Could this be the first sign -- or one of the first signs -- of a possible
recession hitting the channel? The financial news from Avnet
is
not good
.
Posted by Lee Pender on 04/17/20080 comments
There's hype, and then there's movement. All of the articles -- some of them
here -- about SaaS being the next big thing, about how partners should prepare
for it, about whether Microsoft is ready for it...that's all, or at least mostly,
hype.
Ingram Micro's announcement this week that it will expand
its portfolio of hosted Microsoft applications and offer partners the opportunity
to resell private-label hosted applications...is movement.
More
Posted by Lee Pender on 04/17/20080 comments
Want to know more about it? Of course you do...but you'll just have to
click
the link
. (Hey, we have to pay the bills around here, too.)
Posted by Lee Pender on 04/17/20080 comments
A 20-year veteran of the company is the
new
head guy
for channel operations.
Posted by Lee Pender on 04/17/20080 comments
It's made by a company in India; it'll run (ahem) XP, and it'll
cost
about $425
. What's not to like, actually?
Posted by Lee Pender on 04/16/20080 comments
Another Windows executive and Vista co-conspirator has "
retired
,"
meaning another shakeup of executives is in order in Redmond.
Posted by Lee Pender on 04/16/20080 comments
"Who is gonna make it?
We'll find out
In the long run"
-- "The Long Run" by The Eagles, from 1979
(And, yes, you'll be humming that song all day now. You're welcome.)
Let's go ahead and call it a movement, or at least a cause. What started as
an online
petition demanding that Microsoft offer XP indefinitely and not scrap it
with OEMs for Vista in June has become something greater, something that has
leaked out of the trade press and nerd circles and into
the real world.
More
Posted by Lee Pender on 04/16/20085 comments
Oh, dear. Rumor -- and, remember, pretty much all of this stuff is rumor --
has it that Yahoo is
looking
to AOL
(ugh) to save it from Microsoft...while Redmond might be looking
to News Corp. (double ugh) to help woo (or just gobble up) Yahoo.
What a mess. And what a pairing that would be -- Microsoft and News Corp. (Rupert
Murdoch's company, famous in the U.S. for Fox News). Man, that little couple
coming together to put down "Internet pioneer" Yahoo would probably
be enough to make some Silicon Valley bloggers' heads explode.
Posted by Lee Pender on 04/15/20080 comments
Did someone say Web 2.0? Did someone say Software as a Service? Did someone
say cloud computing, or utter some other already hackneyed buzzword?
Oh, yes, someone did say all those things this week with the celebrity marriage
of Salesforce.com and Google, two of the industry's Webby young superstars.
The two SaaS evangelists finally exchanged vows of sorts this week, announcing
an agreement through which Salesforce.com will sell Google Apps with the
Salesforce.com-hosted CRM (customer relationship management -- but you knew
that) offering.
More
Posted by Lee Pender on 04/15/20080 comments
Windows is dying because of virtualization (and because it's so darn fat)!
Only
virtualization
can save
Windows! Or so say the know-it-alls at Gartner, anyway.
Yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense to us, either. We're scratching our heads
here, and so
is Doug Barney, editor in chief of RCP's sister publication, Redmond
magazine.
More
Posted by Lee Pender on 04/15/20084 comments