Remember the "Vista Capable" ("Incapable" would have been
more appropriate) lawsuit that dredged up a slew of
tasty
e-mails
a few months back? Well, now there's more where that came from...and
this time
it's
HP
that seems to get the short end of the stick from Redmond.
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Posted by Lee Pender on 11/18/20080 comments
Microsoft wants to be a player in Software-as-a-Service, or cloud computing,
or Web 2.0, or whatever the pundits are calling the off-premises, datacenter-hosted
enterprise computing model this week. So why does it feel as though Redmond
is dragging itself into this new model?
Take this week's launch
of Exchange Online and SharePoint Online for the cloud. In theory, this should
be simple. Customers sign up for hosted Exchange and SharePoint, pay a monthly
fee, open a browser and start working, right? Isn't that more or less what SaaS
is supposed to be? Well, not exactly. Check out this Microsoft quote from this
story:
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Posted by Lee Pender on 11/18/20080 comments
This week's
entry
about a Microsoft hosting deal with Telstra in Australia has a couple of our
antipodean readers buzzing. We chose to comment on this story because we figured
it would have some universal indicators for how SaaS is going to affect the
channel worldwide.
But for folks in Australia, the issue is immediate, and the responses were
passionate. (And for those of you not in Australia, which is probably most of
you, try to imagine how your fellow travelers in the channel are feeling because
you might end up feeling much the same way.) So, here we go. Let's start with
Ken -- who identifies himself as an IT manager -- in Melbourne (and, FYI, we've
Americanized the English for the home folks):
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Posted by Lee Pender on 11/13/20080 comments
OK, so the
news
isn't great...but it could be much, much worse.
Posted by Lee Pender on 11/13/20080 comments
Don't freak out or anything, but we don't remember seeing anything
like this coming from Redmond before -- at least not recently. Partner Program
Chief Allison Watson sent an e-mail to Program members this morning, giving
them tips on how to sell in a bad economy and filling them in a bit on the new
Azure platform.
It's a very upbeat
and totally pragmatic message, and it's totally appropriate and welcome
at a time like this. This is Microsoft and the Partner Program demonstrating
leadership at a time when partners need it -- and that's exactly the kind
of thing the channel should welcome, especially during an economic downturn.
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Posted by Lee Pender on 11/13/20081 comments
WEBS and SBS 2008 -- much ballyhooed, and, yes, we're using that word a lot
this week -- are
finally
out
, just in time for the nasty part of the recession.
Posted by Lee Pender on 11/13/20080 comments
It's a new storage deal for the monster distributor.
Here's
the press release.
Posted by Lee Pender on 11/13/20082 comments
Sometimes there's just a lot of news that doesn't require a separate entry
for each announcement but nevertheless merits mention in RCPU. That's why you're
now smelling the warm, inviting aroma of...a product-news potpourri!
Dell, Seagate and McAfee have a new effort for full-disk
encryption.
Sun announced "open
storage" appliances this week.
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Posted by Lee Pender on 11/12/20080 comments
In VMware's world, nothing is real. Well, some things are -- VMware's hypervisor,
its VMware server and certainly revenues, competition, customers and partners
are all pretty real. But VMware's business is all about making real things virtual,
and now the company is bringing its virtual revolution to a new territory.
This week, the EMC subsidiary introduced a hypervisor for mobile devices that
is the result of its recent acquisition of French developer Trango Virtual Processors.
Trango's app is now VMware's Mobile
Virtualization Platform, and the company is targeting mobile phone makers
with its new offering.
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Posted by Lee Pender on 11/12/20080 comments
Ever heard of Searete LLC? How about Intellectual Ventures? The company names
might be unfamiliar, but chances are you've heard of the people (
like
Bill Gates
, for instance) behind these patent-seeking firms.
Posted by Lee Pender on 11/12/20087 comments
The House that Ruth Built is just about gone, to be replaced by the house that...Steinbrenner?
Jeter? surely not Torre...built. Anyway, Cisco is going to be
doing
some cool stuff
in the new Yankee Stadium. Of course, RCPU's official position
on this is the same as its official position on all things New York Yankees:
BOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! (By the way, if you're a non-Yankees baseball fan, we'll warn
you that the lead paragraph of the story linked might cause you to vomit all
over your keyboard.)
Posted by Lee Pender on 11/12/20080 comments
First things first before we travel halfway around the globe: We'd like to
wish a very happy Veterans Day to all and offer our sincere gratitude to all
those who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces. Thank you for your service.
Now, let's travel to perhaps the most cliché-ridden place on earth:
Australia!
Does anybody else remember the "Simpsons" episode in which Bart goes
to Australia? (We can't find it on YouTube...sorry.) There's a funny montage
in it about Americans' brief
fascination with Australia in
the 1980s and all the hackneyed clichés and stereotypical
characters it gave birth to.
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Posted by Lee Pender on 11/11/20080 comments