Recent Articles
-
Ingram Micro May Offer Outsourced Backroom Ops for VARs
Distributor Ingram Micro is working on a program to allow VARs to outsource some of their backroom operations. Following its own success in outsourcing telephone contact with VARs to the Philippines and several backroom operations to Bangalore, India, the distributor is exploring a program to enable its 450 VentureTech Network VARs to take advantage of…
-
CDW Sets Sights on $10B in ’08
Direct reseller CDW has set a 2008 target of reaching $10 billion in sales, nearly 60 percent growth, an indication, analysts said, that the company is likely mulling a major acquisition. In an April 7 letter to investors, CEO John A. Edwardson said the company was striving to the reach the double-digit number by 2008,…
-
Microsoft Readies Competitor to Apple’s GarageBand
Some industry watchers have portrayed Apple Computer’s decision to make Windows available as a dual-boot on Intel-based Mac OS X systems as a big win for Microsoft. Microsoft doesn’t seem to be taking the move as a sign that it can call off the dogs, however. Microsoft is still pushing full-steam-ahead with a music-making program,…
-
VARs Tap SmartSource for Technical Skills
Keeping people with the right technical skills on staff and having enough work to extract the full value out of those skills is a delicate balance for solution providers. Increasingly, VARs, integrators and IT service providers turn to independent contractors to temporarily hire workers with the skills as they need them, partnering with firms such…
-
Lexmark Takes a Step Toward Hardware as a Service
Printer repair companies may have been among the earliest service providers in business IT. They were also among the earliest practitioners of hardware leasing (not accounting for Bell Operating Companies). So it’s no surprise that the first significant attempt at hardware as part of a managed service would come from the printing industry. Document management…
-
Distributors Fit for Managed Services
As channel companies continue to march toward managed services and utility computing, some have questioned the role of distributors, which traditionally has been to configure and ship hardware and software to customers. Where does the “configure and ship” model fit if the solution is delivered remotely and configured continuously? Not surprisingly, distributors are hunting for…
