Jessica Davis

Sun Microsystems’ efforts to improve its profitability may very well be jeopardizing its reputation and relationship with its channel partners. That’s the conclusion of Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., a financial analyst firm, in a research note released April 30. Let Your Voice be Heard! Vote on the Most Significant New Product Introductions in the […]

IBM Global Services has created a set of productized managed services designed for small and midsize businesses that are available through its channel partners. The Armonk, N.Y.-based technology giant said it was reaffirming its commitment to the channel by making these packaged services, called “Service Products,” available to be sold the same way partners sell […]

Looking to bring the benefits of Web 2.0 and social networking to the commercial side, IBM is rolling out its own entry, Lotus Connections. The Armonk, N.Y., company announced the program and other social networking initiatives for its partners at its Partner World Summit in St. Louis April 30. Described by IBM as embodying the […]

Four days after it initiated a sales promotion that offered deep discounts directly to customers on some of its major products, Sun Microsystems is making changes to the program to quell cries of channel conflict from partners. VARs told Sun that the promotion was undermining deals they had underway with customers, the company said in […]

Sun Microsystems is offering deep discounts directly to customers on some of its major products in a promotion it is billing as the Sun 25th Anniversary Sale—a promotion likely to undermine deals that Sun VARs may have had underway with customers. The systems company is promoting the deep discounts directly to customers on a Web […]

Intel is making it easier for partners to create and pay for marketing campaigns—with market development fund credits rather than out-of-pocket spending—in a revamped program that includes providing partners with easy access to Google advertising. The chip giant announced the changes, called the Virtual Marketing Storefront, at its Intel Solutions Summit in Paris on April […]

Looking to streamline manufacturer processing of special pricing requests that come in from VARs and resellers, CMR has rolled out a new Web-based tool to automate what has largely been a manual process in many organizations. The maker of solutions for managing trade promotion, point of sale and inventory reporting for manufacturers and distributors said […]

Polycom is throwing its hat into the high-definition video conferencing system ring, announcing during its partner conference on April 24 that its recently released RMX 2000 real-time media conferencing platform will now offer HD video conferencing. The technology improvement is available through an upgrade in the software to version 2.0. Polycom said that its new […]

Security vendor Trend Micro is offering VARs a way to streamline their monitoring of client sites in the form of a free tool for partners called the Worry-Free Remote Manager. The Web-based system, available next month, enables VARs to aggregate monitoring information for all their customers on a single Web-based dashboard, allowing the streamlining of […]

CompUSA stores that are closing down are offering deep discounts on Microsoft Windows Vista operating systems and other technology, but so far VARs have yet to see the impact on their businesses. A quick survey of VARs on Long Island revealed that none have felt any impact whatsoever from the store closings or competition from […]

Patch management security vendor LANDesk has added integrated host intrusion protection to its portfolio of offerings. The new technology will help VARs offer their customers endpoint protection from zero-day threats, according to Devin Anderson, business line manager at the subsidiary of Avocent, in Huntsville, Ala. Let Your Voice be Heard! Vote on the Most Significant […]

The small business market for unified communications telephone systems is buzzing, at least if you take the cue from major vendors such as Cisco, 3Com and Nortel. All three companies announced new systems or enhancements to existing systems for SMBs (small and midsize businesses) in the last month, giving VARs an entry into a space […]