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Kaspersky North American channel chief Chris Doggett

Kaspersky launches managed security service offering

MSP edition allows partner to charge for licenses on a monthly, rather than yearly,...

NetSuite channel chief Craig West

Preview: NetSuite SuiteWorld 2012

Channel chief Craig West runs down the cloud company’s partner and user conference in...

Citrix CEO Mark Templeton

Liveblog: Citrix Synergy keynotes

Live coverage of the kickoff of Citrix’s end-user event from San Francisco

Tom Flink

Citrix partners: Get ready for a 360 view of...

New Partner Dashboards to debut in June, pay-for-performance coming in the future

Cisco: Global Internet traffic to quadruple by 2015

June 2, 2011

Network connections

Cisco believes there won't be so many open ports come 2015

Brace yourself for a veritable Internet explosion.

Cisco Systems predicts that by 2015 the number of network-connected devices will be more than 15 billion, twice the world’s population, that video will dominate online traffic, and that our increasing love of mobile gadgetry will ensure wireless computing surpasses desktop computing.

In its fifth annual report, this year the Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecast (2010-2015), the company also said the total amount of global Internet traffic will quadruple by 2015 and reach 966 Exabytes per year.

The IT channel would do well to consider the problems this will pose for companies internally as extra bandwidth for video will be needed, and externally for redundant services that can be used in case of network outages or network over capacity with the primary provider, suggested Rob Enderle, principal analyst at The Enderle Group.

IBM brings partners into Smarter Commerce initiative

June 1, 2011

Melinda Matthews IBM

Melinda Matthews, worldwide director, industry solutions, business partners, IBM

IBM is looking to get partners selling across its lineup of business analytics software with the announcement of new incentives around its Smarter Commerce products.

Smarter Commerce is a brand for a variety of IBM’s business software acquisitions over the last few years, including Cognos, SPSS, Netizza, Coremetrics, Seterling Commerce, SPSS and ILOG. IBM sees Smarter Commerce as a $20 billion marketing opportunity, and has recently invested more than $2.5 billion in purchases in this space.

And to get partners selling, it’s offering partners who get trained, get certified and get selling a 50 per cent back-end rebate on top of existing up-front margins.

“[Smarter Commerce] is great news not only for IBM partners, but also for those business partners we’ve acquired along the way,” said Melinda Matthews, worldwide director of industry solutions for business partners at IBM.”

Avnet Technology Solutions adds VCE to data centre lineup

June 1, 2011

Darren Adams Avnet

Darren Adams, VP and GM of the Cisco business unit at Avnet Technology Solutions

Avnet Technology Solutions has expanded on its data centre business again, adding support for another joint venture producing data centre stacks. The solutions distributor has announced that it will now carry The Virtual Computing Environment (VCE)’s Vblock line of products in both Canada and the U.S.

VCE is the formal joint venture amongst Cisco, EMC and VMware, offering a stack of servers, storage, networking and infrastructure software for virtualized data centre consolidation.

The announcement is just part of a further rampup of Avnet’s data centre business. In recent months, it has expanded its relationship with data centre networking vendor Brocade, and has announced integration efforts around Cisco/VMware/NetApp joint venture FlexPod.

Elfiq Networks signs on with Tech Data Canada

May 31, 2011

JP Hebert - Elfiq

Jean Pascal Hebert, VP of business development, Elfiq Networks

Elfiq Networks has signed on with Tech Data Canada, giving the Montreal-based load-balancing appliance company a distribution partnership in Canada.

In business since 2003 and really booming since 2008, Elfiq’s appliances allow businesses to share multiple Internet connections from multiple ISPs. It offers products for the SMB through to the enterprise

For Jean Pascal Hebert, vice president of business development at Elfiq, there’s a very powerful motivator for signing up with distribution – awareness.

“About 70 per cent of our potential audience, both end user and VAR, have no idea that this product category exists,” Hebert said of Elfiq’s wares. “We’re bringing to the Canadian channel a mission-critical solution for their customers, a basic requirement for companies of 100 people and up.”

Alberta MSP plans aid trip to Slave Lake

May 31, 2011

PCIT president Darren Boyer

Like many Canadians, the images of Slave Lake, Alberta ablaze tugged at Darren Boyer’s heartstrings. For Boyer, president of Grand Prairie, Alta.-based PCIT, which does business in the north of Alberta, the images took on a personal meaning – Boyer reports that one of his customers, based in Slave Lake, lost two homes and the business to the flames that consumed almost half of the town.

“I was just really moved by the severity of it – I just wanted to help them,” Boyer said.

And so Boyer came up with a plan to help – as soon as people are moved back into Slave Lake, and businesses begins in as close an approximation as possible to normal, Boyer and one of his team members will head to Slave Lake to offer local businesses a free technological hand up.

Cisco chief futurist: The Internet of Things is here

By Chris Talbot

May 30, 2011

When futurists talk about technology to come, it’s easy to start imagining tales spun by the likes of Issac Asimov and William Gibson (or whoever your favourite science-fiction author happens to be), and that’s the case with Cisco Systems‘ chief futurist. However, some of what Cisco’s futurist talks about regarding the Internet is already here. An evolution in the fundamentals of the Internet is happening right now, and it’s only going to continue.

Dave Evans, chief futurist and chief technologist for the Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) at Cisco, calls the current evolution that’s going on with the decades-old Internet the “Internet of Things.” According to Evans, the World Wide Web has arguably gone through four distinct changes in its nearly 20-year history, but the Internet has remained fundamentally the same since the early days. Technologies have changed, standards have come and gone, but the Internet really hasn’t evolved at its base level since the days when it wasn’t used outside of academia and government.

Liveblog: Citrix Synergy Day Two Keynotes

May 26, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO – The main-stage activities at Citrix Synergy 2011 continue Thursday morning with a series of keynotes anchored by the ever-colorful Simon Crosby.

Crosby, Citrix’s chief technology officer for its data centre and cloud division has earned his reputation as an outspoken advocate of his company’s technology and critical of his competition.

Crosby’s “Simon Sez” session will bring the event home, but the session will also feature a panel discussion and a U.S.-based security agency talking about its experience with Citrix’s new “hardened” XenClient XT software.

Join us for the festivities after the jump. The liveblog should go live shortly after 8:30 am Pacific Time, 11:30 am Eastern Time.

Intel outlines its next generation of desktop virtualization

By Chris Talbot

May 25, 2011

According to Intel, the current state of desktop virtualization just isn’t cutting it for IT and end-users. The company has outlined what it’s calling “intelligent desktop virtualization,” which Intel expects will replace “outdated” version of desktop virtualization.

There are three main distinctions between traditional desktop virtualization and Intel’s vision of intelligent desktop virtualization, said Lisa Watts, director of business client solutions at Intel. The first aspect is that it will have central management, but the compute will happen locally, which differs from the dominant delivery methods, she said.

“Local compute always offers the better user experience,” Watts said. It’s less complex to manage and also offers better economics than today’s desktop virtualization, she added.

Liveblog: Citrix Synergy Keynotes

May 25, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO – After its biggest Summit partner event ever earlier this week, Citrix Systems kicks off its Synergy end users conference at the Moscone Center West here Wednesday.

Citrix CEO Mark Templeton will take the stage, along with numerous other executives, to discuss where the virtualization software vendor is headed. So what’s in store? Well… we’ve had a bit of a preview, but we can’t say much for the next few minutes. So let’s just see the word “cloud” will be prominently featured.

Join us after the jump for full as-it-happens news from Synergy. The Liveblog should go live at about 10:30 am PT or 1:30 pm ET.

Citrix snaps up Kaviza for small-business VDI

May 23, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO – As it kicks off its Citrix Summit 2011 partner conference here, Citrix Systems announced Monday that it has purchased one of its technology partners, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) developer Kaviza.

Kaviza is focused on desktop virtualization for the SMB market; its flagship product is an offering called VDI-in-a-Box.

“We’ve been developing virtualization products for over 17 years now, and our channel has been moving with us as those products have gone from tactical point solutions to scale, but there’s been a segment that we haven’t addressed with purpose-built product in SMB,” said Tom Flink, vice president of channels and market development at Citrix. “We recognize that, and we think that desktop virtualization – and VDI in particular – has a lot of space for that.”

Liveblog: Citrix Summit 2011 Keynotes

May 23, 2011

Citrix channel chief Tom Flink speaking at last year's Citrix Summit

SAN FRANCISCO – Victoria Day will have to wait. Your intrepid blogger is settling in for the keynote session at Citrix Systems’ biggest partner event of the year, its Citrix Summit show at the Moscone West convention centre here.

On tap, a look at where Citrix has been in the last year and where it’s going for the next, courtesy of its top leadership, including worldwide channel chief Tom Flink and CEO Mark Templeton.

The company may also have a surprise announcement or two up its sleeve, but we can’t really say anything more about that at this point. You’ll have to tune in live to find out what’s going on for the virtualization software company.

The liveblog should go live in time for the 2:00 pm Pacific Time (5:00 pm Eastern Time) keynote kickoff. Join us for the play-by-play after the jump!

SAP channel chief eyes value-based partner program

May 23, 2011

Friedrich Neumeyer

SAP channel chief Friedrich Neumeyer

SAP’s new worldwide channel chief sees a shift coming in the software company’s channel program away from volume and towards value in terms of how partners are tiered.

Friedrich Neumeyer, who moved into the role of senior vice president of volume reseller and service partners for SAP’s global ecosystem and channels group earlier this year in a shakeup of channel leadership on the heels of the departure of former channel chief Patricia Hume. It created a president-level position for Eric Duffaut, and moved Neumeyer into the role of managing the company’s reseller base.

Now he liberally hints at changes yet to come that will leave his mark, and the mark of a changing way of doing business at SAP, on the company’s partners.

SAP Canada looks to double channel feet on the street

May 23, 2011

Mary Peterson SAP

Mary Peterson, vice president of indirect sales, SAP Canada

Mary Peterson has big goals for 2011.

Peterson, vice president of indirect sales at SAP Canada, is taking advantage of the company’s channel renaissance, setting a high bar for growing the company’s channel partner community in Canada. As SAP itself seeks to send all of its SMB business through the channel, and an increasing amount of it enterprise business as well, Peterson sees an opportunity to make the community she works with a lot bigger.

“I want to double our feet on the street,” she said.

It’s important to note that SAP is not – and probably never will be – a “big tent” channel program in terms of the ranks of partners who work with a Cisco, an HP or a Microsoft.

So how does Peterson plan to meet her goal?

ChannelBuzz.ca Podcast Episode 3: Cisco’s Partner Advisor

May 23, 2011

Todd Madgett - Cisco

Cisco Canada's Todd Madgett

The ChannelBuzz.ca Podcast is back for its third edition, looking at some of the biggest stories in the Canadian IT channel over the last few weeks.

Joining us off the top is Cisco Canada’s SMB chief Tod Madgett to discuss a new program from the networking giant, Partner Advisor, that allows small business-focused solution providers to get access to some of the onboarding and enablement tools usually available to only its managed partner base.

In addition, we take a look at the following:

Dave Miketinac, Dell Canada’s new SMB chief, talks about his new role and the changes made to PartnerDirect;
No Panic Computing’s Larry Keating and Tom Ward discuss notebooks-as-a-service on the heels of Google’s introduction of the Chromebook;
Patti Smith, national channel manager at Panda Security Canada, addresses the company’s new MSP partner program; and
Michelle Warren of MW Research joins us to round up a number of technology stories, including Microsoft and Skype, Cisco’s pending reorganization, and the declining PC market.

Catch the podcast after the jump, or subscribe via iTunes.

Episode 3: Cisco Partner Advisor [ 54:17 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (55)

Liveblog: SAPPHIRE Keynotes from Hasso Plattner and Vishal Sikka

May 18, 2011

Hasso Plattner at a previous SAPPHIRE

ORLANDO — SAP’s annual SAPPHIRE user conference enters the homestretch Wednesday morning with a keynote session from SAP chairman and chief software advisor Hass Plattner and CTO Vishal Sikka, the company’s two chief technology strategists.

While co-CEOs Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe Tuesday outlined the company’s business plans, and certainly didn’t shy away from the technology aspects, expect Plattner and Sikka to delve deeper into some of the big topics of this show — including business analytics, the cloud, in-memory computing and mobility.

The keynote kicks off about 9:00 am Eastern Time on Wednesday. Join us after the jump for an as-it-happens commentary from the event in our liveblog.

SAP’s channel investment starting to bear fruit

May 17, 2011

SAP North American channel chief Kevin Gilroy

ORLANDO – Over the last fourteen months, SAP has invested more in using the channel to grow its business in the SMB space and beyond, and that commitment is starting to drive results, according to its North American channel chief.

SAP’s growth in the SME space in North America for its first quarter ended March 31 was 22 per cent. That’s not bad growth, but Kevin Gilroy, vice president of channel sales for North America at the business software giant, said his team’s group drove that number, bringing in 70 per cent year-over-year growth.

So what’s behind the growth in SAP’s channel?

Avnet offers partners simplicity around FlexPod

May 17, 2011

Scott Look Avnet

Avnet Technology Solutions' Scott Look

Avnet Technology Solutions has announced a set of services that it said would make FlexPod – the data centre “building blocks” from Cisco, NetApp and VMware – easier for the channel partners to bring to market.

FlexPods are validated configurations of servers, storage, networking and software for the data centre based around Cisco’s Unified Computing System servers. Think similar to the VCE joint venture, but with NetApp storage gear instead of EMC.

Carol Kinney, vice president and regional sales director for ATS’ Americas Cisco Solutions group, said that by offering configuration services, the distributor is making it easier for solution providers to get into the data centre market.

“We’re making it simple for our partners to obtain a fully validated and designed configuration of FlexPod,” Kinney said. “We’re taking complexity out and providing support with a single phone call.”

OpenAir proving a strong channel on-ramp for NetSuite

May 17, 2011

Craig West NetSuite

Craig West, vice president of channel sales at NetSuite

When NetSuite brought OpenAir closer to its own organization at the beginning of this year, it found itself a new way to bring in solution providers.

The cloud-based ERP vendor acquired OpenAir, which makes on-demand professional services automation (PSA) software in 2008, and has touted it as an opportunity for the company’s channel partners ever since, said Craig West, vice president of channel sales at NetSuite.

But the real traction started when it formally integrated the company into NetSuite as of Jan. 1, 2011, meaning that all NetSuite partners have access to the product.

“OpenAir has been growing really wildly for us,” West said. “It’s just crazy great for us.”

Hitachi Data Systems adds specialization to TrueNorth Partner Program

May 17, 2011

Peter Kriparos HDS Canada

HDS Canada channel chief Peter Kriparos

Add storage vendor Hitachi Data Systems to the list of vendors asking solution providers to specialize. Many vendors are providing opportunities for channel partners to differentiate themselves from their peers, and in the case of HDS, it’s reaching out to its top partners with new specializations.

While partners have long delivered services on behalf of Hitachi to customers, the need to formalize services capabilities and expertise and make it part of an overall program comes from a need to recognize significant value-add, said Peter Kriparos, manager of channels for Canada at Hitachi Data Systems.

“We come from the high-value space and continue to drive solutions and technology into that space,” Kriparos said. “These service will get us deeper and wider into higher value for our customers.”

Liveblog: SAPPHIRE Co-CEO Keynotes

May 17, 2011

SAP co-CEOs Bill McDermott (left) and Jim Hagermann Snabe

ORLANDO – SAP’s annual SAPPHIRE customer event kicks off Tuesday morning with a live keynote session from SAP Co-CEOs Bill McDermott and Jim Hagermann Snabe.

This year’s SAPHIRE happens as the company is undergoing a channel renaissance, having committed its SME business to its partner base. And according to executives on hand, that transition is beginning to bear fruit.

But more on that later, as ChannelBuzz.ca will have chats with North American channel chief Kevin Gilroy, Canadian channel leaders Rene Giguere and Mary Peterson, and worldwide reseller chief Fritz Neumeyer at the event.

But first thing’s first. McDermott and Hagermann Snabe take the stage at about 9 am Eastern on Tuesday. Join us after the jump for as-it-happens coverage of the event.

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