Oracle, here's what you're getting yourself into. These are
dark times at Sun
, financially speaking.
Posted by Lee Pender on 04/30/20090 comments
In the midst of Windows 7 hype (which we're happily contributing to), poor old Vista's second service pack
is finished
. So, uh, be on the lookout for that...if you or your customers are unfortunate enough to actually be running Vista.
As for Office 2007, SP2 for the product that sports the ever-popular ribbon interface is
out there now
Posted by Lee Pender on 04/30/20090 comments
Here in Greater Boston, today is a real anomaly. As your editor sits and types this on Tuesday afternoon (cue the
Moody Blues
, even though you'll be reading this on Wednesday), it's 93 degrees outside. Around here, that's hot for this time of year. In fact, this is record-breaking heat. But it's going away tonight, and tomorrow we'll be back to showers and temperatures in the 50s. So, since the weather is giving us an unusual day, we at RCPU thought we'd come up with an unusual topic for the newsletter. We also want to get outside before the rain comes and the temperature drops 40 degrees, but don't tell our bosses that, please.
More
Posted by Lee Pender on 04/29/20094 comments
Microsoft has
signed up a slew of partners
to host its Business Productivity Online Suite, despite the fact that Azure is still in beta. It's a sign -- we hope and think -- that Microsoft is serious about keeping partners in the loop despite having plans to host some services itself. And it's a potential opportunity for partners to follow Redmond into the cloud.
Posted by Lee Pender on 04/29/20090 comments
After a break, just because we felt like it, we're back to offering profiles of the third-party partner programs that work best for Microsoft partners according to a reader survey in
RCP
the magazine. Today's profile:
Seagate
.
Posted by Lee Pender on 04/29/20090 comments
Microsoft
already has Pinpoint
, a directory that lets customers find partners. Now, it has (fairly quietly, once again)
launched Matchmaker
, which helps partners find each other. Why Microsoft doesn't make a bigger deal out of these things -- most of the potential customers your editor talks to for
More
Posted by Lee Pender on 04/28/20090 comments
A few teams at last weekend's NFL draft needed arms. Microsoft, though, needs a shot in the arm. Hopefully not a flu shot...but we digress. It's no secret that Redmond is struggling in this recession the way many of us are, and if anybody needed any more proof of Microsoft's woes, it came last week with an historic earnings report.
That report was historic for unfortunate reasons, of course. By now, you know that Microsoft experienced its first year-over-year earnings shortfall ever, or at least since it became a public company more than two decades ago. That means, of course, that Microsoft made less money in the first three months of this calendar year than it made in the first three months of 2008. Microsoft's funky fiscal calendar makes the first three months of the year the third quarter, but it's still January-March on the calendar.
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Posted by Lee Pender on 04/28/20092 comments
Nobody gives the "shift" key a better workout than VMware. This week, the virtualization market leader drove journalists and bloggers a few strokes closer to carpal tunnel syndrome with the unveiling of vSphere.
To be specific, it's vSphere 4 that VMware is talking about this week. You might remember it as VMware Infrastructure, its former name. It's basically the company's platform for the datacenter, or, as one VMware executive says in Keith Ward's excellent story on vSphere, "We're calling vSphere a cloud operating system."
More
Posted by Lee Pender on 04/22/20090 comments
Have you ever wanted to know how Microsoft Services does things, like how it develops best practices and consults with customers? Well, if you're a Gold Certified Partner, you can buy that knowledge from Microsoft in a
nifty little package
that covers a bunch of different categories. There's more info on the program
here
Posted by Lee Pender on 04/22/20090 comments
In our continuing series on the best complementary partner programs for Microsoft partners, we come to
APC
. Who? It's a power and cooling specialist, apparently, and its partner program is worth checking out.
Posted by Lee Pender on 04/22/20090 comments