ChannelBuzz.ca | Cutting through the noise for Canadian VARs and MSPs

Small biz owners concerned about network security, convergence

November 22, 2010

If it comes as a shock that small business owners are concerned about network security, then you have to ask yourself what rock you’ve been hiding under for the last few years.

However, a recent survey commissioned by Primus Canada reinforced the belief that small business owners are feeling vulnerable when it comes to the security of their networks. The survey also found that although most small business owners view digital convergence technologies (such as VoIP) as having a potential benefit on their organizations, less than a quarter of Canadian small businesses have adopted such technologies.

The reason? There’s a lot of anxiety going around related to technology.

Slideshow: Compugen’s grand opening

By Robert Dutt

November 22, 2010

Compugen recently celebrated the grand opening of its new headquarters in Richmond Hill, Ont., a new facility that will give the solution provider much-needed room to grow.

The event features tours of the new facility for customers, vendor and distributor partners, as well as some speeches and networking from “Club Compugen” on the company’s yet-unused third floor, and ChannelBuzz.ca was there to take it all in.

Here’s a look at some of the sights from a fun evening celebrating the new home of Canada’s largest independently-owned IT solution provider.

Cisco extends Fast Track program to more products

By Robert Dutt

November 18, 2010

Cisco midmarket chief Dave O'Callaghan

Cisco Systems has introduced the second iteration of its Fast Track program, which looks to make it faster and easier for the company’s partners to sell its high-volume products into midmarket customers.

Fast Track 1 offered published partner pricing for several Cisco high-volume SKUs through distribution, making the quoting and delivery process easier. The program ran for nearly four years, crossing the boundaries between promotion and program. But Dave O’Callaghan, Cisco’s new vice president of worldwide sales for the commercial segment, said it “wasn’t systematic across Cisco.” He’s fixing that problem with Fast Track 2.

CEO DeWalt on McAfee’s channel philosophy [Video]

By Robert Dutt

November 18, 2010

Ask McAfee‘s top Canadian partners, and they’ll almost unanimously give credit to CEO Dave DeWalt for the security vendor’s renaissance in the channel over the last few years.

There are signs that trend will continue. At the company’s Focus 10 conference last month, worldwide channel chief Alex Thurber told partners that “channel success” is one of the five key goals for the company’s board of directors in 2011.

ChannelBuzz.ca caught up with DeWalt while he was in Toronto earlier this week and gathered his thoughts on a variety of subjects, including why the company’s Canadian operations are so important, what McAfee partners should expect next, and DeWalt’s personal requests for his channel community. Catch the video after the jump.

Compugen celebrates move into new home

By Robert Dutt

November 18, 2010

Just call it “Club Compugen.” It’s okay. Harry Zarek did.

A who’s who of the Canadian IT channel, vendor and distribution communities showed up for this week’s grand opening of the solution provider’s new home at (to borrow Compugen marketing and services chief Andrew Stewart’s UK-turned-Italian accent) “Cento Via Renzo” in Richmond Hill, Ont.

The new facility boasts 120,000 square feet of space, up 75 per cent from the solution provider’s former digs. Zarek joked that he asked “Mr. Google” to put that in perspective.

“We’ve added two football fields in area of great growth potential for us to fuel our aspirations,” Zarek said.

Anti-spam Bill C-28: What’s it going to cost you?

By Chris Talbot

November 18, 2010

The third time’s the charm.

Over the last several years, two private member’s bills have been introduced – and ultimately failed – to bring anti-spam laws to Canada, but now Minister of Industry Tony Clement has managed to get his own anti-spam bill fast-tracked. In fact, it’s quite possible we’ll see Bill C-28 pass into law before Santa Claus slides down our chimneys. However, one industry member is concerned that small businesses will soon be facing stiff penalties for violating the bill’s rules.

DeWalt: Mobility is McAfee’s number one focus

By Robert Dutt

November 16, 2010

There’s a lot on McAfee CEO Dave DeWalt’s mind right now. What with a security landscape that includes two of the biggest attacks ever this year, his company’s impending purchase by Intel and its own build-out of its lineup, how could there not be?

But in a Toronto speaking engagement Tuesday morning, DeWalt made it clear that if there’s one thing that’s more on his mind than anything else, it’s trying to lock down an ever-increasing number of mobile devices.

“Mobility is the number one focus we’ve got,” DeWalt told press and analysts minutes after walking a crowd of McAfee partners and customers through the company’s strategy and vision at the Steam Whistle Brewery in downtown Toronto.

N-able connects with Mitel on managed VoIP

By Robert Dutt

November 16, 2010

N-able marketing and business development VP Derik Belair

It may have taken N-able Technologies a while to get into the managed voice over IP game, but it didn’t have to go far to do it.

The Ottawa-based remote management and monitoring company has announced a partnership with its neighbour, Mitel, to support remote monitoring of Mitel Communications Director with N-able’s N-central monitoring software.

“We’ve been in business for about 10 years now, and for the better part of that, Mitel has literally been across the parking lot from us,” said Derik Belair, vice president of marketing and business development at N-able. “It’s taken us a while, but a lot of our MSP partners are diving much deeper into the convergence/VoIP space.”

Intel reaches out to non-traditional VARs in security space

By Mark Cox

November 16, 2010

Intel's Harrison Li

VARs need to pay more attention to the vast changes taking place in the security market.

That was the message Intel emphasized at the 2010 Intel SMB Security Conference, held Monday in Toronto, one of a series of events Intel is hosting to reach out beyond its traditional partner base to the general VAR community, to educate them about the complex and changing nature of the security space, and why it matters to them.

“Our goal is to help the channel understand the technologies available to them,” said Harrison Li, global small business marketing manager for the channel at Intel. “There are a lot of pieces –embedded, storage, mobile — and we don’t always make it easy for partners to implement those technologies.”

Adobe builds a sandbox in upcoming Reader X

By Robert Dutt

November 15, 2010

Steve Adegbite, senior security strategist at Adobe

With the upcoming launch of Adobe Reader X (due out in the next few weeks), the software company is taking a different approach to security.

Reader X will introduce Protected Mode, a type of “sandboxing” that creates a layer between the data and potential malicious request that seeks vet requests that are appropriate from those that are to be considered unsafe and disallowed. It’s been used in a number of Microsoft products and in Google’s Chrome browser, but Reader X marks the technology’s debut in Adobe technology.

Steve Adegbite, senior security strategist at Adobe, said the new technology would present a significant hurdle to those looking to inject malware into PDF files. Here’s how.

Cisco unifies TelePresence channel programs

By Robert Dutt

November 15, 2010

Cisco Systems will Monday announce its plans to integrate its own TelePresence-focused partners with those selling recent purchase Tandberg’s TelePresence offerings under a single partner program.

The new TelePresence Video Authorized Technology Provider (ATP) program is set to debut Jan. 31 of next year, and company executives said it would bring together the best of the two companies’ channel programs.

“Both companies’ models were very partner-centric and partner-friendly,” said Rick Snyder, vice president of global business TelePresence sales, from a Tandberg background. “This program has a competency and value-based model. Partners who bring the greatest value will get the greatest rewards.”

Avaya rounds out data story with VENA

By Robert Dutt

November 14, 2010

Amir Hameed, Avaya Canada

Avaya has introduced its Virtual Enterprise Network Architecture, rounding out the data centre networking portfolio it acquired with its purchase of much of Nortel’s business last year.

VENA comes from a technology standard build by Nortel prior to its purchase by Avaya and submitted to the IEEE. Amir Hameed, director of national solutions specialists at Avaya Canada, said VENA takes the virtual data centre discussion from a conversation about two locations to across a variety of data centres.

“It’s all about the data centre these days – optimizing, maximizing and getting more value out of them,” Hameed said. “The industry had been focused on virtualization between data centres, but now we’re doing virtualization across multiple data centres and for the first time extending out to the end users themselves.”

Getting the most from your online marketing budget

By Stuart Crawford

November 14, 2010

SEO or search engine optimization has become the heart and soul of the Internet marketing industry and many Canadian MSPs and VARs are looking at Search Optimization as part of their overall online marketing strategy.

Each and every reseller or service provider wants to be on the top of search engine results page (SERP). This has created a need for search engine optimizers who alter and optimize the Web sites in such a manner that they become search engine friendly and bring in traffic and revenue to the organizations.

Like any competitive field of business, SEO hasn’t escaped from the hands of crooks and ne’er-do-wells who make tall claims on search engine optimization. It is important for you to detect such frauds before you assign them an optimization job. Here are a few tips which will help you in sorting a fraud SEO service provider from a real one: Read More »

New reseller group seeks to MPOWR Microsoft partners

By Robert Dutt

November 11, 2010

A group of Microsoft partners from across North America and beyond have come together to create MPOWR (Microsoft Partners for One World of Results), a new online community devoted to partner business and professional development.

The group is distinguishing itself in its focus on business development, said Bill Luisi, vice president of sales for Irving, Tex.-based Microsoft partner Teknion Data Solutions, a founding member of MPOWR.

“We want to empower partners with information, with tools to help them grow their business,” Luisi said. “We’re focused on growth, profitability and helping partners throughout the Microsoft ecosystem. We want to make them smart salespeople and smarter businesspeople.”

Is surfing for news more dangerous than surfing for porn?

By Robert Dutt

November 11, 2010

If you have clients who block online to adult content on work computers, but allows access to the news, you may want to have a chat with them about their policies.

According to the 2010 Threat Report from security vendor Websense, Web-based news sources are now more likely to feature unexpected malware than are adult entertainment sites. Patrik Runald, senior manager for Websense security research, said there has been a dramatic uptick in the amount of “black-hat SEO” (search engine optimization) being done. In the latter half of 2009, searching for the latest trending topics or buzzwords landed you somewhere with malware about 14 per cent of the time. Now, that’s 22.4 per cent. Compare that to 21.8 per cent infection rates for “objectionable content.”

Slideshow: Microsoft Impact Awards 2010

By Robert Dutt

November 11, 2010

Microsoft Canada this week handed out its eighth annual Microsoft Impact Awards for partner excellence at the historic Capitol Theatre in Toronto.

From top solutions to acrobatics, from memorable speeches (or lack thereof) to questionable trivia questions, it was a packed night, as the company honoured its top partners across a record-setting 28 categories.

ChannelBuzz.ca was on hand to take in the festivities. Here’s a look at what went down that night in Toronto.

Microsoft honours top partners at Impact Awards

By Robert Dutt

November 10, 2010

Eric Gales (left) with Habañero's Steven Fitzgerald at the 2010 Impact Awards.

CMS Consulting, Navantis and Non-Linear Creations each walked away from this year’s Microsoft Impact Awards with two trophies.

Those three were among the winners of 28 total awards at Microsoft Canada’s annual gala and awards for top partners, held this week at the historic Capitol Event Theatre in Toronto. Eric Gales, president of Microsoft Canada, told partners that there were a lot of awards, but that “we’re in a lot of categories, and you’ve been doing great stuff in all of them.”

This year’s awards saw a cloud-specific award for the first time, and Gales reflected on Microsoft’s “all in” bet on the cloud, calling it a “new space” for many partners. “We’re learning a ton, and many of you are learning with us,” Gales told partners.

Varnex differentiator is in SMB focus, members and vendors say

By Robert Dutt

November 10, 2010

There’s no doubt what is going to define the newly-launched Varnex Canada community from Synnex Canada. Group members, the distributor and vendor sponsors alike say the group’s focus on small-business customers will be its differentiator.

Finding differentiation from VentureTech Network and TechSelect, communities supported and fostered by rival distributors Ingram Micro and Tech Data is especially important for Synnex’s community due to its status as the new kid on the block. To avoid being seen as merely a “me too” organization, it’s got to have its own flavour. And that flavour is a distinctly small business one.

ChannelBuzz.ca was on hand for the debut of the Canadian contingent at the group’s Fall Conference in Las Vegas earlier this week, and caught up with various constituents to find out what will shape the community.

Big Blue encourages partners to go vertical

By Robert Dutt

November 9, 2010

Mike Riegel, vice president of ISV and developer relations at IBM

IBM Tuesday introduced a trio of new programs that aim to help partners specialize on nine of the key vertical markets it says are being built and driven by its Smarter Planet initiative.

The company’s IBM Industry Authorization is an extension of its Software Value Plus program for software-centric business partners that offers partners help with building vertical-specific practices and offers incentives for partners to do so.

“There’s a huge shift in how clients are thinking about and consuming IT as an enabler to solve their challenges – you don’t go in and talk to them about IT products, you talk to them about industry problems,” said Mike Riegel, vice president of ISV and developer relations at IBM. Read More »

USB security vendor plugs into the channel

By Lawrence Cummer

November 9, 2010

Jack Sebbag, vice president of sales for North America at MXI Security.

Montreal-based MXI Security, a manufacturer of encrypted USB products, last week launched a strategic rebranding effort with an exclusive push on channel partners, as well as the company’s first secure USB-based desktop.

“We’re decided to go channel all the way,” says Jack Sebbag, the company’s vice president of sales for North America. “If we’re going to accomplish our full growth potential, there’s no way we can accomplish that without a channel strategy that saw us going 100 per cent channel and dedication to that model.”

MXI Security was established in 2001 as a division of Memory Experts International Inc. The company develops and manufactures management and encryption solutions for portable USB drives to better combat data theft and information loss. The company produces portable storage devices with capacities between 1GB and 64GB that use strong password authentication and AES (256bit) hardware encryption and, in some cases, biometrics.

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