Intrepid reporters at Bloomberg look like they've solved a big mystery of the last week: Which giant HPE client cut server orders so dramatically that President and CEO Meg Whitman was compelled to bring up the setback in an investor call?
Citing anonymous sources, Bloomberg reported that the client was Microsoft, one of the biggest server buyers on the market as it continues its global buildout of Azure, Office 365, Dynamics 365 and other public cloud infrastructure and services. Microsoft and HPE did not offer on-the-record comments to the report. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on March 02, 20170 comments
Detachables may be slightly heavy on hype at the moment, according to a PC market researcher, but there's no denying that the sector that's drawing in a steady stream of new entries, such as one from HP over the weekend, has potential.
"Regardless of what marketers are saying, detachable tablets are simply not putting pressure on notebooks yet," said IDC analyst Jitesh Ubrani in a statement about the market research firm's latest PC market projections. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on February 27, 20170 comments
Tech Data Corp.'s acquisition of the Technology Business Solutions business of Avnet Inc. is complete, the distributor said on Monday.
The cost to Tech Data is $2.6 billion, which was the amount that Tech Data said it expected to pay when the companies originally announced the deal in September. Funding included $1 billion from Tech Data's recent public debt offering, $1 billion from bank term loans, $400 million from drawings under other credit facilities and cash on hand and nearly 2.8 million shares of Tech Data stock. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on February 27, 20170 comments
Microsoft's exclusive P-Seller partner community in the United States on Monday received 28 days' notice that they would be shut out of the Microsoft corporate network and moved to a new area of the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) portal, leading some partners to fear that many of the resources they regularly use to sell Microsoft solutions and escalate customer issues will be unavailable.
Partner Sellers, or P-Sellers, are among Microsoft's closest partners, and they help Microsoft drive significant revenue through co-selling engagements. In the United States, the invitation-only program includes 1,139 individuals from 289 managed partner organizations. Those individuals carry the P-SSP (Partner Solution Sales Professional) or P-TSP (Partner Technology Solutions Professional) designations. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on February 22, 20170 comments
Managed services entrepreneur Matt Nachtrab says he's getting the same feeling of disruptive possibility about eFolder's backup technology that he had about remote monitoring and management (RMM) back when he started LabTech Software.
The LabTech founder, who sold that company to ConnectWise and stayed at the professional services automation (PSA) giant until the LabTech integration was completed early last year, is officially joining eFolder this week as chief strategy officer. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on February 21, 20170 comments
In an effort to boost demand for its cloud-based backup and disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) technologies, Veeam Software and participating partners are offering up to $1,000 per customer worth of cloud product usage.
Spread across the company's base of 230,000 customers, Veeam executives say, the credits could amount to up to a $200 million giveaway. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on February 16, 20170 comments
Hosting and managed cloud services provider Rackspace is doubling down on its Microsoft commitments, at least in terms of earning Microsoft competencies.
Rackspace announced Thursday that it went from five Microsoft competencies a year ago to 10 competencies now.
More
Posted by Scott Bekker on February 16, 20170 comments
During its annual customer and partner conference this week, workflow and content automation platform vendor Nintex unveiled extended relationships with six key technology partners.
"Nintex is pleased to recognize our expanded partnerships with Adobe, Box, DocuSign, Dropbox, Microsoft and Salesforce -- all technology innovators driving digital transformation," said Nintex CEO John Burton in a statement. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on February 15, 20170 comments
When it comes to partnering with a tech giant like IBM, the options and programs can be overwhelming.
Which is why it makes sense that when IBM is trying to nudge its partners into the "cognitive era," the company would turn to Watson, its question-answering computer system. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on February 14, 20170 comments
Brad Smith sometimes uses his perch as Microsoft president and chief legal officer to draw disparate strands of tech, security, privacy, law and international relations together to make a larger point about emerging realities in the world.
He was at it again Tuesday at the RSA Conference in San Francisco, advancing a novel argument about the way cyberwar shuffles the responsibilities of nations, citizens, companies and soldiers. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on February 14, 20170 comments
Access problems with Microsoft's online partner resources, noted by several partners Tuesday morning, have been fixed, according to a Microsoft spokesperson.
"Some partners may have experienced difficulties accessing the Microsoft Partner Center, and this has been fully resolved," the spokesperson said in an e-mail exchange. The spokesperson declined to respond to follow-up questions about what caused the problems, which Microsoft resources were affected or how long any problems lasted. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on February 14, 20170 comments
Architects are the most expensive employee type for Microsoft Azure partners in most regions of the world, according to new Microsoft partner research.
Microsoft this month released details of a survey conducted in November of more than 1,100 Azure partners with active cloud practices worldwide. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on February 13, 20170 comments