Everybody take a deep breath. One technology bellwether is reporting -- or
pre-reporting -- mostly good financial news. HP says that next week's earnings
report will
beat
Wall Street analysts' estimates
.
Posted by Lee Pender on November 19, 20080 comments
Google Apps seems to be
making
headway
with small businesses, but not as much headway as its open source
competitor,
OpenOffice
.
Posted by Lee Pender on November 18, 20080 comments
Microsoft wants to be a player in Software-as-a-Service, or cloud computing,
or Web 2.0, or whatever the pundits are calling the off-premises, datacenter-hosted
enterprise computing model this week. So why does it feel as though Redmond
is dragging itself into this new model?
Take this week's launch
of Exchange Online and SharePoint Online for the cloud. In theory, this should
be simple. Customers sign up for hosted Exchange and SharePoint, pay a monthly
fee, open a browser and start working, right? Isn't that more or less what SaaS
is supposed to be? Well, not exactly. Check out this Microsoft quote from this
story:
More
Posted by Lee Pender on November 18, 20080 comments
Remember the "Vista Capable" ("Incapable" would have been
more appropriate) lawsuit that dredged up a slew of
tasty
e-mails
a few months back? Well, now there's more where that came from...and
this time
it's
HP
More
Posted by Lee Pender on November 18, 20080 comments
Before we get started today, I'm going to drop the first-person plural because
I need to tell you that I messed something up, and it's kind of embarrassing.
Oh, it's not that big of a deal, really, but a couple of readers (Jeffrey and
Walt) noticed a boneheaded move in the first entry in
last
Thursday's RCPU
More
Posted by Lee Pender on November 18, 20080 comments
This week's
entry
about a Microsoft hosting deal with Telstra in Australia has a couple of our
antipodean readers buzzing. We chose to comment on this story because we figured
it would have some universal indicators for how SaaS is going to affect the
channel worldwide.
But for folks in Australia, the issue is immediate, and the responses were
passionate. (And for those of you not in Australia, which is probably most of
you, try to imagine how your fellow travelers in the channel are feeling because
you might end up feeling much the same way.) So, here we go. Let's start with
Ken -- who identifies himself as an IT manager -- in Melbourne (and, FYI, we've
Americanized the English for the home folks):
More
Posted by Lee Pender on November 13, 20080 comments
WEBS and SBS 2008 -- much ballyhooed, and, yes, we're using that word a lot
this week -- are
finally
out
, just in time for the nasty part of the recession.
Posted by Lee Pender on November 13, 20080 comments
Don't freak out or anything, but we don't remember seeing anything
like this coming from Redmond before -- at least not recently. Partner Program
Chief Allison Watson sent an e-mail to Program members this morning, giving
them tips on how to sell in a bad economy and filling them in a bit on the new
Azure platform.
It's a very upbeat
and totally pragmatic message, and it's totally appropriate and welcome
at a time like this. This is Microsoft and the Partner Program demonstrating
leadership at a time when partners need it -- and that's exactly the kind
of thing the channel should welcome, especially during an economic downturn.
More
Posted by Lee Pender on November 13, 20081 comments
It's a new storage deal for the monster distributor.
Here's
the press release.
Posted by Lee Pender on November 13, 20082 comments
OK, so the
news
isn't great...but it could be much, much worse.
Posted by Lee Pender on November 13, 20080 comments
Ever heard of Searete LLC? How about Intellectual Ventures? The company names
might be unfamiliar, but chances are you've heard of the people (
like
Bill Gates
, for instance) behind these patent-seeking firms.
Posted by Lee Pender on November 12, 20087 comments