IBM has thrown its weight behind the OpenStack project, joining the likes of heavyweights HP, Intel, Cisco and Dell.
- By Jeffrey Schwartz
- April 03, 2013
You've heard the warnings before, but they're ringing true: If you're not able to provide value-added services, you're probably not going to profit from your relationship with Microsoft.
- By Jeffrey Schwartz
- March 13, 2013
In the last three years, Microsoft has been involved in six botnet takedowns. This one, though, seems more personal.
- By Scott Bekker
- March 06, 2013
Growing businesses have problems. There are many resources to help you address those problems; the opportunity is for you to use them.
- By Ken Thoreson
- March 04, 2013
For channel partners, joining a community is essential to making their voices heard by the larger organizations they are partners with. But given the wide variety of communities in the channel, it can be a challenge for partners to know which ones suit them best.
- By Howard M. Cohen
- March 01, 2013
Active Directory took its first step into the cloud with Office 365, but Microsoft is upping the ante with free access control in the forthcoming Windows Azure Active Directory.
- By Jeffrey Schwartz
- January 31, 2013
Is your IT services firm's recent history a great growth story? Redmond Channel Partner and consultancy Revenue Rocket want to hear about it for the first-ever Excellence in Growth Award.
- By Scott Bekker
- January 09, 2013
As the recent ConnectWise conference demonstrated, the channel hasn't been made obsolete -- it's just gotten more evolved.
- By Howard M. Cohen
- December 12, 2012
Microsoft this month is releasing SharePoint 2013 to volume licensees, a move that sets the stage for partners to accelerate their customers' shift to the cloud.
- By Jeffrey Schwartz
- December 05, 2012
By spelling out the steps that great sales performers use intuitively, you can develop the rest of your sales staff.
- By Ken Thoreson
- December 03, 2012
Microsoft threw another wrench in the effort to define cloud computing when it ushered in its Cloud OS era with Windows Server 2012. But for partners, the new definition means that for once, they won't have to change as much as they thought.
- By Howard M. Cohen
- November 29, 2012
The release of Windows 8 and the launch of Office 2013 early next year promise to play a key role in bringing cloud computing to the mainstream.
- By Jeffrey Schwartz
- November 27, 2012
A key figure in several of Microsoft's biggest product releases in recent years, Steven Sinofsky has left the building. But that doesn't mean he won't be back.
- By Scott Bekker
- November 14, 2012
Microsoft launched the Surface RT tablet with a price tag that failed to impress. Surely, there's a reason for that.
- By Scott Bekker
- November 05, 2012
"Geographic generalist" partners that offer any services for anybody, anywhere, are a struggling breed.
- By Mike Harvath
- November 01, 2012
In reducing its ranks of partner-facing support personnel, Microsoft may be taking some pointers from the president of Howard's old company: "If you've got enough people to do the job, you have too many people."
- By Howard M. Cohen
- October 17, 2012
Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and Windows Server 2012 are making this a landmark year for Microsoft, but there's a chance that Redmond has waited too long.
- By Scott Bekker
- October 15, 2012
There are four key reasons Microsoft is touting its latest server as the start of a new cloud era. But will they be enough to seriously challenge VMware or Amazon?
- By Jeffrey Schwartz
- October 01, 2012
Know what ingredients in sales, marketing and operations must be measured to perform at optimal levels. A partner needs to track at least four metrics for each department.
- By Ken Thoreson
- October 01, 2012
As Microsoft moves ever closer to a subscription-based model, connecting with the right salesperson isn't just strategy -- it's key.
- By Mike Harvath
- September 26, 2012