It seems hard to believe, but for six months one of the most basic functions in business -- printing a PDF -- wasn't possible from Adobe's official Windows 8 Reader app. (For that entire time, it was possible to print from the Reader app built in to Windows 8.)
Just ahead of the operating system's six-month anniversary on April 26, Adobe posted an update in the Windows Store to support printing in Adobe Reader Touch for Windows 8.
In an announcement posted on an Adobe message board April 11, Dennis Griffin, the principal product manager for Adobe Reader for Tablets and Smartphones, wrote, "We have just released an update that addresses the most popular request we've heard, the need for Printing. Update your app from the Windows Store to get this latest capability, and continue to let us know what you need most!"
Griffin's terse, upbeat announcement doesn't mention what caused the delay in one of the most basic of functions.
Printing PDFs has been possible from Windows 8's built-in Reader app in Windows 8, which has more robust options to start with than the Windows Store app. However, users who installed the Adobe App early on in their Windows 8 experience sometimes ended up defaulting to the Adobe Reader Touch app without realizing there was a built-in option.
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 18, 20131 comments
Continuum brought on Mark Zahar last August to make a difference for its MSP partners.
"A number of our partners expressed a critical need for help in marketing and sales to help them scale their business," said Steve Ricketts, vice president of marketing at the Boston-based MSP-solution provider company.
Zahar, who had spent the previous decade helping build an online marketing company called Prospectiv, joined Continuum in August, but he didn't come in with a to-do list. He spent months talking to partners and the SMB customers who buy Continuum partners' services.
"We went out and not only talked to MSPs on how they sell, but we spent a lot of time with SMBs on how they buy SMB services. It was an important part of the process," said Zahar, vice president of channel marketing and community development at Continuum.
In that time Zahar found out a few things about SMB customers. "They don't really understand technology. What these SMBs understand is, 'How do I make sure my technology is running at top speed?' They don't want their customers to have an issue," he said.
At the same time, the MSP partners are pulled in many different directions and usually break a fundamental maxim of marketing, which is a steady stream of effort. "They realize they need to do a lot more around marketing, but they're dealing with mission-critical systems, hiring, employee issues, clients. It doesn't leave them a lot of time to do sales and marketing," Zahar said. "They put one bullet in the gun. They take one shot, and they miss, and they don't do it again."
A lot of vendors provide their channel partners with collateral that those partners can tweak with their own brand. Zahar found that customizable collateral is actually another marketing stumbling block. The requirement to go in and change the materials just puts it in the pile of things that partners, especially some of the lean MSPs that serve the SMB market, don't find time to do.
Continuum's new approach is Marketing Advantage, a program that will launch on April 23. The program requires a brief onboarding process that involves loading a company logo and color scheme into Continuum's system, along with the company's information. Partners also upload their customer and prospect lists into Continuum's database, although Zahar said that information is partitioned and will not be used by Continuum except to send out campaigns on the partner's behalf.
From there, Continuum's system starts sending out information on a regular basis to SMB prospects -- a steady drip of business-relevant information that keeps the partner's name in front of the prospect. "We're talking to an owner of a business about things that are relevant to them. What we're not doing is sending a message around 'Why RMM' or 'Why BDR' or 'Why help desk,'" Zahar said.
Meanwhile, the steady stream of information ensures the partner is top of mind for the customer when their system goes down, which is the time that SMBs "pull the trigger" on MSP-related purchases, Zahar said.
The system also routes inbound information requests and integrates with social media and CRM systems, including Microsoft Dynamics. Continuum is charging partners $500 a month to participate with a six-month commitment. As part of the onboarding process, Continuum works with a telemarketing firm to collect 100 pre-qualified leads on behalf of the MSP to help populate the database.
"The reason that we're doing this is to help our partners scale and grow," Ricketts said.
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 17, 20130 comments
Kaseya is embracing a freemium model to expand the customer base for its cloud services.
The remote monitoring and management tools vendor this week released a set of five SaaS IT tools that are free solutions for very specific IT headaches.
Kaseya goes to market in two ways -- mainly through its 6,000 partners, mostly managed services providers, and directly to corporate IT departments. Liz Lederer, senior vice president of Kaseya field marketing channel programs, said in an interview that the company believes the new tools will help MSP partners add net new customers.
"Having these free tools now is actually a great thing for our partners because our partners could use them as door openers or for planting the seeds with some of their customers. There could be just a particular problem that they're looking to solve. Or there could be a particular piece of our technology that they're looking to add into their portfolio of management solutions," Lederer said.
Gerald Beaulieu, vice president of product marketing at Kaseya, said the five SaaS IT tools are only an initial set and more will be coming.
"Our initial release is focused on auditing and security, because in many ways they kind of go hand in hand," Beaulieu said.
The immediately available tools are File Share Audit, User Audit, Software Audit, Security Audit and Windows Patch Management. All of the tools require only an e-mail address to set up and can be used to manage up to 1,000 computers.
"We're starting to carve out specific areas of our product that we can deliver to IT professionals or that our channel partners can sell ultimately to end customers that address specific pain points that they're having with those organizations," Beaulieu said.
"They may not need an entire platform to address the one issue. So what this does is it says, 'Hey, let's address that pain point through a tool.' It could be a free offering; it could be a paid offering. Get them in the family, let them see the benefits that we can offer, and then over time hopefully we can bring them up to our complete solution," he said. "And if not, if that one tool solves their pain point forever, then that's fine. So there will be some that will move up the stack and some that will stay."
The free tools use the same agent that Kaseya normally installs for its full RMM and other products, meaning that should customers chose to upgrade, it's just a matter of turning on the existing functionality, Beaulieu said.
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 11, 20130 comments
Ingram Micro is demoing a revamped insourcing platform this week at the distributor's Cloud Summit in Phoenix.
Launched Monday, the platform is called IM Link. Like the programs it replaces, the Ingram Micro Services Network (IMSN) and the IM Onsite platform, IM Link is designed to allow North American Ingram Micro partners to round out their capabilities for one-off business deals by contracting with authorized services partners that can perform white-labeled work.
Jason Bystrak, director of sales for Ingram Micro's Services Division in North America described IM Link as "IMSN on steroids."
Key improvements to the 15-year-old IMSN are a broader range of professional services and enhanced automation.
Service areas now offered by Ingram Micro partners to other Ingram Micro partners through IM Link include planning, implementation, management and support. The automation of the online platform now brings together searches for partner capabilities, the ability to manage workflows and tools for conducting financial transactions.
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 10, 20130 comments
Backup vendor Datto Inc. this week unveiled a major revamp of its partner program, including a new partner portal, expanded support for partners and the introduction of a partner conference.
According to Datto CEO and Founder Austin McChord, the portal overhaul and other changes have been under development for more than a year, with substantial partner input along the way. "These tools are something we have been working on for a long time," McChord said in a statement.
The portal features an enhanced user interface and features that include the ability for partners to track and get reports on the Datto hardware devices they run or have deployed with customers.
Support has been expanded in both hours and in headcount. Starting next Monday, Datto will offer partners 24-hour live support by U.S.-based technicians from Monday through Friday. Additionally, the company is spinning up a new Quick Start Install Service. In that program, a Datto sales engineer will help partners with the full installation of their first Datto SIRIS or Datto SIRIS Lite implementation.
The company is also joining the list of channel-focused vendors hosting their own partner conferences. The first of what Datto says will be an annual event will occur Sept. 11 -13 in Washington, D.C.
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 10, 20130 comments
Mobility solutions are getting more important to the channel every day, and Tech Data Corp. has been focusing more and more on mobile.
The effort included a joint venture between Brightstar and Tech Data to create the TDMobility infrastructure and numerous agreements with Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T and Sprint that allow resellers to supply and configure mobile devices on the customers' carrier of choice.
Now, Tech Data is creating a centralized partner education resource to match the other investments the company has been making in mobility solutions.
The Clearwater, Fla.-based distributor on Monday announced its TDMobility University on Monday. The portal's partner resource includes online training videos for products, sales, mobile strategy, mobile policy, mobile security and mobile device management. The portal also includes sales resources, such as white-labeled presentations, meeting scripts and e-mail templates.
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 08, 20130 comments
With Windows XP exactly one year out from its support retirement date today, Microsoft marked the milestone with a new deal that involves partners.
As Microsoft has repeatedly reminded partners for the last several years, Windows XP support completely ends on April 8, 2014. The same date portends the end of support for Office 2003.
In a blog post today, Microsoft announced a Get2Modern offer. Under the deal, small and medium businesses that buy Windows 8 Pro and Office Standard 2013 together get up to 15 percent off the upgrade. To qualify for the deal, customers need to buy through the Open License program by June 30, 2013, and they need to contact a partner for pricing.
The page links to the Pinpoint directory, but there doesn't appear to be much guidance built into the search. Partners would do well, as always, to reach out to customers on their own to let them know about this opportunity.
The SMB-focused deal is in effect for up to 249 seats each of Windows 8 Pro and Office 2013 Standard editions.
Editor's Note: An earlier version of the story noted that Microsoft originally posted conflicting figures for the maximum number of seats for the offer. The correct number is 249 and both Microsoft pages now reflect that number of seats.
Related:
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 08, 20133 comments
Now that it's April 2013, that means there are approximately 365 shopping days until the official end of support for Windows XP.
All of Microsoft's many customers for Windows XP, which was on sale between 2001 and 2010, must be off the OS by April 8, 2014. To paraphrase what they say in the bar at closing time: "You don't have to go to Windows 8, but you can't stay here."
The doorway could get crowded in the rush for the exits. As of March, data from Net Applications still put Windows XP market share at 39 percent of all PCs worldwide.
In technical terms, Microsoft is ending extended support for Windows XP. That means no more public, paid support per incident, per hour or otherwise; no more security updates; and no more guarantees that there will be Windows XP information in the Microsoft Knowledge Base or in other online resources. Some large customers had hoped for an out in something called custom support contracts. Analysts at Gartner Inc. have discouraged customers from going that route, arguing that the contracts cost more than customers commonly anticipate and that an upgrade to Windows 7 (Gartner's recommended post-Windows XP path) may actually cost less.
In any case, partners can anticipate another reminder in a few months at the annual Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC). Each of the last two years, Microsoft executives have told partners how many days remain until Windows XP support ends. When the WPC starts July 8, there will be 275 days left.
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 03, 20134 comments
DataCore Software on Monday compressed its channel program for storage virtualization partners from three levels to one and increased its standards, while simultaneously boosting investment in partner margins, marketing funds, training and sales engineers.
The moves come as enterprise demand for storage virtualization solutions is beginning to take off, Steve Houck, COO for the Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based company, said in a phone interview.
While it may seem counterintuitive to respond to an expanding market opportunity by exercising more control over the number of partners representing the product, Houck, who joined DataCore last year, said the specialized nature of the emerging market requires close engagement.
"The prior program had tiers -- bronze, silver, gold. It was fairly open. It had a level of technical certification. What we found was we needed to adapt the program based on what was happening in the market," Houck said.
The new Premier Partner Program for the Americas has one level and will be invite-only. In the Americas, DataCore has about 100 partners, with 10 of them considered very active. The company is in touch with another 20 to 30 partners that it's hoping to add this year in the region, which includes Canada, the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean.
According to Houck, there are several characteristics of a successful DataCore partner on the SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor platform, which covers VMware, Citrix and Microsoft hypervisors, and commonly supports Exchange, SharePoint and SQL Server workloads, along with SAP and Oracle workloads.
"Number one is that the partner principle understands the strategic value of having a storage virtualization practice," Houck said. Another foundation is that the partner has done server virtualization, which means they have customers who are beginning to experience challenges related to integrating both hardware and software from multiple storage vendors. Partners working to solve those types of enterprise issues also tend to be exploring SSD and flash storage options for speed, which is an area where DataCore's software is a fit, Houck said.
The emerging nature of those requirements means that both the partners and vendors like DataCore are seeking one another out even as they are separately discovering customers' pain points. "There's no storage virtualization community that we go recruit," Houck said.
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 01, 20130 comments
A month after expanding the billing options for partners around Office 365, Microsoft is offering broad training to help partners make sense of the new rules and connect with distributors.
On March 1, Microsoft released Office 365 for Open licensing and for Full Package Product (FPP) sales. For years, partners had been asking for the Open licensing portion, which will allow the channel to bundle Office 365 into other services and handle customer billing.
Still, the new billing comes with its own complexities, including new and sometimes counterintuitive SKUs. Starting last week and continuing through June, Microsoft is offering a webcast series every Wednesday at 10 a.m. ET to help partners sort out whether to use the pre-existing advisor model, in which Microsoft bills customers and partners get partner of record fees, the Office 365 Open option or FPP.
Distributors Ingram Micro, Tech Data, Synnex and D&H will contribute content for the calls. More information is available here. The sessions will also include offers and incentives for partners new to Office 365 sales.
Related:
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 01, 20131 comments
Remember to submit your entries for the RCP/Rocket Award. This award is a joint creation of Redmond Channel Partner magazine and Revenue Rocket Consulting Group. We're recognizing and honoring excellence in growth. The RCP/Rocket Award will be awarded to up to three IT services companies whose innovative business strategies have resulted in sustained growth over a three-year period.
Submissions are due May 1. You can find more details here. Send your submissions or your questions to me at [email protected].
Posted by Scott Bekker on March 28, 20130 comments
A billion "smart connected devices" shipped in 2012, but the four types of devices that make up that overall International Data Corp. definition are on radically different trajectories.
Desktop PCs occupy a bitter plateau, declining slowly but rapidly losing share compared to an overall market expected to more than double to 2.2 billion device shipments by 2017, according to IDC's latest forecasts released this week. Portable PCs are in a slightly better place, and looking forward to decent share gains over the next five years.
Steamrolling both of those categories are tablets, which IDC projects will outpace first desktop PC sales in 2013 then portable PC sales by 2014. The final category is smartphones, not increasing as fast as tablets but still gaining plenty fast and dominating the overall numbers now and probably for the next few years.
Microsoft has gotten a lot of complaints that its Windows 8 overhaul left traditional PC users' needs in the dust. Even accounting for the necessary skepticism about five-year market projections, any study of the trend lines makes it pretty clear why Microsoft seems less concerned about the installed base and seems urgently focused on leaping across to tablets and smartphones.
Posted by Scott Bekker on March 28, 20132 comments