The critically acclaimed Touch Cover on the Microsoft Surface RT has a problem.
The Touch Cover is the thin cover that attaches magnetically to the Surface and can be used to protect the screen or, when folded out, as a keyboard. In black, it's a $100 upgrade to the Surface's $499 base price; other colors cost $120. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on November 12, 20123 comments
Ross Brown, a senior channel executive in charge of structuring incentives for partners, left Microsoft and joined a business consulting company, Touch Worldwide.
Brown was most recently vice president of Partner Strategy in Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Group reporting to Jon Roskill, corporate vice president of the WPG. Brown joined Microsoft's WPG working for former Microsoft channel chief Allison Watson in May 2008. Prior to Microsoft, Brown had been CEO of eEye Digital Security and a senior channel executive at Citrix Systems Inc. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on November 09, 20121 comments
Microsoft will raise the fee required for U.S. partners to achieve the gold level of most competencies on Nov. 19 to $5,260.
The new price represents a 38 percent increase over the old fee of $3,800. The fee for a silver competency in the United States remains $1,850. The price hike is global, although prices vary by country. Partners outside the U.S. should be able to find their new prices on their local competency requirement portal pages. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on November 01, 20120 comments
At the Microsoft Surface launch event on Thursday, 300 Surface devices were made available to the press to test for about an hour. Here are my first impressions from my limited time with the device:
Look and Feel: The device, with its VaporMG casing and its 200 custom-fit parts, feels very light but completely solid. The click as the keyboard attaches to the tablet is satisfying. More importantly, the click is useful in the sense that you know for sure that the keyboard is properly seated. I tested Microsoft's claim that the aligning magnets make it possible to attach the keyboard without looking, and it's true. As for the kickstand, which holds the tablet component up at an angle for use with the keyboard or for watching videos, it also worked perfectly. I'm not sure I buy the design point that it feels like closing an expensive car door when shutting the kickstand, but it's about as good as personal electronics get. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on October 25, 20124 comments
Thursday's launch event for Windows 8 was short on news, but long on...well, it was short on news. But Scott was there to live-Tweet the entire proceedings, anyway. Check out the highlights below and follow him at @scottbekker. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on October 25, 20120 comments
- Check out Scott's own review of the Surface RT here.
We haven't gotten our hands on one of the Microsoft Surface RT devices yet, but a few reviewers around the Web have. The consensus seems to be that the Surface hardware is extremely strong but that the software and especially the app ecosystem, two areas where Microsoft should theoretically shine, are problem areas.
The New York Times
Hardware: "succeeded brilliantly."
Software: "an insanely confusing split personality."
David Pogue painted the big picture in The New York Times with his lead: More
Posted by Scott Bekker on October 24, 20123 comments
Apple pulled one of the oldest tricks in the IT marketing book this week. When your competitor is about to make a highly anticipated, long-planned announcement, muddy the waters with a major announcement of your own earlier in the same week. As Microsoft was finalizing its PowerPoint decks and teleprompter scripts for the Windows 8/Surface launch events on Thursday, Apple snuck in with the launch of the iPad mini -- a 7.9-inch, 0.68-pound, $329 tablet.
The announcement doesn't blow up Microsoft's event before it happens, but it does add some twists to challenges Microsoft already faced. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on October 24, 20122 comments
Microsoft has no better technology evangelist than Bill Gates.
And with this being the start of a huge launch week for Microsoft -- Windows 8 and the Surface RT on Thursday and Windows Phone 8 the following Monday -- Microsoft posted a corporate Q&A video this morning featuring the chairman, who normally leaves most of the technology pitching work to CEO Steve Ballmer. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on October 22, 20123 comments
As HP's ServiceOne channel program comes up on its official one-year anniversary, it's getting fleshed out with new components for partners.
ServiceOne extends to qualifying partners the ability to sell or deliver on HP-branded services that used to be direct-only, especially maintenance of HP equipment and software. While HP has over 100,000 partners, the numbers in ServiceOne are much smaller. There are about 2,300 ServiceOne Specialist partners and 750 partners in the premier level, ServiceOne Expert. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on October 18, 20120 comments
As if Internal Use Rights aren't enough of a benefit for U.S.-based Microsoft partners, Microsoft and Dell-owned ISV partner Quest Software are sweetening the pot for partners to try out Office 365.
Already, partners who participate in Microsoft's free Cloud Essentials Pack get 25 seats of Office 365 for internal use. (Partners enrolled in the $1,850 Cloud Accelerate program get 250 seats of Office 365.) More
Posted by Scott Bekker on October 15, 20120 comments
In a move to maintain its recent rapid revenue growth, the already channel-only Datto Inc. is fine-tuning its partner program.
Datto, a provider of hardware-based backup, disaster recovery and business continuity solutions, on Thursday launched a Partner Alliance Program, which is aimed at both its current base of 4,000 resale partners and potential new partners. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on October 11, 20120 comments
PC sales were supposed to be ugly in the third quarter, but they came in even worse than expected.
Worldwide PC shipments contracted 8.6 percent in the third quarter of 2012 compared to the same period a year ago, according to preliminary figures released this week by IDC for the July-through-September period, which includes the critical back-to-school buying season. As recently as August, IDC had forecast a more modest 3.8 percent drop. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on October 11, 20121 comments