Here's something you should know upfront: Your editor is not on Facebook, or
MySpace, or any of the popular social networking sites of the day. A few message
boards? Sure. E-mail? A lot. The Internet in general? Pretty much all the time.
But not the social networking sites. Why? Well, it's hard to see what they
deliver on top of everything else, other than providing little ego.com spaces
for most of the people on them (and most of your editor's friends are on them,
in case you were wondering). This relative luddite still gets by on e-mail and
occasionally via telephone without much problem.
However, social networking is the phrase on everybody's lips -- and fingertips
-- and has been for a while. That's certainly the case this week, as Microsoft
and a slew of partners are releasing
"Web 2.0" (whatever that really means) social networking applications.
What we're wondering is exactly what people are doing with work-related social
networking stuff, if anything so far. A couple of quotes from the Computerworld
story linked above make us wonder. Some of the stuff, we get. Let's go directly
to the story here:
"For example...a salesperson could use iGoogle with a WorkLight gadget
to receive updates about products from multiple back-end systems, including
those that show sales and product demand in a particular region. Then the
user could directly order products from iGoogle and have them shipped to a
particular customer..."
OK, that makes sense. It's a supply chain application, basically. We get that,
although we're not totally sure that it has anything to do with social networking,
per se (and, to be fair, the article didn't really label it as such). But then
there's this, again taken directly from the story:
"TownSquare is an enterprise news feed that allows users to receive
news about managers, friends and colleagues in one place, Microsoft said.
Microsoft also plans to announce a new open-source project for the development
of podcasting applications in SharePoint Server."
News about managers? Do we want this? Am I going to get an e-mail that says
something along the lines of, "Scott Bekker just got a haircut and is fairly
pleased with it, although he wishes the guy had taken more off the top"?
Or, "It took Anne Stuart two hours to get home last night because of traffic
on the highway"?
Seriously, we're sure that there's some use for social networking stuff in
the office, but we're not totally sure what it is. We'd like to hear from you.
If you're doing something interesting with social networking (and goofing around
on Facebook at work doesn't count), tell us your story at [email protected].
As always, we'll run the best of what we get here in RCPU.
Posted by Lee Pender on June 10, 20080 comments
There's the forest, and then there are the trees. Sometimes it's hard to see
one for the other. That seems to be the case right now with unified communications (UC).
With what? That's the question a lot of small to midsize business (SMB) owners
are probably asking themselves if they're reading this. bMighty.com,
a Web site for SMBs, recently released results of a survey
that revealed that SMB owners and IT folks aren't nearly as excited about UC
as some of us in the trade press and the channel are.
In fact, folks with SMBs mostly don't even know what UC is or what is meant
to be part of it -- but, thinking about it, do you? It's still kind of a nebulous
concept in a lot of ways, isn't it? And every vendor has a different definition.
So maybe that shouldn't be a surprise.
What might be a surprise, though, is that the main reason that SMBs are shunning
UC -- whatever they think it is -- is because they find it too expensive. That
means that the vendor and partner messaging about cost savings with UC isn't
resonating. In fact, all SMB owners see with UC is cost ... the "savings"
bit hasn't followed for most of them.
Not only that, but out in the world outside the tech industry, folks are still
discovering some new-fangled thing called Skype. So, there's work to be
done here. On one hand, UC simply needs to mature as a technology -- which it
will, as vendors shake out and the market begins to better define itself and
what it offers.
On the other hand, however, partners apparently need to do a better job communicating
-- and maybe understanding themselves -- the cost-saving benefits of UC. Until
that message goes through, they might continue to get a busy signal from customers.
Perhaps we in the industry see so many UC trees that we forget that customers
still feel lost in a telephony-messaging forest. It's time for partners to guide
their way.
Posted by Lee Pender on June 09, 20080 comments
Ever wonder who's really seeing those IMs that are always flying around your
office? Depending on which client you're using, they might be more public than
you think. Check out the comprehensive (we'll give CNET credit for this one)
review of IM security
here.
Posted by Lee Pender on June 09, 20080 comments
Is somebody plotting something dastardly in the background while you're on
Skype with your best friend in Europe or maybe virtually attending your family
reunion?
Could
be, apparently.
Posted by Lee Pender on June 09, 20080 comments
Steve Ballmer's talking retirement...but don't hold your breath. Ballmer's
days of daytime television and cross-country RV trips are still
a
decade or so away.
Posted by Lee Pender on June 05, 20080 comments
It's like the humidity that hangs in the air on a summer afternoon. Kind of
annoying but mostly non-threatening, and it's surely nothing that would actually
produce a rain cloud and ruin a cookout or a picnic. Right?
And then those clouds start to roll in, heavy and gray, slowly eating blue
from the sky. A few warning drops fall and then BAM! Cloudburst, rainstorm,
and you're scrambling to get your burgers and baked beans into the house before
everything gets all soggy.
Microsoft opened
an online store this week. Two, actually -- one in the U.K. and one in Germany.
Customers can buy Microsoft basics -- Office, Works, Vista (as if anybody would
want it) -- directly from Redmond through the new stores. There's no word yet
on when a U.S. store might open.
The new stores are just another small example of Microsoft bypassing its partners
and getting into the direct-sales business. Some of those examples, actually,
arguably aren't so small. For instance, Redmond is setting up its own shop to
host popular technologies such as Exchange and SharePoint, as well as Dynamics
CRM -- initiatives that effectively make the software titan a competitor with
certain members of its own channel.
But all of that's no big deal, right? After all, the old-fashioned, pure-play
reseller is about to become a thing of the past, and Microsoft doesn't really
have that many hosting partners, anyway. Besides, partners who want to succeed
in working with the new Microsoft need to focus on business process development
and customization and need to go vertical, like, yesterday.
That last sentence, at least, is what Microsoft keeps telling us, along with
repeating the mantra that the company is as committed as ever to its channel.
Mostly, we have little reason to doubt Redmond on those points. Microsoft's
600,000 partners are still the company's sales force and arguably its most valuable
asset. And Microsoft and partners alike seem to be doing pretty well right now,
despite a flagging economy. So, it's nothing to worry about, right? This humidity
hanging in the summer air?
Probably not. But...we hear rumblings from partners about how Microsoft is
distancing itself from them, setting up structures in the partner program that
make contact with key people the company harder, not easier. The direct contact
with product groups in Redmond that many partners used to enjoy is dwindling
(or has disappeared), we hear, in part, surely, because Microsoft's partner
base is bigger and ostensibly harder to manage than ever before, and maybe also
because Microsoft -- 80,000 employees strong -- is more of a battleship than
it has ever been before. One partner even characterized the partner program
itself as a buffer between Microsoft and its channel rather than a conduit for
communication.
Plus, Microsoft doesn't seem to have entirely figured out how to work partners
into its Software-as-a-Service plans, which will clearly be critical to the
company going forward. Customize, Redmond says, and build off what we're doing.
Again, that makes sense...but check out what one partner (to be fair, the same
one we quoted indirectly above) told RCPU last week about Microsoft's announcement
that it would host Exchange and SharePoint:
"Microsoft was incredibly quick at going to market and painting a
vision of how they are going to host these products on behalf of customers,
and they have yet to deliver a model on how their existing hosting partners
will be able to tie into that vision. They failed to create that marketing
message that really weaves the partners in. You see those partners gearing
up to go head to head with Microsoft, and that was unnecessary."
We've seen the same confusion, the same concern from partners over the last
couple of years over Microsoft's hosted CRM plans. The good news for partners
is that Microsoft remains probably the most channel-friendly company in the
industry. The other news -- we won't call it bad yet -- is that in its rush
to adopt SaaS, compete with the likes of Google and SAP, and pretty much be
everything to everybody, Microsoft has started to alienate part of its partner
base. And opening an online store, while probably totally innocuous for most
partners, isn't exactly a vote of confidence from Microsoft in the channel.
In fact, at least symbolically, it's just the opposite.
We're not sounding the tornado sirens here. We're not trying to cause a panic.
We're only saying that partners should keep an eye on what Microsoft's doing
with and without the channel and how it's going to affect them, and voice their
concerns to Redmond (if possible -- or, even better, tell us about them) if
they see things they don't like. The radar might be clear, but there's definitely
a little humidity in the air. You might just want to bring an umbrella to that
big summer cookout.
Are you concerned by Microsoft's moves to sell directly to enterprises and
consumers? Are you happy with the level of contact you have with Microsoft?
With how Microsoft treats the channel? Sound off at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on June 05, 20080 comments
Of course,
this
is only really important for those of you who don't already use Firefox.
Posted by Lee Pender on June 05, 20080 comments
Security titan Symantec is opening up its deal-registration program, appropriately
dubbed the Opportunity Registration program. (We just love when the name of
something describes what the thing is.) Primarily, the re-tooling of the program
gives Silver Partners the opportunity to receive a discount on approved registrations;
that perk was previously limited to partners at a higher level in the program.
"We realized these are partners that are really key to our mid-market,
and some of the deal sizes are large enough that they should qualify,"
said Julie Parrish, vice president of Symantec's Global Channel Office.
Parrish noted that, in some cases, Silver Partners who initiated deals weren't
getting the same compensation that some of their larger counterparts were enjoying
from the same deals later on.
"We should reward the partner that's in there first," she told RCPU.
"They got there first. They opened the door." Parrish said that Symantec
has between 18,000 and 20,000 Silver Partners.
Symantec has also increased the program's payment cap from $250,000 to $1 million,
although Parrish said that even deals that reach the quarter-million-dollar
cap are rare.
"It's a little bit more of an emotional issue than a realistic one. It's
possible that these deals would have been going to the competition," she
said, noting that deals partners bailed on because they feared not getting enough
compensation from Symantec were "very few" in number. "We want
to make sure partners feel confident they can participate and are going to get
what they deserve."
Posted by Lee Pender on June 05, 20080 comments
It's not those nasty hackers from outside the company CIOs worry about, but
instead
those
disgruntled employees inside, a new survey reveals.
So, whatever you do, try to keep your employees, um, gruntled.
Posted by Lee Pender on June 04, 20080 comments
At some point back in the late '90s -- we're thinking 1998 or so -- Quark put
out an acquisition bid for competitor Adobe. Adobe was struggling a bit at the
time, and although Quark's bid ultimately (and obviously) failed, there were
rumors that Adobe might be ripe for the picking.
Your editor covered the story for a different publication (again, obviously,
as RCP didn't exist back then) and wrote some snappy prose, we'd like
to say. But one competitor -- we honestly don't remember who, but please step
forward if you're out there -- won the battle for best lede (first sentence)
in an online story about the whole Quark-Adobe matter. He wrote: "When
blood is in the water, sharks will gather."
Adobe avoided the Quark shark and went on to (more) great things. But the shark
metaphor struck us today when we read about new
competition for Microsoft Office from IBM and...well, Adobe, actually.
Supposedly, Office is bleeding a bit. We keep reading suggestions around the
Web that Office's money-making parade is about
to get rained on by the cloud-based applications coming out of Google and
now IBM and Adobe. Microsoft, meanwhile, still doesn't have a true hosted version
of Office on offer, although Redmond seems to be working on something
kind of, sort of similar-ish.
As we've said here before, we're not so convinced that Office is bleeding or
that it'll be all that easy to give up, even if the competition offers applications
for free. A lot of companies have a lot of investment in Office both in terms
of development and basic user familiarity, and anybody who thinks it's easy
to get users to change their everyday habits should hear some of the more harrowing
tales of enterprise resource planning implementations. People like what they
know. Plus, hosted anything is still a proposition rife with potential pitfalls
in the enterprise.
Still, we're always fans of lighter, cheaper software here, and if Google,
IBM and Adobe can push Microsoft to create a true hosted version of Office or
at least something a bit less expensive and not so cumbersome, great. We're
just not convinced that the would-be sharks are smelling any blood yet, much
less sinking their teeth into the Office franchise.
Is the future of Microsoft Office -- and all software -- something that's online
for free? Answer at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on June 04, 20080 comments
Somebody at Microsoft -- namely honcho grande Kevin Johnson -- finally realized
that the company's "Live" branding means...well, nothing, really,
and is just a little bit confusing.
So, Johnson and Microsoft's marketers are out to fix
the company's online branding, and he's left us with a mildly funny quote
to boot (from this
PC World story):
"'When we made the bid for Yahoo, the full combination of those companies
would have created a whole different set of brand opportunities for our marketing
teams to solve,' he said. 'Since we've moved forward in not pursing a full
combination at this time, our marketing teams are liberated to go solve that
brand problem.'"
Liberated! What? Are they casting off chains? Are they burning their bras?
What on earth has Microsoft been doing to these people so that they needed to
be "liberated" before coming up with something better than "Live"
for everything that involved the Internet?
Really, we wonder what's going on in that big Redmond compound sometimes.
Posted by Lee Pender on June 04, 20080 comments