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."
By the way, I saw Rollins on stage with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Microsoft
Chairman Bill Gates at the Windows Vista launch just three days ago in New York.
He looked as serene as ever at the time.
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.
What's different here is that Microsoft is angling to take a big piece of the
enterprise security market from major competitors, and that's the way business
is done in this market. While Microsoft has been selling Internet Security &
Acceleration Server for some time, it is new to the market with the Antigen
product line it acquired from Sybari and its Forefront brand of enterprise security
software.
When the SSA program launched in July, Microsoft's advisory fees topped out
at 20 percent, although partners who signed on to the program in the first 90
days were eligible for an additional 10 percent. Now that 30 percent is a permanent
fixture of the program. Originally, the agreement only covered purchases under
the Open, Select A and Select B licensing programs. Now the advisory fees are
also available to partners with customers purchasing Forefront products under
Select C, Select D and Enterprise Agreements.
To qualify for the fee, a partner must belong to the Security Software Advisor
program. There are currently 1,700 partners in the program. To join the program,
a partner must be a Registered Member of the Microsoft Partner Program and have
either the Security Solutions Competency or be a member of the former Sybari
partner program or a top-tier member of another security vendor's partner program.
You can read Microsoft's announcement here.
See Lee Pender's feature
on Microsoft's security strategy from the Redmond Channel Partner magazine
November issue.
Is Microsoft making the right moves to help you sell its fledgling enterprise
security software? I'd like to hear your opinion at [email protected].
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 that he'd buy a Mac if he didn't work for
Microsoft. The e-mail came to light in an Iowa court case.
I completely buy Allchin's explanation that he was ranting for effect
to get the Vista project back on track. But, geez, Microsoft as a company
has probably had as many e-mails turned over to the courts as any company.
You'd think he'd know better than to commit something that embarrassing
to e-mail for the record.
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.
Another finding of the survey: Those partners are investing about $10
billion to get their solutions and services ready for Vista. IDC estimates
there will be about 100,000 new U.S. jobs as a result of Vista in 2007.
One other tidbit: IDC estimates that for every $1 spent on Vista, customers
spend another $18 on IT. Sounds good for the channel, but those numbers
wouldn't make me very happy if I were a CIO. According to IDC, the $18
breaks down to $9.75 on hardware, $4.60 on software and $3.65 on services.
Click here to read the RCPmag.com news article on the study, which includes
a link to the full, 14-page PDF document from IDC.
Do you feel like Microsoft has done its part to get you in the channel
ready to reap this windfall? I'd like to hear your thoughts at [email protected].
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 late last week. Accompanying
Exchange in the RTM was Forefront Security for Exchange Server. That's
the rebranded product based on Sybari Antigen for Exchange.
Posted by Scott Bekker on December 12, 20060 comments
It's the second Tuesday of the month. It
must be Patch Tuesday.
The
last Patch Tuesday of the year is a doozy, with seven new security
bulletins -- three of them critical. That's one more security bulletin
than the company promised last week in its
Advance
Bulletin Notification Service, when the company tells the IT world
what to expect on Patch Tuesday.
According to Symantec Security Response, the most critical bulletin of
the bunch is the one providing a cumulative patch for Internet Explorer.
The patch fixes a client-side code execution vulnerability. Says Oliver
Friedrichs, director of Symantec Security Response, "Today's release
from Microsoft reconfirms that client-side vulnerabilities are one of
the most efficient and well known methods by which computers can become
infected, therefore users are urged to install patches as soon as possible."
This Patch Tuesday has been closely watched by security experts because of the existence of a couple of zero-day exploits involving a couple of Microsoft Word flaws. Microsoft wasn't able to pull a patch together in this batch for those problems.
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.
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
cover story for November.
If you want to know more about where Microsoft is going with enterprise server security, the company has scheduled two Forefront Webcasts for next week. Joe Licari, who came to Microsoft with the acquisition of security product vendor Sybari, will talk about the value and opportunities of the Forefront servers on Nov. 8 at 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Pacific Time. Peter Eicher will follow up on Nov. 9 at 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Pacific Time with a technical drilldown. Click here for more information (Microsoft Partner Program registration required to access this site).
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:
The security of Skype, the free, peer-to-peer Voice-over-IP application.
Wireless driver vulnerabilities and hardware virtualization rootkits.
I-Worm.Fuzzer, a representative of a new class of virus.
Microsoft also heard from Josh Lackey, who specializes in breaking wireless protocols, and Dan Kaminsky, director of Pen Test for IOActive. One of Kaminsky's recent assignments was eight months on the external penetration test team for Windows Vista. Microsoft didn't reveal what Lackey or Kaminsky talked about.
For a little more detail on the event, see Microsoft's TechNet page here.
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).
Basically, Microsoft is presenting some slick new ways for Software Assurance customers to access four products that Microsoft now owns: Softricity Softgrid for dynamic delivery of virtual applications, AssetMetrix Asset Inventory Service, the Winternals IT Admin Pak for desktop repair and Desktop Standard's GPO Vault for providing change management to Group Policy.
The pack is like a tour of Microsoft's recent acquisition spree. Microsoft announced plans to purchase AssetMetrix on April 26, Softricity on May 26, Winternals on July 18 and Desktop Standard on Oct. 2.
Here's the official Microsoft take on the partner opportunity in the pack: "The optimization pack extends the value of the Microsoft Windows Vista Enterprise benefits within Software Assurance. It can help you increase your licensing services revenue from existing deployment practices by delivering a strong customer value proposition."
The Microsoft Partner Program site has more detail on how to sell the package, along with a customer-ready presentation, a customer-ready FAQ and customer-ready data sheets on each technology component. You can view the page here (MSPP registration required).
I've been a fan of Softricity technology for a long time. I'm glad to see Microsoft thinking creatively about ways to spread this technology, along with the worthy technology from Winternals, Desktop Standard and Asset Metrix, far and wide.
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.
Meanwhile, there was much more to these investigations than "pretexting," or posing as someone else in order to obtain that person's phone records from a phone company. The investigations included physical surveillance, photographs, an effort to install a keylogger on a reporter's computer and an attempt to recover a laptop that had been stolen from board member/confirmed leaker George Keyworth. Presumably, investigators weren't looking for the laptop so they could give it back to George.
Posted by Scott Bekker on September 20, 20061 comments