Jessica Davis

Given the precipitous drop in net-new server sales during this recession, Cisco’s launch into the entry-level rack mount space this week seems somewhat counterintuitive. Especially at the commodity level, a market segment that doesn’t offer much margin and is already saturated with volume-based products from Hewlett-Packard, Dell and IBM. Indeed, IBM has begun moving away […]

Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) CEO John Chambers hinted that his company may be on the hunt for more acquisitions, saying that Cisco already has entered 30 adjacent markets to its core networking infrastructure market, and plans to be in 50 adjacent markets within 18 months. “The next generation of communications is about video,” Chambers said. “It’s about […]

Security appliance infrastructure vendor SonicWall is strengthening its play in the managed services space by offering solution providers a host of educational and marketing materials to help them get into the managed services business. But that’s just the beginning Later this year, the company plans to introduce more flexible licensing options to better match the managed […]

Hewlett-Packard is revamping its software licensing options and software channel program in an effort to make more of a play for the managed services platform space and to better accommodate the way end-user companies and solution provider channel partners would prefer to pay. "We are helping partners reduce their risk [and] improve their cash flow […]

Many technology companies didn’t see the sharp drops associated with this recession until late 2008, but like others in the home building market, U.S. Lumber, which caters to customers including Home Depot, started feeling the pain in 2006. But things could have been worse. U.S. Lumber, a mid-sized business with about 280 employees, has weathered […]

PC customer buying preferences are pushing the market to one that favors indirect sales over sales direct from the manufacturer, according to a new report from Gartner. The indirect channel—including VARs, retail and telecom providers—counted for 66.6 percent of worldwide PC shipments in 2004 and accounts for 74.3 percent of shipments in 2008. Gartner is […]

IT consulting services company CSC (NYSE: CSC) is getting into the cloud computing game with a three-part offering for companies looking to send some of their computing into the cloud. Partnering with Cisco and its Unified Computing effort, EMC, and VMware, CSC will offer what it is calling “Cloud Orchestration” and “Trusted Cloud” services, designed […]

Apple Means Business Technologies for the Mac and iPhone Platforms Distributors and VARs report that the Apple Macintosh platform has gained more momentum in business implementations in recent years. And while Apple hasn’t earned a great reputation with solution provider channel partners, VARs still sell and integrate Apple products. And other third-party companies that work […]

Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) executives believe that the client refreshes that have been delayed for a year or more as companies have cut IT budgets may finally be on the way in nine months to a year, offering the potential to rejuvenate PC sales. What’s coming then? Enterprise fleets of PCs will be 4 to 5 years […]

Falling PC sales meant a 63 percent drop in first-quarter net income for Dell (NASDAQ:DELL), which reported net income today of $290 million in fiscal Q1 2010, down from $784 million from the same period a year ago. The huge net income drop came on lower revenues for the quarter. Dell reported revenue of $12.3 […]

Resellers and solution providers recognize a competitive threat when they see one. That’s why they ranked Microsoft and its software-as-a-service (SAAS) offering as the biggest competitive threat they face—not any apps from Google. Now managed services platform provider Level Platforms is looking to help its MSPs take advantage of the opportunities created by Microsoft’s launch […]

Apple has never been known for its strong reseller channel partner program or its efforts to woo the channel with discounts and back-end rebates. But over the years as Apple’s Mac platform has made inroads into small businesses and workgroups within larger enterprises, the channel has come along for the ride, with or without Apple’s support. […]