Recent Articles
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The Lure of Services Automation
I have written here and elsewhere about the desirability of services as a high-margin alternative to product sales for VARs that are seeking to increase revenues in the face of product commoditization. I have also gotten some pushback. One criticism, in particular, is that I totally disregard the cost of delivering service. Several correspondents have…
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Virtual Apps Go to Ex-stream
By now you have no doubt heard about virtualization. VARs can extend this concept further with a new twist called virtual application streaming. The idea is simple: Send all the bits that are needed for running one application to a user’s desktop at the moment they are needed, similar to how a video or music…
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VAR to VAR
It takes a solution provider to know a solution provider, so it’s no wonder that one of the newer trends in the IT channel involves providers launching products and services that they are marketing to peers and competitors. Driven by declining profit margins, distrust of some manufacturers and the goal to address client IT needs…
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Vista Reality Check
When Microsoft launched Windows Vista, many analysts predicted modest adoption, but not this slow. The operating system has failed every measure of success except one—the number of license shipments. At the close of Microsoft’s fiscal-2008 first quarter Sept. 30, Vista license shipments topped 88 million. But licenses shipped aren’t licenses deployed by enterprises or sold…
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An IT Friend in Need
One of the numerous highlights of a recent eWEEK survey of solution providers’ business practices was that when it comes to winning new business, many prefer to target the executive management team of a prospective client rather than the IT department. This makes sense on two levels. Sometimes there is no real IT department to…
