HP is trying to boil its massive portfolio of products and partner programs down to just the elements SMB-focused solution providers need to make money. The effort launched March 1 as a portal called HP SMB Central.
"This is a new program and a new philosophy in HP. How can we bring new partners to HP and get them to understand HP and get their feet wet?" said Meaghan Kelly, HP vice president of Channel Strategy and SMB, Solution Partners Organization-Americas, in a phone interview Tuesday. For HP, it's a matter of trying to get better penetration into what its research indicates is a $57-billion market opportunity for HP products that fit into the SMB space in the Americas. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on March 02, 20110 comments
Tech Data Corp. this week went live with a software license tool designed to simplify and speed up ordering for resellers and to reduce the errors and subsequent delays inherent in the formerly manual processes for vendors.
"I've talked to so many owners who say their sales reps don't even handle software licensing anymore because it's gotten too complex," said Joe Quaglia, senior vice president of U.S. Marketing at the Clearwater, Fla.-based distribution giant, in a phone interview. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on March 02, 20110 comments
Windows MultiPoint Server 2011, which Microsoft is in the final stages of making available through its many delivery channels, is intended as a shared computing solution for libraries, labs and classrooms. But Heartland Technology Groups founder Arlin Sorensen argued in a post on his Peer Power blog Tuesday morning that MultiPoint deserves serious consideration from VARs as an SMB solution. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on March 01, 20110 comments
Monday, I blogged at length whether Windows Intune, which is supposed to be generally available on March 23, will have legs as a product for managed services providers. I came down on the side that Microsoft's direct-billing approach will be even more of an issue for MSPs looking at Windows Intune than it is for VARs looking at the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite.
Woody Walton, of Microsoft, had another perspective Monday night on the U.S. SMB&D TS2 Team Blog. In a post titled "So what is the value proposition for Windows Intune to an SMB VAR?" Walton argues that Windows Intune is more than an MSP tool. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on March 01, 20110 comments
Market researchers at IDC released their 2010 year-end version of the Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker on Tuesday and the scorecard showed a monstrously good year for servers, especially in the fourth quarter.
For the full year, revenues were up 11.4 percent to $48.1 billion and unit shipments rose 15.3 percent to 7.6 million units compared to 2009. For the fourth quarter of 2010, revenues were $15 billion, also a 15.3-percent increase over the year-ago quarter, and unit shipments reached 2.1 million, a 6.1-percent increase. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on March 01, 20110 comments
According to an article in the New York Times over the weekend, Microsoft is encouraging employees to write apps for Windows Phone 7 on their own time, and will share any revenue on those apps in a 70/30 employee/Microsoft split. From the article:
"It has relaxed a strict rule and will let employees moonlight in their spare time and keep the resulting intellectual property and most of the revenue, as long as that second job is writing apps for Windows Phone 7-based devices.
"And they don't have to do that work quietly. The company is having weekly pizza parties for workers who pitch in to write code for the platform and is planning ways to publicize their work, including posters and awards of recognition, said Brandon Watson, director of developer experience for Windows Phone 7."
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Posted by Scott Bekker on February 28, 20110 comments
Microsoft got a lot more specific today on the future of Windows Intune. A product that had been promised only for 2011 now has an exact availability date, and it's soon: March 23. Read the news story here.
For those not lucky enough to get into the 10,000-member Beta 2 club, Windows Intune is a cloud-based systems management and security tool that is designed for both midsize company IT administrators and for managed service providers. A Multi-Account Console added at the Beta 2 phase in July made the tool much more of an MSP play, rather than just an IT admin tool.
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Posted by Scott Bekker on February 28, 20110 comments
(Editor's Note: The SBS 2011 isn't close to hitting the Action Pack, after all. See the update to this item here.)
Partners with Action Pack subscriptions can look for Windows Small Business Server 2011 at the Digital Download Center right about now, according a Microsoft blog.
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Posted by Scott Bekker on February 28, 20114 comments
A new cloud computing fight erupted late last week between Google and Microsoft. Google released its promised Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office, which lets users simultaneously edit documents created in Office 2003, 2007 or 2010. Microsoft fired back with accusations that Google's efforts showed a lack of seriousness and a list of technical problems with the Google tool. Our online news editor Kurt Mackie unpacked Microsoft's complaints here in a post well worth reading.
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Posted by Scott Bekker on February 28, 20110 comments
Mozy, the home and SMB online backup service owned by EMC Corp., refreshed its reseller program this week with a new partner portal, new tools and new benefits. Mozy currently has about 6,000 partners who resell the MozyPro version of the service, as opposed to the MozyHome edition. Members of the EMC Velocity partner program also resell MozyPro.
According to Seattle-based Mozy, about 70,000 businesses currently use the MozyPro service. Features unique to the higher-end MozyPro service include server backups and tools for backing up data locally as well as remotely in the Mozy/EMC data centers.
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Posted by Scott Bekker on February 23, 20110 comments
My colleague Lee Pender had the story Wednesday that Google is launching a certification for partners. As Lee said, this is a big deal for the fledgling Google Apps Authorized Resellers program, because providing certifications that distinguish partner companies that get their engineers trained from those partners that don't is an important mark of maturity for any channel program.
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Posted by Scott Bekker on February 23, 20110 comments
When consulting on technology solutions with customers, it helps to know what kind of devices they're naturally interested in and comfortable with. It's fairly obvious that a Millenial business owner is going to be interested in different devices than a boomer, but which ones exactly?
The Pew Internet & American Life Project released some interesting data today called "Generations and their Gadgets" that provides specifics worth browsing. Examples from the survey of 3,000 Americans:
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Posted by Scott Bekker on February 03, 20110 comments