John Hazard

Hewlett-Packard put Dell customers in its sights this month with a two-tier advertising campaign designed to promote the value that those buying directly from a vendor could gain by switching to a VAR for products and services. National ads proclaiming, “What could be more direct than face to face?” and “Meet your friendly neighborhood technology […]

Cisco Systems Capital is extending, to July 28, its zero percent progress payments, to free cash flow and enable VARs to take on more projects at one time, the company announced Jan. 8. Progress payments provide VARs with interest-free advances, up to 80 percent of the total, to help cover expenses on Unified Communications deployments […]

Autotask launched Autotask LiveMobile on Jan. 10, making its business management platform for IT service providers accessible from handheld devices including smart phones, PDAs and PocketPCs. The mobile access is designed to tie the activities of technicians in the field to the platform in real time, allowing solution providers better control over service delivery and […]

U.K. data encryption specialist Data Encryption Systems has been acquiring U.S. partners in the hopes of capitalizing on a new product and awareness following a slew of high-profile data security lapses in 2006. In December, DES signed T3, a Centerville, Va.-based security software reseller specializing in federal government clients, which has designs to build a […]

Twenty-three agencies of the U.S. Executive Branch. Hundreds of subagencies. Thousands of order points. Hundreds of systems integrators who implement and maintain the IT needs of the federal government. For vendors, doing business with the feds means keeping tabs on all of the above, meeting separate standards for each and maintaining dozens of contracts. For […]

Distributor Agilysys announced Jan. 2 that it will sell its distribution business, KeyLink Systems Group, to competitor Arrow Electronics, leaving its solution provider practice, Agilysys Enterprise Solutions Group, as one of the largest VARs in the land. Agilysys will use the proceeds from the $485 million sale (expected to be about $340 million after taxes) […]

Peter Cannone, new CEO for OnForce, an IT services marketplace, aims to build out the company’s role as the services arm of national resellers such as CDW and his former employer PC Connection. The company will spend more time informing those direct resellers with nationwide coverage, most of which are adding services or considering the […]

Distributor Arrow Electronics extended its reach into Europe, completing Dec. 29 the $80 million acquisition of InTechnology’s distribution arm in the United Kingdom, Arrow announced. The pick-up gives Melville, N.Y.-based Arrow a presence in the United Kingdom, Europe’s second largest IT market, where Arrow had previously been unrepresented and boosts it’s position as a security […]

With the crunch on to hire qualified IT staff from an insufficient talent pool, businesses are increasingly turning to VARs and solution providers for help locating staff, and VARs are finding that it pays. By some estimates, there as many as 10 IT openings for every qualified candidate, and businesses are climbing over each other […]

Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard announced Dec. 13 a joint, three-year, $300 million commitment to develop services around Microsoft’s “People Ready Business” initiative. HP’s Technology Solutions Group and Microsoft will jointly develop, test, validate, deploy, sell and market a new solutions portfolio, “HP & Microsoft Solutions for the People-Ready Business,” around five technologies: messaging and unified communications […]

An independent study of Vendor ISV programs put IBM’s Partner World Industry Networks atop a list of the top 10, besting rival Microsoft and others in metrics measuring technical, sales and marketing enablement. IBM scored highest in all categories and overall, pulling a 75 out of 100 in the study by research firm IDC, in […]

Prices and market conditions changed little in 2006 for the major enterprise IT distributors, but significant acquisitions, a trend to convergence and a dipping Dell set up 2007 to be a positive year for the industry, said analysts at Raymond James and Associates. IT spending through distributors grew about 7 percent in North America, 4 […]