Microsoft on Wednesday announced the release to manufacturing of System Center
Data Protection Manager 2007, the company's disk and tape backup and recovery
server for Microsoft application and file servers.
New features since the DPM 2006 release include support for Exchange Server
2003 and 2007, including clustered configurations and restoration at the Exchange
database, storage group or mailbox level; support for SQL Server 2000 and 2005,
including mirrored clusters; and support for Microsoft SharePoint, both MOSS
2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.
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Posted by Scott Bekker on October 18, 20071 comments
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates put the private branch exchange (PBX) in Microsoft's
crosshairs during his unified communications keynote on Tuesday.
"This is a complete transformation of the business of the traditional
PBX. The PBX in some ways is almost like the mainframe was many years ago where
all of the functionality was there in that one piece. And the way that you had
flexibility to add value, to customize, to bring in third parties to do new
things, it just isn't there in that structure. And so by moving phone calls
onto the Internet, using the powerful industry standard servers, we've got a
very different way of being able to do things," Gates said.
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Posted by Scott Bekker on October 17, 20070 comments
Microsoft at last rolls out its unified communications opportunity, and partners
might ask, "Just how big is it?" At this point, I don't know, and
nobody else does either. But here are the numbers Microsoft is throwing around.
I'll pass them along without endorsement.
In a published Q&A with some strategic partners, Microsoft pinned the total
revenue opportunity of the unified communications market at $45 billion.
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Posted by Scott Bekker on October 17, 20070 comments
I'm not the only one who sees a huge systems integration revenue opportunity
coming from Microsoft's stack of unified communications products launched Tuesday.
According to Microsoft Business Division President Jeff Raikes, 793 partners
achieved the Unified Communications Specialization in the Microsoft Partner
Program over the last four months.
For the record, the UC Specialization is part of the Information Worker Competency
educational effort. Requirements include three customer references and two employees
or contractors who have each passed any one of seven exams.
Posted by Scott Bekker on October 17, 20070 comments
Tuesday was the huge Microsoft Unified Communications blowout in San Francisco.
If you're looking for a solid overview of the products and technologies involved,
surf on over to Keith Ward's comprehensive news story
here
.
My overriding impression from the festivities? I look at the software stack
Microsoft is putting forward for these solutions, and I can see why the channel
has been eager for Microsoft to get into unified communications.
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Posted by Scott Bekker on October 17, 20071 comments
The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for Microsoft and Best Buy Co.
to be sued under a law originally created to help federal prosecutors bring
down the mafia. The ruling stems from a class-action civil lawsuit by a northern
California man, James Odom. He bought a laptop at Best Buy in 2003 that included
a six-month MSN trial CD. Odom's attorneys allege that Best Buy signed Odom
up for an MSN account with the credit card Odom used to pay for the computer,
and Microsoft began charging him for the MSN service six months later. The lawsuit
is filed under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
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Posted by Scott Bekker on October 16, 20070 comments
Tech Data Corp., kicking off its major business partner engagements for 2008,
plans to launch a series of six regional channel conferences. The Clearwater,
Fla.-based distributor of IT products will hold "Technology Solutions Tour"
stops in the Northeast, Chicago, Washington, D.C., California and Orlando.
Some of Tech Data's existing events will be held in conjunction with the tour,
such as the TechEDG Government and Education Services Conference. Tech Data
hopes to bring together hundreds of resellers at each event with the company's
vendor business partners to highlight emerging opportunities. Keep an eye on
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Posted by Scott Bekker on October 16, 20070 comments
Distribution giant Ingram Micro Inc. is inserting itself into the partner-to-partner
trend that channel analysts say is so hot this year. Yesterday, at its fall
VentureTech Network Invitational conference in Las Vegas, Ingram Micro announced
two online networking resources for its partners.
The first is "The Zone," online business-to-business social networking
sites that are supposed to facilitate partner-to-partner networking among Ingram
Micro's solution provider communities. There will be a separate section for
each of Ingram Micro's four communities: VentureTech Zone, SMB Alliance Zone,
System ArchiTECHS Zone and GovEd Alliance Zone.
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Posted by Scott Bekker on October 16, 20070 comments
Microsoft's OEM chief, Scott Di Valerio, is leaving the company to join Chinese
computermaker Lenovo. Di Valerio will be senior vice president at Lenovo and
president of the Americas Group.
Di Valerio, 45, starts his new job on Dec. 3. He'll report to William Amelio,
president and CEO of Lenovo Group Ltd. Di Valerio will be responsible for sales
for the Americas. He replaces Rory Read, acting president since January 2007.
Read will continue his position as senior vice president for global operations.
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Posted by Scott Bekker on October 06, 20070 comments
An effort to connect partners with customers on Microsoft's Web site is gathering a slight head of steam. One instance is Microsoft's Solution Finder, which the company launched in March of 2006.
Solution Finder is a customer-facing directory of partner solutions that appears in many places on the Microsoft Web site. It's also intended as a master directory of partner solutions -- consolidating the many such directories that exist across Microsoft.com.
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Posted by Scott Bekker on July 11, 20070 comments
The Microsoft Small Business Specialist Community (SBSC) is on the march, with 80 percent growth in the number of new partners reported over the last year, according to Allison Watson, corporate vice president for Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Group.
At the Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver, Watson said there are now 4,200 members of the SBSC in the United States and 12,800 members worldwide.
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Posted by Scott Bekker on July 11, 20070 comments
There's been a lot of buzz over the last few months about "Octane." It's the code-name for the unspecified changes coming to the Microsoft Partner Program (MSPP). And we've all been expecting those changes to be announced, presumably, at the
Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC)
, which is happening this week.
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Posted by Scott Bekker on July 11, 20070 comments