Jessica Davis

Confidence among IT decision makers everywhere declined in September, but particularly among local, state and federal government IT executives as tax revenues slowed and budgets tightened. That’s according to the most recent edition of the CDW IT Monitor, a bimonthly indicator of IT confidence in the marketplace, culled from surveys of 1,000 or more IT […]

Defaults on technology financing deals are on the rise, raising concerns about the ongoing availability of credit for such deals, according to a report, but technology distributors and technology vendors with captive financing arms say credit is still available for qualified businesses. Ingram Micro CEO Greg Spierkel told financial analysts during an earnings call last […]

Disappointing revenues, low visibility and more interest in lease financing characterized the quarter for technology distributors Ingram Micro and Avnet, reporting their earnings on Oct. 23. "The quarter wasn’t what we expected it to be," said Greg Spierkel, CEO of the world’s largest technology distributor, Ingram Micro. "When we started out and put our forecast […]

Two years in the making, Symantec last week at the Symantec PartnerEngage conference announced the formal launch of its Symantec Protection Network—the company’s software-as-a-service entry designed to be sold through channel partners. "Our focus is on the midmarket and SMB, and as a result of that we made a strategic early decision to focus this […]

Looking to ease concerns over technology financing availability and make credit available for IT purchases at a time when companies are tightening their budgets, IBM Global Financing was set to announce a lease financing program on Thursday. The captive finance arm of IBM will announce its "Why Wait?" technology financing offer, which provides 90-day interest-free […]

In the aftermath of the recent financial crisis, providers of credit and financing for technology purchases – distributors and the finance arms of technology vendors — have said that in spite of what’s going on elsewhere it’s still business as usual when it comes to providing credit for IT deals. Click here to read breaking […]

As the technology industry sits at the precipice of an economic downturn, channel chiefs at every vendor are likely to feel the pressure to deliver more sales. But the initiatives they choose to focus on for their 2009 channel programs will make the difference on whether they succeed or fail in their efforts to deliver […]

Telepresence, video and voice communications vendor Polycom has expanded its Polycom Arena channel partner ecosystem program to include applications from ISV partners that have been tested and certified by Polycom. Separately, Polycom announced an updated set of telepresence products available for sale through the channel. Polycom says the expansion of the channel program will enable […]

One-time IBM channel executive Thomas J. Jarosh, who most recently served as vice president of operations in the IBM Systems and Technology Group, passed away Oct. 17, 2008. He was 55. Jarosh, a lifelong IBM employee, served as a channel executive for IBM in the 1990s. He was named vice president of channel strategy and […]

Nine months after Avaya appointed a new North American channel chief, Donny Ward, Avaya has announced that he will be replaced by Carol Neslund, former channel chief of Seagate’s Americas channel. The change comes a little more than 90 days since Jeremy Butt was named Avaya’s first global channel chief. Previously geographic channel chiefs reported […]

Reports out of the Symantec PartnerEngage 2008 in Washington DC this week say that Symantec Chief Operating Officer Enrique Salem may not replace Global Channel Chief Julie Parrish who recently announced her resignation from that position. Instead, Salem acknowledged Symantec may instead go with some kind of more regionally-based structure to manage the company’s channel […]

With more and more businesses looking to climb on the Web 2.0 bandwagon, there’s got to be a lot of opportunity for IT solution providers who can bring the benefits of a Web 2.0 implementation to end-user companies. Looking to capitalize on that trend, Acquia has created a distribution of open source Web 2.0 platform […]