John Moore

Voice over IP has been a slow starter in the residential/small office market. “The VOIP-in-the-home market hasn’t been much of a business,” acknowledged Dan Schwab, vice president of marketing at D&H Distributing Co. Inc. He said VOIP primarily has gained traction among large enterprises with the appropriate infrastructure to roll out the technology. Click here […]

Microsoft is often cast as a scapegoat, finding itself facing censure for everything from its security to its business practices. But that’s not the case in the SMB (small and midsize business) space, particularly when it comes to Windows Small Business Server 2003. A recent Yankee Group report shows that the product has taken the […]

Channel executives have mixed views on the recent promotion of Kevin Gilroy, who until last month ran Hewlett-Packard Co.’s channel program. On the one hand, they are supportive of the longtime channel executive’s move to senior vice president of HP’s worldwide SMB segment operation. On the other hand, they hope the change won’t derail the […]

Ken Fitzpatrick believes he has a security solution for small businesses that are truly small. Fitzpatrick, chief marketing officer at ClearPath Networks Inc., is enlisting the channel to help market the company’s SNAP VPN (virtual private network) security appliance. The appliance, which the El Segundo, Calif., company started shipping in June, provides such features as […]

I described in one of my recent columns how PRM (Partner Relationship Management) systems have evolved from electronic brochures to tools that help VARs manage their businesses. Once the customer approves a proposal, the back-office integration kicks in. A purchase order is automatically generated back to Avnet. Shipping notices and invoicing are also handled electronically. […]

The most disruptive IT trends in 64-bit computing are occurring not at the high end of the market, but rather on the “low and middle ground.” That’s the view of a recent report from The Sageza Group, a technology market analysis firm. Charles King, the report’s author and research director at Sageza, contends that the […]

If Accenture’s recent financial results prove an accurate barometer, integrators may be in for a shifting business climate. Global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing giant Accenture released results Wednesday for its fiscal third quarter, which ended May 31. During a teleconference discussion of the company’s financials, executives pointed to a couple of interesting trends. […]

Time was, PRM (partner relationship management) was just a new way to deliver old information: product information, collateral material and the like. Most distributors can tick off the PRM box on a checklist of reseller support mechanisms. But that was then. This is now. The technology has matured since its emergence in the late 1990s. […]

If you’ve got to migrate, make it worth the trouble. That’s the attitude some Windows NT 4.0 users have in light of Microsoft Corp.’s plan to cease support in the coming months. “Customers are saying, ‘While we are going through this, let’s integrate all these other things we need to do: SAN, NAS, e-mail archiving, […]

Solution selling has long been touted as the way to greater reseller profitability. Sell an integrated product and service bundle that targets a specific customer “pain point,” the theory goes, and upwardly mobile margins will follow. Product vendors and distributors have been nudging resellers in this direction for years, but they have not necessarily provided […]

Last week, I examined instant messaging security from 40,000 feet, discussing the segment’s potential from the broadest possible view. This time, I’ll take a look at how the market is developing for one value-added reseller. Network System Technologies (NST), based in Naperville, Ill., specializes in security and has started to see interest in shoring up […]

Security software vendors are rolling out instant messaging solutions, and they believe resellers can help move their new wares. Enterprise-class deals involving IM security appear to be few and far between at this point. But the market is young, and vendor wares are just starting to gain traction. Zone Labs six months ago began shipping […]