Recent Articles
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VARs, Analysts Welcome IBM SMB Shake-Up
Now that the dust has settled and the impact has been digested, both VARs and analysts have welcomed IBM’s move to realign its SMB business. Big Blue announced recently that it has split its former SMB business, now called General Business Group, into two; one part to focus on the true midmarket and the other…
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Konica Minolta Hires Former Toshiba Chief
Former Toshiba Americas boss Richard K. Taylor has been appointed to the newly created position of senior executive vice president and chief operating officer at Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A. Taylor, who will be responsible for the printer vendor’s sales and services business, will report directly to Jun Haraguchi, president and CEO . …
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Mitel Wants Single-Vendor VARs
Mitel is aiming to turn the multivendor channel on its head by asking partners to join its Exclusive Business Partner Program and guarantee all new sales to Mitel—a move some partners have welcomed. Mitel, which merged with Inter-tel in August 2007, now boasts 800 channel partners and said it is encouraging them to take advantage…
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IBM Reveals `New` PartnerWorld Conference
A new conference has risen from the demise of IBM PartnerWorld, which Big Blue hopes will be more focused on the real business issues facing channel partners. PartnerWorld, which was the annual global partner conference for IBM that ran for seven years, is no more; instead the vendor has launched the IBM Partner Leadership Conference.…
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Avnet: SMB Spending Still Strong
If the economy is flagging, somebody forgot to tell small and mid-size businesses. Distribution giant Avnet’s Technology Solutions organization reported a 6.9 percent increase in sales on a pro-forma basis year-over-year during its second fiscal quarter – excluding revenues from the company’s acquisitions. On a geographic basis, sales in the Americas were up by 6.6…
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Microsoft Sees Hike in Profit
By Daisuke Wakabayashi SEATTLE (Reuters) – Microsoft signaled confidence to a rattled stock market by raising its full-year earnings outlook above Wall Street targets and reporting a 79 percent rise in quarterly profit on Thursday. Analysts took the results as a good sign for technology companies in the face of a slowing economy, and Microsoft…