuite might broaden its growth prospects is by re-doubling its channel efforts. A number of on-demand software vendors have recently launched channel programs to enlist solution provider partners with expertise in specific vertical industries and business processes. In some cases the solution providers own the customer relationship and actually resell the vendor's services; in others customers contract directly with the vendor and channel partners generate sales leads and provide implementation, training and support services.
NetSuite certainly recognizes the value of the channel. It has a channel initiative, the NetSuite Solution Provider Program. In its application for this year's VARBusiness Partner Programs Guide, NetSuite indicated that 20 percent of its revenue is generated through indirect channels and the company planned on increasing its partner base by 25 percent. (The company did not disclose how many channel partners it works with.)
One reseller NetSuite is working with is British Telecom, a partner NetSuite said could introduce the company's services to as many as 1.6 million small businesses in the United Kingdom and Europe. That's a smart move: NetSuite should consider establishing more of those kinds of partnerships. It just might help the company keep up with Wall Street's ever higher expectations.
While speculation runs rampant, it was enough to boost Yahoo's stock up 3.7 percent to $27.80 in mid-day trading. Microsoft shares dipped 1.1 percent to $29.08 per share.
"Yahoo's not a strategy, it's a part of a strategy," Ballmer reportedly told employees at a town hall meeting on Thursday, according to The Silicon Alley Insider. "We're interested to pay for it at some level and beyond that level we're not willing to pay for it. I know exactly what I think Yahoo is worth and I won't go a dime above."
"You gotta be willing to look outside of the box and Yahoo is $44 billion outside of our box," he said. "If Yahoo doesn't happen, there's a number of other things we'll look at."
Ballmer's talk with employees marked the first time the company acknowledged Yahoo's silence in not responding to a Saturday deadline to accept or decline Microsoft's $31 per share offer.
"[We] missed the deadline but we're in the process," Ballmer reportedly said to employees. "We've got basically the three big options in front of us. There's the friendly deal, there's an unfriendly deal, and the third path is simply to walk away. Given it's just a part of a strategy -- if neither of those look good, we walk away. It makes sense at the price we proposed and I think it's a good deal for Yahoo shareholders. It's a huge premium it's one of the largest valuations."
On Wednesday, the Redmond, Wash.-based company's board of directors met and let Ballmer off the leash, giving him "broad discretion to either go hostile or abandon the Yahoo pursuit," The Wall Street Journal reported.
When an employee asked Ballmer what made Yahoo so attractive to Microsoft, he reportedly said that Microsoft is not "the leading player," and that there are "structural things in the industry that make it hard to make rapid progress."
"We need to gain scale," he said. "The world is rooting for us. The world hopes that there's a very strong company that's not the number one guy. We're going to work that strategy with Google, with Yahoo or without Yahoo."
"There's nothing definitive to say today," Ballmer reportedly told employees, according to the Silicon Alley Insider.
"We have a great plan and strategy and we have a long way to go. We are not number one and number one is a lot bigger than us. There may not be many people here that remember when we were a distant number 2 before. You gotta be willing to look outside of the box and Yahoo is $44 billion outside of our box. If Yahoo doesn't happen, there's a number of other things we'll look at."
The news comes a day after the Redmond, Wash.-based company's board of directors met and let Ballmer off the leash, giving him "broad discretion to either go hostile or abandon the Yahoo pursuit," The Wall Street Journal reported.
Microsoft's chess game with Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo has ranged from its silence after Yahoo failed to respond to its Saturday deadline to accept or decline its $31 per share offer to talks that the company was willing to ante up more money, to Ballmer squaring his shoulders and willing to walk away from the deal entirely.
According to The Silicon Alley Insider, Ballmer held a town hall meeting today to let employees know what's going on with Yahoo.
"[We] missed the deadline but we're in the process," Ballmer reportedly said. "I report nothing. I got nothing to say today. We've got basically the three big options in front of us. There's the friendly deal, there's an unfriendly deal, and the third path is simply to walk away. Given it's just a part of a strategy--if neither of those look good, we walk away. It makes sense at the price we proposed and I think it's a good deal for Yahoo shareholders. It's a huge premium it's one of the largest valuations."
When an employee reportedly asked Ballmer what made Yahoo so attractive to Microsoft, he reportedly said that although the company has talented employees, it is not "the leading player," and that there are "structural things in the industry that make it hard to make rapid progress."
"We need to gain scale. The world is rooting for us. The world hopes that there's a very strong company that's not the number one guy. We're going to work that strategy with Google, with Yahoo or without Yahoo.
"Yahoo's not a strategy, it's a part of a strategy. We're interested to pay for it at some level and beyond that level we're not willing to pay for it. I know exactly what I think Yahoo is worth and I won't go a dime above."
It will take another 12 months to 18 months before the Blu-ray market "kicks into gear," according to a new study from ABI Research. Part of the problem is that prices on Blu-ray players remain high while functionality remains low.
Plenty of stand-alone Blu-ray players are selling for $400 or more, but many players on the market now do not support functions such as Blu-ray Disc Profile 2.0 (also known as BD-Live), a feature that enables users to supplement content on Blu-ray discs with additional downloaded content from the Internet. Yet movie studios such as Sony Pictures Home Entertainment are already releasing movie titles with BD-Live features embedded.
The disconnect between pricing and functionality, coupled with a depressed U.S. economy, could hold Blu-ray sales back until 2009 or beyond.
ABI says Blu-ray player pricing will have to come down to the $200 level before consumers start to replace their standard DVD players with high-def models en masse.
In 2008, PlayStation 3 gaming consoles with Blu-ray players will make up over 85 percent of the market and will continue to dominate until 2013. In the meantime, optical drive manufacturers have lowered prices on Blu-ray drives for PCs to try to gain traction, according to ABI.
News of the slow uptake isn't stopping movie studios from releasing Hollywood hits in the Blu-ray format. Paramount Pictures on May 20 is slated to roll out its first Blu-ray titles since it changed its mind in February about going exclusively with Toshiba's HD DVD. The studio's forthcoming Blu-ray titles include "Bee Movie," "Face/Off" and "Next."
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