IT shops appear very eager to migrate to Windows 8, according to a new survey of 1,400 IT pros by our sister site, Redmondmag.com.
Nearly 61 percent of respondents said their shops were somewhat interested (40.2 percent) or very interested (20.7 percent) in Windows 8. Among respondents interested in a migration, a plurality (49 percent) wasn't sure when it would occur. About 5 percent expected their shops to jump to Windows 8 on release. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on May 30, 20120 comments
Partners specializing in government solutions are getting another way to deliver the Microsoft stack to U.S. government agencies (or another way that Microsoft will compete directly with them in government accounts).
On Wednesday, Kirk Koenigsbauer, the corporate vice president of the Microsoft Office Division, announced in a blog post the introduction of Office 365 for Government. While previous editions of Office 365 had government clients, the new edition is a multi-tenant service that stores U.S. government data in a segregated community cloud -- checking off a critical box for many government buyers. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on May 30, 20120 comments
Another quarter of stunning growth for smartphones, and another quarter of less impressive progress for the Windows Phone platform.
International Data Corp. released its global smartphone shipment estimates for the first quarter of 2012 on Thursday -- and the reckoning wasn't good for Microsoft. Comparing shipments for this quarter against the same period last year, the overall market went up by 50 percent, Android-based smartphones increased 145 percent, Apple iPhones increased 89 percent and Windows Phone shipments increased 27 percent. In other words, Windows Phone shipments improved at about half the rate of the overall market and much slower than the platforms Redmond is trying to beat. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on May 24, 20121 comments
During the registration process for the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, potential attendees come across what amounts to an enemies list in the small print.
"The following companies and their employees and representatives are excluded from attending and participating in WPC 2012 and affiliated events," a pop-up window during registration reads. Microsoft's prohibited companies are: More
Posted by Scott Bekker on May 21, 20124 comments
In any list of objections that customers raise to going to the cloud, security is prominent.
Evidence is emerging that among small and medium-sized businesses, though, security may be considered more of a feature than a bug for cloud services. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on May 16, 20120 comments
While Verizon Wireless talks vaguely about new Windows Phones sometime in the Windows Phone "8" timeframe, AT&T keeps rolling out new devices. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on May 07, 20121 comments
Congratulations are in order for RCP's long-running "Selling Microsoft" columnist Ken Thoreson. Ken was named a Top 50 Sales & Marketing Influencer for 2012 by Top Sales World magazine this month.
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Posted by Scott Bekker on May 06, 20120 comments
We've covered Microsoft's new Small Business Competency here based on a lengthy interview with Microsoft Partner Network General Manager Julie Bennani. If you want the key-to-middling details on the competency that went into effect on Tuesday, I'd still point you to that story, "MPN Small Business Competency: More Benefits, Bigger Price Tag," to get them.
If you're looking for some additional detail, though, some of your questions might be answered by a new FAQ posted on Eric Ligman's blog on Wednesday. Ligman, Microsoft's director of partner experience, hits a dozen questions, including: More
Posted by Scott Bekker on May 03, 20120 comments
IDC released its estimates for first-quarter media tablet shipments on Thursday. The numbers showed a slight miss against expectations, a huge drop in Android tablet shipments and reconsolidation by Apple of iPad's dominance.
What caught RCP's attention were IDC's extrapolation of what's happening in the Android market, and its cautionary words directed at Microsoft and its OEM partners for the upcoming Windows 8 launch. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on May 03, 20120 comments
The conventional wisdom these days is that Apple and Google are eating Microsoft's lunch.
For Apple, the company has followed a well-chronicled path from a niche, artist-friendly computing platform to a revenue and profit juggernaut at the core of the IT industry. Apple's success came from making markets in smartphones and tablets -- two areas where Microsoft already had products but hadn't even come close to figuring out how to ignite public excitement for them. And ever since the iPod, Apple has been leveraging one product to generate buzz and market share for the next. The halo effect of the mobile devices is helping drive market share growth for Apple's computers. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 30, 20120 comments
More details on the Microsoft Partner Network's new Small Business competency should be coming tomorrow during a webinar with Microsoft partner officials.
Microsoft worldwide channel chief Jon Roskill will host an MPN Live session Thursday at 10 a.m. Pacific time called "Introducing the SB Competency." The session will be available from the MPN Facebook page here or on the Digital WPC site here.
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Posted by Scott Bekker on April 25, 20120 comments
A major limitation in kicking the tires of Windows 8 in the consumer preview is that for most users, there's no experience of the touch-first interface -- arguably the most transformational aspect of the brand-new design.
For the most part, the million-plus downloaders of the new OS are careening through the elegant Metro-style interface with a mouse and keyboard. Unless they've already got an all-in-one system with a touchscreen, or a Windows 7 tablet, developers and tech enthusiasts face the unenviable choice of testing Windows 8 without touch or shelling out $1,000 or more for a touchscreen system or tablet that may or may not take full advantage of Windows 8 when the OS ships. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 12, 20120 comments