Even More Reader Feedback

Why do we run reader feedback at RCPU? Well, for one thing, we love your contributions. OK, so you can always make them on the individual blog posts on the Web site, and we love when you do. But we love running your thoughts in the e-mail version of the newsletter because...well, because it's less work for your editor, who doesn't have to write as much. (Kidding, of course...mostly. Partly. A little. OK, not really.) More

Posted by Lee Pender on May 22, 20080 comments


Virtualization Nation

Let's try this again. Almost a year ago, we at RCPU launched a plea for you, the reader, to tell us your thoughts on virtualization -- what you're doing with it, what its potential is, what its weaknesses might be, whatever.

We got a few comments on the blog post itself -- which are always welcome and nice to see -- but, to our memory, the number of e-mails that rolled into your editor's inbox ended up being somewhere between zero and two. Of course, that was in 2007, eons ago, before RCP the magazine's sister publication, Virtualization Review, hit the stands for the first time.

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Posted by Lee Pender on May 21, 20080 comments


VMware, Citrix Battle on Virtual Desktop

Do these vendors coordinate this stuff, or are they spying on each other or something? In the same week, VMware, virtualization titan, and Citrix, virtualization challenger, released competing news about competing desktop virt (seriously, do we always have to call it virtualization?) products. Here's VMware's news More

Posted by Lee Pender on May 21, 20080 comments


HP, Wyse Think Thin

What's a virtual desktop infrastructure without thin client devices? HP and Wyse this week both released new thin clients designed to fit right in with the virtual desktop.

Posted by Lee Pender on May 21, 20080 comments


Hyper-V Release Candidate Struts Its Stuff

No matter how many times we write about this product or how many times we see the name, we'll never stop thinking that Hyper-V sounds like the name of a character from the '80s breakdancing classic Breakin' . (Or, if you prefer, Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo More

Posted by Lee Pender on May 21, 20080 comments


Yahoo Thing Not Over Yet

Yawn. Here's your obligatory Microsoft-Yahoo update for the week, in case you're still curious about that whole scenario.

Posted by Lee Pender on May 20, 20080 comments


AMD Machines Blocked from XP SP3

Microsoft has put the brakes on on some users with AMD-powered machines trying to update to XP SP3.

Maybe Microsoft has been reading some of our reader nightmare tales More

Posted by Lee Pender on May 20, 20080 comments


Microsoft Shares the SharePoint Wealth

SharePoint -- or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, or even MOSS -- is a hit. It's a moneymaker for Microsoft and a collaborative boon for customers. And while it was already a cash driver for partners, SharePoint just got a bit better for the channel.

Software Assurance subscribers can now take advantage of what Redmond is calling SharePoint Deployment Planning Services, a program that helps them deploy the popular SharePoint enterprise portal. SharePoint Deployment Planning Services is a little like a program that the Office team offers, apparently -- but, most importantly for the channel, it'll be partners who will be taking care of the bulk of the SharePoint assistance for customers.

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Posted by Lee Pender on May 20, 20080 comments


Microsoft Adds Partner Program Competencies

Microsoft, moving with the times and technology, has added three new competencies to its partner program: Business Intelligence, Unified Communications Solutions and Hosting Solutions. The details on all of them are available on the Partner Program Web site .

Posted by Lee Pender on May 15, 20080 comments


Springtime Reader Feedback

It's 70 degrees and sunny outside here in suburban Boston. That means that spring is here -- really, this time, we think -- and the snows of winter are gone again until December. OK, November. Or possibly late October.

Anyway, with flowers popping and allergies in full boom, we're going to let some of our reader e-mails blossom at RCPU. It's been a while since we've run reader feedback, so, like the grass and buds emerging from the blanket of winter, get ready for some e-mails that have waited a while to see the light of day. (Well, one, anyway -- the others are actually pretty recent. But we're running with a metaphor here.)

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Posted by Lee Pender on May 15, 20080 comments


Interactive Intelligence Wants To Feel Your Pain

RCPU had a visit this week with Interactive Intelligence, a vendor pretty much in the unified communications space, over Brazilian cuisine (read: meat) here in Framingham.

Interactive Intelligence has some useful stuff out, including an IP communications software platform that combines a bunch of capabilities normally addressed with separate boxes (think PBX, ACD, IVR, WFM and some other acronyms we're not totally sure we understand) into one software-based platform running on a single server. Two of the products based on that platform are now integrated with Microsoft's Office Communications Server.

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Posted by Lee Pender on May 15, 20080 comments


HP Rounds Up EDS

With Microsoft-Yahoo fizzing, another mega-acquisition that's actually happening is stealing the spotlight. HP is turning itself into (even more of) a services giant by snapping up EDS for $13.9 billion. Analysts and observers are setting the whole thing up as a big HP challenge to IBM More

Posted by Lee Pender on May 14, 20080 comments