10 People To Watch In 2008

Vice President and General Manager of Dell's Americas Channels Group

Davis has what has to be the toughest job in the channel today. No one is in under the channel microscope more than this former IBM executive who is chartered with taking Dell from channel dog to channel champion. Davis unveiled the new channel program just in time for the holidays amid much skepticism from longtime Dell channel antagonists.

Through it all, Davis remains firmly focused on making Round Rock, Texas-based Dell an alternative to channel star Hewlett-Packard. The next big hurdle for Davis: juggling Dell's own managed services plans with the partners brought into the fold from the Silverback and Everdream acquisitions.

AMD Director of Worldwide Channel Development

Chips Ahoy? That could be AMD Director of Worldwide Channel Development Gary Bixler captain's cry as he looks forward to putting the Barcelona chip delay behind him and his indefatigable company.

No doubt Bixler is pained by the chip level bug or errata that has delayed the shipment of the quad-core Opteron until sometime in Q1 2008. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AMD had promised that Barcelona would be widely available by the end of the year.

It makes for an unhappy new year for AMD and system builders who were looking forward to shipping quad-core Opteron systems. It is Bixler who will have to deal with the fallout from system builders. The question that hovers over AMD: can Bixler be the steady hand that leads AMD system builders from despair to the promised land?

Microsoft Worldwide Channel Chief

Watson has been the public face for the past four years behind what may well be the most expansive and far reaching channel program in history. Named CMP Channel's Channel Executive of the Year in 2004, Watson is dealing with the concerns of partners who are coming up against Linux and SaaS (software as a service) competitors at an alarming rate, and who are increasingly looking to her for help in beating back the competition.

Partners say the time is right for a vociferous Microsoft channel advocate to take partners into the new era. The question remains: Will Watson's leadership be the 'big bang' Microsoft partners need to propel them forward or a firecracker that fizzles?

HP Americas Channel Chief

Jones has done a stellar job maintaining Palo Alto, Calif.-based Hewlett-Packard's channel momentum with rivals as diverse as Dell, Lenovo and Acer nipping at his heels. You've got to give Jones credit for navigating the ever treacherous channel waters with a candor and aplomb that is downright refreshing.

So what's he do for an encore? Well, how about continuing to oversee market share gains and high channel satisfaction scores in the midst of what looks like some high level executive changes.

With the year coming to a close, HP announced that it is looking for a new global channel chief and a new general manager for its Americas Personal Computer Group. No small job either one. Jones looks to be the steady hand that could make all the difference for HP in 2008.

Lenovo President and CEO Earlier this year, Lenovo President and CEO Bill Amelio told CMP Channel that he wanted the bulk of the vendor's "transactional" or non-enterprise business to go through the channel. Despite those good intentions, solution providers say channel conflict is rife.

In fact, CMP's recent Channel Best Seller report shows a precipitous drop in Purchase, N.Y.-based Lenovo's sales of both desktops and notebooks through U.S. distributors for the period January through June of this year. Can Amelio turn what some channel partners see as coal in their channel stockings in 2007 to diamonds in 2008? Only time will tell.

Ubuntu Project Founder

Call him Microsoft's worst nightmare come to life. Kind of the Freddy Krueger to Microsoft's unsuspecting teenager in a horror move for the high tech set. Shuttleworth founded the Ubuntu project in 2004, and has quickly guided the Linux desktop distribution to increasing popularity.

Earlier in 2007, the organization that spearheads Ubuntu development, Canonical, announced the first major Tier 1 PC vendor -- Dell -- had agreed to pre-load Ubuntu Linux onto desktops and notebooks. At year's end, the "Gutsy Gibbon" version of Ubuntu had achieved significant measures of driver and application support.

Among other things, Shuttleworth is one of the industry's few space travelers. According to his official biography on Canonical's web site, "In April 2002 Mark flew in space, as a cosmonaut member of the crew of Soyuz mission TM34 to the International Space Station."

Mozilla Open Source Evangelist

If Shuttleworth is Microsoft's Freddy Krueger, then Blizzard is its Jason. Blizzard, a former Red Hat engineer and Mozilla board member, left both posts in late 2007 to take on a full-time role as a salaried evangelist at Mozilla, the organization that oversees development of the Firefox web browser and Thunderbird open email client.

Blizzard won widespread attention when he became one of the first members of the Mozilla organization to openly state that Firefox had flaws in how it handles system memory, and that fixing those flaws was a top priority. Blizzard has also been among those explaining Mozilla's new strategy to develop mobile technology.

Oracle CEO

The industry's only genuine joker in the deck. Ellison still plays the game like a young turk. Forget Tom Cruise. The Last Samurai is Ellison. He has taken his Far Eastern philosophy and confounded each and every one of his rivals.

With Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates planning to officially step aside from day to day operations in July 2008, Ellison has come to be viewed as the last software man standing. The big question is who is the next on Larry's search and destroy acquisition list?

Apple CEO

He is the closest thing we have to a saint in this industry. Jobs has consistently defied the odds to deliver breakthrough products like the iPhone and iPod. At the same time, he has ushered Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple deeper into the business market with Leopard and the ever-resilient Macintosh. So is this the year that Jobs finally learns how to spell channel? We can only hope so.

Symantec CEO and Chairman

Two years ago, Thompson pulled off what was supposed to a deal that would forever change the security-storage landscape. Along the way, he has grappled with solution provider frustration, budget cuts and a sagging stock price as Cupertino, Calif.-based Symantec attempted to bring Veritas into the corporate fold. Well, no one ever said it was going to be easy.

Is a rebound may in the cards for 2008? Symantec executives say they have seen a rise in customer satisfaction based on internal surveys from partners, particularly in the areas of licensing and ease of doing business. But one data point does not a trend make.

Thompson is staying aggressive and has upped the ante by spending $350 million to acquire data loss prevention high flyer Vontu. Is 2008 the year that it all comes together for Thompson's single minded security-storage vision?