Jessica Davis

Alternative Security Vendors for SMBs Comments made by Symantec Chief Operating Officer Enrique Salem to Wall Street analysts recently didn’t sit well with some of the company’s channel reseller partners. And in the competitive security business, many VARs may be looking to competitors to fill the gap. Here’s a quick look at some Symantec alternatives […]

Symantec’s changing channel partner strategy could actually end up favoring the company’s biggest partners while eating SMB partners’ lunches. A transcript of Symantec’s executives’ briefing with Wall Street analysts reveals that Symantec plans to cut distributors out of the biggest partner transactions, letting its platinum partners buy directly from Symantec instead.  That’s a move that […]

Responding to a firestorm of negative press and angry partners, Symantec’s channel chief, Julie Parrish, clarified what the company believes are a number of misconceptions that cropped up in the wake of  statements  Symantec Chief Operating Officer Enrique Salem recently made to Wall Street analysts. Parrish spoke with Channel Insider about the comments by Salem and how […]

Symantec has reportedly made a strategic decision to take more business direct. The company is apparently offering big customers the option to dump their channel partners and deal directly with the vendor. And it is considering doing the same with small and midsize business contract renewals. Symantec Responds: Read what Symantec Channel Chief Julie Parrish […]

The past two months have seen IT executives grow increasing bullish about the future of their organizations, according to the results of the most recent CDW IT Monitor, a bimonthly survey that gauges IT budget management and spending plans and tracks the perceived value of business technology. The CDW IT Monitor index, which debuted in […]

Sun Microsystems is adding two new enhancements for its channel partners–an online networking community for its Executive level partners and a web-based sales tool that calculates financial benefits for deploying solutions available to all its partners. The invitation-only online community is designed to enable Sun’s top 125 VARs communicate with each other, letting them build […]

Following the sudden departure of Avaya CEO Lou D’Ambrosio in June, Avaya’s new global channel chief is joining the company at a transitional time—but that may be an opportunity for the new executive. “We plan to dramatically increase our channel-centricity over the next few years,” says Jeremy Butt, Avaya’s new vice president of worldwide channel […]

A Dell-commissioned study released yesterday shows that 12,000 laptop computers are lost in airports each week. That’s a staggering number when you consider the potential cost of lost and misused corporate data. A look back at so many headlines from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to Boeing, shows that the cost can go far […]

Dell is creating a series of specializations within its partner enterprise architecture certification and will start by launching two – one for Storage and Server and another for Virtualization. And over the next year and a half Dell expects to also add specializations covering Power and Cooling/Green IT and Security. The changes come as Dell […]

IBM Global Financing’s software leasing business skyrocketed in the first quarter, up 90 percent year over year, in part due to recent shock wave sent across credit markets by the mortgage market meltdown. "I knew it was growing at a good clip, but I was surprised to see how big it was in the first […]

Looking to help partners take Cisco’s virtualized networking environment from its big customers down into their branch offices to enable applications from Microsoft Office Communications Server to Cisco’s Telepresence, Cisco has updated its WAAS offering, introduced new Cisco Data Center 3.0 professional programs and services, and announced a handful of other updates. "We are bringing […]