Recent Articles
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Beta Versions of SBS and EBS Get VARs Excited
VARs that have been specially selected to take part in the Beta testing of the Microsoft Small Business Server 2008 and Essential Business Server 2008 have given a resounding thumbs up to the new launches. “I am really excited about all the things that SBS 08 has to offer,” said John Endter, President of…
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Hey VAR, You Workin` My Side of the Street?
I’m not old enough to be this old school. The truth is, I’ve worked in the technology trade press longer than I’ve done anything else in my life, but I still don’t trust reporters who don’t have a requisite number of car wrecks and house fires and lost kids and city council meetings in their…
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Cognos Restricts Entry for IBM VARs
IBM VARs hoping to sell Cognos software following IBM’s acquisition of Cognos may have to think again, as Cognos officials told Channel Insider that the company is going to heavily control the number of new VARs entering its channel program. Mel Zeledon, vice president of Global Alliances and Channel at Cognos, said despite IBM buying…
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POS Innovations: Many Ways to Shop
Innovations in point-of-sale technology used to be about as exciting as, well, the unveiling of a new cash register from NCR or IBM. But that’s in the past. Nowadays, the POS market is far more complex and diverse with an abundance of kiosks, self-checkout units and line-busting mobile devices, many of which are part of…
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Trust Us: Dell Says Direct Services Sales Won`t Hurt MSPs
Ever since Dell first talked about its intention to sell managed services direct to customers, observers have feared that what happened to the PC space might happen to managed services and software-as-a-service (SAAS) markets. After all, Dell’s direct-sales approach is widely blamed for ruining margins and commoditizing the once-thriving PC reseller business. As the business…
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ROI: Now It`s for Real
In the alphabet soup of acronyms that bloats conversations between solution providers and customers, “ROI” is arguably the most common. But moving the return-on-investment talk from supposition and hopes to a provable, statistics-based figure is far from an exact science. ROI is not a simple equation; it takes many factors into consideration. The short answer…