Channel Insider Staff

Microsoft is recruiting not only Windows Live beta testers, but developers, as well. In order to attract the latter contingent, the company is readying a new Windows Live Dev portal. A preview of the site, http://dev.live.com, will be available the week of May 21, with a final version slated to launch in June, according to […]

If yet another Windows release date falls by the wayside, would anyone care? That’s the question that Microsoft watchers are asking, as Microsoft comes into the home stretch with its Windows Vista release. Researchers with the Gartner Group issued a customer note on May 1, claiming that Microsoft will ship Windows Vista in the second […]

Some industry watchers have portrayed Apple Computer’s decision to make Windows available as a dual-boot on Intel-based Mac OS X systems as a big win for Microsoft. Microsoft doesn’t seem to be taking the move as a sign that it can call off the dogs, however. Microsoft is still pushing full-steam-ahead with a music-making program, […]

After 12 years of being the go-to computer guy in his family’s Southern California chemical business (not to mention, serving as its general manager), Jim Locke decided it was time to branch out on his own. In 2000, he started JW Locke & Associates, an IT consulting business catering to small and midsize companies in […]

Jim Locke, principal of JW Locke & Associates, knows a thing or two about partnering. As founder of the Small and Medium Business Technology Network, aimed at small and midsize business VARs, Locke has spent the better part of the last year creating and promoting a forum where small VARs—such as his own company—can seek […]

Windows hasn’t cornered the market on Microsoft date slips. While the Windows Vista launch delay made big headlines this week, the Office 2007 one did not. On March 23—in the midst of the hubbub over Microsoft’s reorganization of its Platforms & Systems division—Microsoft officials acknowledged that Office 2007 is now going to launch in 2007, […]

When Bill Clinton ran successfully for President in 1992, he won largely on the strength of the campaign mantra, “It’s the economy, stupid.” As legend has it, this statement was posted in the war room of his campaign headquarters. All service providers should have a similar mantra if they want to be successful and sell […]

From Microsoft Watch: Microsoft’s positioning around the “Origami” ultra-mobile devices – the first of which are due to debut in prototype form next week – is as interesting to us as the hardware details for these new devices. It turns out Microsoft is making Origami devices the cornerstone of what it’s calling “Lifestyle PCs.” It […]

Microsoft has turned on the Windows Live tap and software services are starting to really flow from it. On Feb. 28, Microsoft announced the start of the U.S. beta of Windows Live Expo, its online classified service, code-named Fremont. Earlier this month, Microsoft had provided some testers with a private beta release of Windows Live […]

At a recent channel event, I shared a table with a senior Fortune 1000 vendor channel executive and a handful of solution providers. I asked the executive, “Why should these solution providers sell your product rather than your competitor’s?” He provided an impressive set of reasons, including superior features, lower prices, better support programs and […]

After months of maintaining that it had not yet finalized its Windows Vista lineup, Microsoft seems finally to have decided upon a half dozen core Vista versions. According to a posting on its Web site, Microsoft is readying six core Vista packages, or SKUs, plus two additional releases customized for the European Union that won’t […]

Microsoft still is expected to deliver the next Windows Vista milestone, the February Community Technology Preview release, next week — most likely on Feb. 21, according to testers briefed last month by Microsoft. While beta testers contacted this week said they had received no updated information as to when to expect the so-called February Community […]