Posts Tagged ‘channel’

Spiceworks, the IT professional social network glued together by management tools and peer collaboration, recently added its 2 millionth member and saw user activity time jump more than 200 percent. This social network may be a tempest in a teapot for how its changing the way IT buyers and sellers interact.

In the first credit extension to storage partners, Dell is offering zero-percent financing on SMB purchases of its EqualLogic products. The program is a sign of Dell getting more aggressive in the SMB market and staking out greater storage market share through solution providers.

Cisco CEO John Chambers raised a red flag during the company’s latest earnings report, saying the summer quarter would be softer than previously expected. Intel CEO Paul Otellini countered, saying economic conditions are good but not great. The truth is somewhere between.

Partner profitability, training and enablement, and sales support are sacrosanct principles in the channel. And, accordingly, many people falsely believe participation in partner programs is a guarantee and right. But, nothing could be further from the truth.

China’s Huawei Technologies is a repeat target of criticism by competitors and governments as a competitive and security threat. The reality is Huawei is just getting started in the U.S. market and channel, and it’s taking a deliberate approach to building its presence.

Motorola Solutions is looking to empower partners with new tools for optimizing and securing business wireless networks with a new cloud-based service. The service is intended to insure businesses increasingly dependent upon cloud and mobile device have quality wireless network connectivity.

IT vendors, particularly hardware companies, often talk about “incentives” such as rebates and promotional discounts as means for ensuring partner profitability. The reality is incentives can sometimes have more negative consequences and cut into partner profitability.

Xerox inks a deal to provide managed print services to aircraft manufacturing giant Boeing. The engagement, through Xerox’s Enterprise Print Services, will consolidate Boeing’s document management to save costs and improve productivity. Is managed print finally turning the page in terms of viability?

Cloud backup vendor Axcient expands management team with industry veterans. The additions are part of a master plan by founder Justin Moore for building a billion-dollar business. It’s a model that any channel business can – and should – follow.

Hewlett-Packard has drawn upon internal candidates to lead the channel charge for the merged Printing and Personal Systems (PPS) group.