ShadowRam, Jan. 31, 2005
While the Bush administration has had its issues with China, IBM has enjoyed a good relationship with its leaders, dating back to when former IBM chairman Louis Gerstner began a friendship with then-premier Jiang Zemin. If nothing else, don't count on IBM to use longtime outside legal counsel David Boies to help convince the Bush administration to let the deal go through. Those in the executive branch might still remember that thorny little Gore vs. Bush lawsuit, in which Boies represented the other side.
This year's Lotusphere had the best speaker evah in John Cleese of "Monty Python"-"Fawlty Towers"-"A Fish Called Wanda" fame. The guy was worth whatever he got, freely admitting he knew less about technology than anyone in the room--indeed, less than anyone that anyone in the room knew. Get it? He's not into it. Cleese also pointed out that the perfectly perfect anagram for Lotusphere (held at Disney World) is "Here's Pluto." I could practically hear Sybil Fawlty hissing in the background.
Would-be competitors take heed: Network identity infrastructure startup Infoblox will be no pushover—if the company's fitness ethic is any indication. Originally run out of an office above a tae kwan do studio in Illinois, Infoblox's founder and first few employees took up the martial art out of curiosity. They got so hooked that when the company had to move to Silicon Valley as a condition of its venture funding, they convinced their teacher to relocate along with them. Infoblox boasts at least eight black belts on staff.
Look for Computer Associates to offer up the mature fruit of its Netegrity acquisition at the RSA Security conference in San Francisco. The show, which begins Valentine's Day, will give CA a chance to shine a spotlight on the new federated identity products based on its Netegrity purchase as well as a finalized SAML 2.0, which the products will utilize.
The Comp Hot program (where Microsoft will intervene with resources to help a partner win a deal against a competitive platform) is supposed to go live this week. Until now, it's been in pilot. It's available to Gold and Certified partners.
Keep your eyes open when you walk into H&R Block offices during tax season. Most likely, the printers are from Brother (which recently launched a new channel program). We hear Brother swiped the H&R Block account--some 15,000 printers strong--from Hewlett-Packard a few years ago.
Have you got the skinny on an industry heavy? Pass along your tips, gossip and innuendo via e-mail to [email protected].