Jessica Davis

Looking to capitalize on the growth of server virtualization and infrastructure consolidation, Brocade has unveiled its Brocade FCX series of 10/100/1000M bps with 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 GbE) uplink top-of-rack switches. The lineup offers price/performance value starting at $4,945 and available starting in April to help customers both reduce overhead costs and scale their networking […]

VMware remains by far the market leader in server virtualization, and many VARs have told Channel Insider that they wouldn’t put production servers on anything else, even if their customers may be testing Microsoft’s Hyper-V somewhere in the enterprise. But storage virtualization startup Virsto is placing its initial bet on Microsoft’s Hyper-V. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based […]

Image by Bill Ward’s Brickpile via Flickr Try to explain virtualization to the layperson, the office manager of a nearby physician practice or the CEO of a regional retail chain, and you may get that blank stare, deer-in-headlights look. You put all the servers onto one server? What? What good is that? And why didn’t […]

Personal computer and server maker Dell’s (NASDAQ:DELL) revenue and earnings for the fourth quarter are expected to be about $13.82 billion according to consensus analyst estimates and about earnings to be about 27 cents per share when the company announces its quarterly financials on Feb. 18. Analyst firm Bernstein Research said it expects revenues and […]

VOIP communications vendor Mitel has collaborated with virtualization giant VMware to create a virtualized appliance version of its Mitel Call Director VOIP solution. By offering the VOIP solution as a virtualized appliance, IT managers can now include voice in their server consolidation efforts, the companies told Channel Insider.   According to Mitel’s Stephen Beamish, vice […]

Image by kevindooley via Flickr Hardware has been commoditized and the margins hardware sales offer have narrowed. And now, just when you are ready to move more dramatically into services and perhaps even managed services, it seems like big vendors are also eyeing some of that same market. LPI Level Platforms CEO Peter Sandiford has […]

NEC Corp. of America is stepping up its unified communications game with enhanced integrations for its Univerge Sphericall software-based unified communications solution, including Polycom HDX HD video conferencing products and its own UC for business contact center agent. Univerge Sphericall 6.4 is a software-based UC solution that can be installed on standard servers and is […]

While some VARs may have stayed away from the smartphone business because they can’t complete the transaction for their business end customers, others are starting to embrace the devices and the smartphone integration services they can provide to customers. That’s what a handful of VARs have told Channel Insider—the opportunity is not in the hardware […]

Image by ArcherRoan via Flickr Did your IT customers experience any of the side effects of last weekend’s and this week’s Snowmageddon? Interstates were closed, schools were shuttered, public transit systems were shut down. How about your customers? Were many of their offices shut down due to the impact of the Snowpocolypse? Did they lose […]

Technology vendor Dell has announced plans to acquire Kace, a systems management appliance company that targets its solutions at small and midsized businesses, plus government, education and health care organizations. The acquisition is designed to better serve customers in those markets who have said they are looking for tools to help them manage their technology […]

Polycom this week unveiled tighter integration of its video conferencing systems with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange e-mail server, and has also introduced a new 42-inch all-in-one HD video conferencing solution. The moves come as Polycom has sharpened its focus on tighter integration with other vendor partners for video conferencing and unified […]

Think Cisco, Polycom and Logitech have a monopoly on video conferencing in business? Think again. A new survey of 1,200 business users in the United States, Japan, South Korea and China shows that the vast majority of them—79 percent—use consumer applications such as Yahoo, Gmail, AOL and Skype for video conferencing while just 21 percent […]