WHAT'S NEW

• Dell Turns to Partners as It Pulls Plug on Public Cloud

  Dell this week said it is abandoning plans to push forward with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud offerings and will deliver cloud hardware and software through partners.

• VMware Affirms Commitment to Cloud Partners

  VMware this week revealed it will launch a public cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), a move it said doesn't deviate from its commitment to its partners.

• Microsoft Partner Network Country Qualifications Hit in October

  For partners with practices in more than one country, Microsoft is making a significant change to its partner program qualifications.

• The 2013 Microsoft Product Roadmap

  Redmond Channel Partner magazine updates its comprehensive and authoritative annual roadmap of upcoming products from Microsoft over the coming year. Although 2012 was one of the biggest release years in a long time, Microsoft still has a lot of significant updates for the year ahead, including the rumored Windows "Blue," the "Apollo Plus" update for Windows Phone 8 and the complete Office 2013 suite.

• SolarWinds Buying N-Able, Plans To 'Disrupt' MSP Market

  Enterprise IT management vendor SolarWinds on Tuesday announced plans to acquire MSP vendor N-Able Technologies for $120 million.

• 4 Great Examples of 'Real' Partner Marketing Messages

  How can you, as a tech firm, adequately describe your services and still connect with prospects on a personal level? Some Microsoft partners have found the right balance.

• Microsoft Partner Awards Focus on Cloud, Everything Else

  Microsoft honored several hundred partners for business excellence today with the announcement of the 2013 Partner of the Year Award Winners and Finalists.

• Is Windows Phone Starting To Establish Itself as the Third Platform?

  New smartphone market share numbers from IDC for the first quarter of 2013 show Windows Phone at No. 3, well behind Android and iOS but boasting strong growth.

• U.S. Partners Get Office 365 Fee Boost

  Microsoft is offering partner advisor incentives of up to 38 percent on Office 365 for the next few weeks.

• Wrestling with 'Other' Storage in Windows Phone 8

  I'm about to tell a whiny story about storage on my Nokia Lumia 822 Windows Phone.

• Verizon To Offer Nokia Lumia 928 on May 16

  Verizon Wireless will release a new flagship Windows Phone 8 device on its LTE network later this month.

• The Best Kind of Marketing Content

  Marketing theory and the best of intentions are meaningless without consistent execution.

• Dell Solidifies Its Cloud Management Footing with Enstratius Buy

  Dell recently announced its acquisition of Enstratius in a move that extends its push into the multi-cloud management space.

• Microsoft CRM Revenues Too Good To Be True?

  The rare public look provided last week by market researchers at Gartner into vendor-by-vendor CRM revenues is raising some critical attention.

• Fortune 500 List Shows Divides in Tech Industry

  When it comes to tech, the annual Fortune magazine ranking of the largest global companies shows Apple, Amazon.com and Google on the march, others stumbling around in a single-digit growth range, and a third group suffering falling revenues.

• RCPmag.com Gets Responsive

  In the housekeeping department, I should mention that RCPmag.com now has a responsive Web design.

• Amazon Launches Cert Program for Partners

  Amazon recently launched the Amazon Web Services Certification Program to give partners and customers access to training and validation for implementing systems and apps in Amazon's cloud.

• Microsoft Adjusts Partner Payouts for Office 365, Windows Intune

  Changes rolled out recently give Microsoft partners selling Office 365 and Windows Intune the maximum Partner of Record margin with a much smaller number of seats than were called for by Microsoft's original plan for this fiscal year.

• Microsoft Partners Joining Cloud Essentials in Droves

  New numbers released by Microsoft suggest the technology giant may finally be succeeding at persuading its huge channel to join its cloud effort.

• Microsoft CRM Is Now a Billion-Dollar Business

  Detailed estimates of Microsoft's CRM market share don't pop up every day, which is why a new report from market researchers at Gartner is a welcome bit of data.

• Kicking Off a Simpler Era in Office 365 Migrations?

  WEB EXCLUSIVE: Ex-Microsofties' startup called SkyKick automates the process for partners to sell, plan, provision, migrate, manage and set up Office 365.

• PartnerPulse Builds Social Platform for Microsoft Partners

  What can a group of partners together do better than one partner alone? When the goal is to improve visibility with search engines, the answer is to combine social engagement to move higher in rankings.