Late Wednesday, Dell announced that
CEO
Kevin Rollins was out
in the wake of flagging company performance and market
share. Michael Dell will add the duties of CEO to his current title of chairman.
On Dell's agenda are two items affecting the channel. He wants to get Dell
more involved in providing consulting services to enterprise customers -- an
area where Dell has not had much presence. Meanwhile, he hinted that the company's
strict adherence to the direct-sales model may no longer be a sacred cow. Asked
about re-examining the direct sales model, The New York Times quoted Dell as
saying, "It is an interesting question. … That's where you'll see
new ideas and some experiments."
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Posted by Scott Bekker on February 01, 20070 comments
The deals to entice partners to pitch Microsoft's new Forefront security line
just got sweeter.
Microsoft on Thursday announced an increase in the advisory fees paid under
its Security Software Advisor (SSA) program and an expansion of the program
to include enterprise licensing agreements.
Microsoft is unaccustomed to paying such high percentages of its licensing
revenue back to partners who influence sales, although the company has some
similar programs in other product lines. Microsoft's preferred model involves
taking its own revenues from license sales, with a slight margin going back
to distributors, and leaving it up to partners to figure out how to add value
in consulting services, installation and maintenance services, hardware sales,
customization or add-on applications.
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Posted by Scott Bekker on December 14, 20061 comments
Jim Allchin finds himself in the hot seat again for something that emerged
in court. Back in the big Microsoft antitrust trial in the late 90s, Allchin
had some problems on the stand. Now the current co-president of the Microsoft
Platform Products and Services Division is explaining on the Windows Vista
Team Blog
why
he said in a 2004 e-mail
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Posted by Scott Bekker on December 12, 20060 comments
Microsoft hired the analysts at IDC to do an economic impact of Windows
Vista. We already knew it was going to be big, but IDC has formulas and
spreadsheets and models for this sort of thing. What IDC found: U.S.-based
Microsoft partners should sell about $70 billion in products and services
revolving around Windows Vista in 2007. That's above and beyond actual
Vista license revenue that goes straight back to Microsoft.
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Posted by Scott Bekker on December 12, 20060 comments
OK, I had thought this already happened. When Microsoft launched Windows
Vista, the 2007 Microsoft Office System and Exchange 2007 for business
customers on Nov. 30, Exchange wasn't really code complete. Now it is.
Microsoft
released Exchange 2007 to manufacturing
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Posted by Scott Bekker on December 12, 20060 comments
Microsoft is providing yet another piece of its software infrastructure for free with the launch today of Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007. See what customers will see about the new tool at
www.ideawins.com
. (Warning – hope you've had your coffee. The marketing music is immediate, and depending on your settings, a little loud.) Microsoft positions the tool as being for start-ups and small businesses that are upgrading from pen and paper or Excel-based accounting systems. For partners, Microsoft says the tool is an opportunity to upgrade clients to Office Accounting Professional 2007, the successor to Office Small Business Accounting 2006, and sell value-added services. Of course, the express version is available now, while the professional version won't come out until sometime in 2007. A trial version is supposed to fill the gap. Meanwhile, Microsoft is offering an array of third-party services for the express edition.
Posted by Scott Bekker on October 30, 20062 comments
Mark your calendar for the quarterly Action Pack Webcast on Nov. 6. Curiously, on the cusp of the Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 launches, the Action Pack presenters will be talking about Windows Server 2003 R2, Microsoft CRM 3.0 for Small Business and the Technical Demonstration Toolkit.
Registration page is here
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Posted by Scott Bekker on October 30, 20060 comments
One of the big new partner opportunities of the next few years is Microsoft's major move into enterprise security. In product terms, the push translates to the "Forefront" brand. This is one of those areas that Steve Ballmer identified during the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in July as a
"with us or against us"
decision for Microsoft partners. Lee Pender delved deeper into the issues surrounding Microsoft's security push in our
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Posted by Scott Bekker on October 30, 20060 comments
Microsoft held the fourth of its "BlueHat" security events Friday. These are those twice-a-year confabs where independent security researchers are invited to meet with Microsoft's senior executives and software engineers. Although the events are internal to Microsoft, the company publicizes what these security heavyweights talk about. At the very least, it tells you what Microsoft, the world's largest software company, is concerned with in terms of emerging security threats. Not a bad thing to pay attention to if security is any part of your business. Without further ado, Microsoft's current security obsessions, as revealed by the BlueHat speaker list:
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Posted by Scott Bekker on October 23, 20060 comments
Microsoft is marshalling some partner resources behind an interesting new licensing package that rolls together the fruits of a few of the software giant's recent acquisitions.
The company announced the Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance last week (Click here for Stuart Johnston's news article on the pack).
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Posted by Scott Bekker on October 23, 20061 comments
And you were having trouble keeping up with Microsoft product code names. Well, it turns out that secret (and possibly illegal) investigations of the source of leaks from board members to reporters are also subject to code names.
The Washington Post this morning reports that HP's investigation running from March 2005 to the summer of 2005 was called Kona 1. A second investigation, from January to May of this year, was called Kona 2. Congress will be looking into all these Konas Sept. 28.
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Posted by Scott Bekker on September 20, 20061 comments