In Depth

In Depth

• In-depth: Technology to pitch in 2012

  Last month, Gartner published its technology and trend predictions for the next few years and among the dominant trends were a greater move towards cloud computing and increasing consumerisation of IT.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: 2011, how was it for you?

  As the curtains are pulled on another year it provides the channel with a chance to look back and take stock. In many respects 2011 was like the year before with success having to be hard earned and the economic problems continuing.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: Managing millions of megabytes

  The number of megabytes and terabytes might be lower than those racked up in the enterprise and the technology currently being used might have a slight legacy feel to it but the SME sector still requires support from the channel making the right ...  Continue Reading

• Research: Volatility breeds innovation and efficiency

  With a climate of volatility this year, it's surprising to see that the trend in the IT market is fairly predictable. For 9 months we have observed growth in Storage, Software, Webbooks and Headsets.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: A Statement sticking to plan A

  The Chancellor delivered the 2011 Autumn Statement on 29 November. In the Statement he has kept to the course on which he set out last year, with no adjustment to current overall spending and borrowing, writes Jeff Webber.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: Staying on the right side of the ICO

  Are you a business that holds personal information on staff or customers? If so, you need to be aware of a new Code of Practice recently published by the Information Commissioner's Office which offers guidelines on when data can be shared and how it...  Continue Reading

• In-depth: Selling services for social success

  Nobody can now dispute that social networking is well-established in the workplace, at Salesforce.com's Cloudforce conference in September.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: The benefits and pitfalls of social media

  Amro Gebreel outlines how you can make social media tools work for your business- as well as some cautionary tales on how not to do networking.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: The social side of CRM

  Social CRM enables firms to monitor and interact with their followers more effectively than ever before, writes Billy MacInnes. Where is customer relationship management (CRM) going next?  Continue Reading

• In-depth: Keeping an eye on energy bills

  With the winter nights drawing in there is another drain on energy with lights, heaters and numerous brewed up hot drinks all adding to the demand on electricity. In just a short period of time, the world has become utterly dependent on technology.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: Securing the consumerisation drive

  One of the greatest challenges for any company at the moment is to embrace the trend to encourage and allow the consumerisation of IT but to do so while keeping the network safe and secure, writes Amro Gebreel.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: UTM and XTM, simply the best?

  Unified Threat Management UTM and its evolutionary counterpart Extensible Threat Management have long been regarded as one stop solutions for network security. But are SME's still embracing this technology or are separate products making a comeback?...  Continue Reading

• In-depth: Taking the fear out of the security sell

  When it comes to security, in whatever form it takes, fear is the key.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: The move to block access to social networking

  The message has been fairly consistently sounded across vendor land for resellers to embrace social networking and use it as a method of communicating with customers as well as giving the brand a human dimension. But there have always been nagging ...  Continue Reading

• In-depth: The channel goes on Tour

  The channel is full of people with passions as deep as their respect for technology with the focus this week falling on those that share an interest in road cycling.  Continue Reading

• Compliance costs rising for SMEs

  Keeping on the right side of the law and ticking all the compliance boxes is costing small firms a fortune as they seek out legal advice to ensure they are doing the right things.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: Building a cloud platform for the channel

  The cloud poses a challenge to everyone in the channel but no tier more so than distribution which faces some fairly fundamental questions about its future role serving resellers in a hosted world.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: Have resellers been helped in cloud transition?

  For some resellers the cloud is here and for others it is coming but holding back some channel players has been the difficulty in moving to a different way of delivering and charging for applications. Have vendor's been much help in supporting their...  Continue Reading

• Research: Several categories lead Q2 B2B growth in the IT market

  With sustained global and local economic pressures you'd be forgiven for thinking that all was doom gloom.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: Selling cloud without the scare factor

  There has always been one major hurdle holding back wider adoption of the cloud, the small matter of security.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: Steps to effective business in the public sector

  What do government CIOs expect from their suppliers, and what does the channel need to do better when it comes to dealing with key technology buyers?  Continue Reading

• In-depth: Hargreaves and the fight to protect IP

  Last month Professor Ian Hargreaves published his independent review of Intellectual Property and Growth. Linda Endersby looks at the recommendations and the reactions of the channel.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: Microsoft Skype marriage to benefit the channel

  Last week's$8.5bn acquisition of VoIP provider Skype by Microsoft is so far the largest tech acquisition of 2011, and certainly one of its biggest stories. In the last few days the networking fraternity has been trying to make sense of Redmond's ...  Continue Reading

• Research: A strong start to 2011 for the channel

  The first quarter of 2011 has been one of global chaos and turmoil. From the devastating earthquake that hit Japan, to the debt crisis and economic woes of the Eurozone, to the revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa, the global markets grow...  Continue Reading

• In-depth: UK firms still in first gear in cloud drive

  While substantial growth in cloud computing and its various sectors is being predicted, reports are that firms in the UK are a little behind the global take up. Linda Endersby investigates.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: The value of events

  Bringing customers to your door has to be a very efficient way of turning them into clients. The person who has seen how you operate and met the team is far likelier to give you work.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: How secure is your data?

  In recent weeks there have been a number of high profile security attacks including RSA Security, Trip Advisor, Play.com and the data breach at Epsilon.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: Security market responds to month of hacks and breaches

  The question of security has been grabbing the headlines almost daily in the last few weeks. From the RSA server breach to the leaking of customer data at Play.com, Trip Advisor and a host of others embroiled in the Epsilon leak the question of ...  Continue Reading

• In-depth: InfoSec show preview

  Security starts right here MicroScope's introduction to the 2011 InfoSec show will help you find your way around. As the great and the good of the security industry get ready to assemble in London for Information Security show one of the challenges ...  Continue Reading

• Analysis: SMEs buyers more willing to adopt latest technology

  Virtualisation, cloud computing and unified comms are the technologies most in demand but resellers should not look to the public sector to be at the head of the queue to buy them.  Continue Reading

• Analysis: A changing enterprise software market

  Software vendors are going to have to get better at standing out from the crowd and with showing greater flexibility with their channel partners if they are to take advantage of changes happening in the market over the next few years.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: The rights and wrongs of packaging

  Legislation has been in force for several years that is intended to restrict the amount of packaging used by companies, writes Elizabeth Hyde. However, many businesses remain unaware that even if they do not produce the original packaging, they may ...  Continue Reading

• Analysis: Distributors start to embrace the cloud

  Where does distribution play a role in a cloud world is a question that has interested many in the channel over the last couple of years as the channel landscape starts to change to a include a growing amount of revenue generated from a hosted model.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: The good times have come back to Apple

  Since its humble beginnings in a garage in Cupertino, California in 1976, Apple has been no stranger to controversy, speculation and the highs and lows of a developing business, trying to do something different to the mainstream.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: Fitting the data through the eye of the needle

  WAN optimisation requires integration partners to squeeze growing amounts of data through bandwidth-restricted links. Danny Bradbury explains how it's done.  Continue Reading

• Analysis: The job market starts to slow

  A graph showing the fluctuations in the jobs market resembles a mountain range with a chasm covering the last few months of 2008and the early part of last year before heading back upwards.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: What's in store for our data?

  Storage is becoming a pivotal resource in IT, as data volumes continue to rise. Danny Bradbury charts the latest happenings in this crucial area. Things must have been very tense in the dry, airless corridors of HP over the past few months.  Continue Reading

• Analysis: Users driving security consolidation

  When unified threat management (UTM) appliances were launched onto the market it gave the first hint that customers were looking for consolidation of their security applications.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: Security industry raises questions over McAfee future

  McAfee's rivals in the security market have been quick to respond to yesterday's $7.68bn acquisition of the security software vendor by semiconductor giant Intel, with many raising further questions over the precise nature of Intel's intentions ...  Continue Reading

• In-depth: A first half of pressure and uncertainty

  The first half of the year saw trading remain tough, uncertainty continues and those in the channel facing a challenge cracking open the customer order book. But as Amro Gebreel finds out there are positive signs out in the market.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: Customers still dominated by recessionary mindset

  It has been a busy first half of the year as the industry looked for green shoots, cast its vote in the general election and hoped that the dark days of the recession were behind it.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: Security community dissects impact of Becta closure

  With the closure of Becta announced by the government just weeks after the coalition took office, fears of the impact on schools' IT security have been rising, writes Amro Gebreel.  Continue Reading

• Analysis: CIOs plan to reduce IT spend in the next 12 months

  A recent survey by UBS shows CIOs nervousness around economic uncertainty has resulted in a trend to lower IT spending forecasts. This is despite the pressure to upgrade hardware as interest in enterprise refresh for long-term benefits continues.  Continue Reading

• Analysis: A streaming World Cup

  News analysis Streaming of major sporting events puts networks under strain and IT suppliers must be ready, says Amro Gebreel with the World Cup one of the first major sporting events to be streamed over the network, there were fears that it would ...  Continue Reading

• Analsys: Mixed response to Osborne's Budget

  The word was "unavoidable" and the results were tax cuts and the occasion was last week's emergency budget delivered by the Chancellor George Osborne.  Continue Reading

• Analysis: Mid-market turns to managed services

  A consensus is emerging that only 3% of companies that reduced their IT staff during the recession are planning to recruit to fill the shortages. The research is stacking up that firms that shed staff to cut costs are not going to bring them back.  Continue Reading

• In depth: Making social media work for your business

  Social media is transforming rapidly from a method of private communication to a business tool, writes Paul Clapham The media world does not change very often, but when it does the change tends to be major.  Continue Reading

• Analysis: SAP's CEO double act comes of age

  It is fairly typical to use 100 days as an opportunity to gauge the impact a leader has made to a top position. They did it with Barak Obama and you can guarantee they will do it with David Cameron.  Continue Reading

• Analysis: Security disties look beyond traditional markets

  Over the course of the past 18 months moves have been made by some of the most established players in the specialised security distribution channel to widen their range of expertise.  Continue Reading

• Analysis: Hybrid offices provide resellers with mobility pitch

  The recession forced companies to think differently about how they spend money and operate. The mantra became one of cost cutting and there were widespread efforts to try and cut waste wherever possible to try and save money. But that provoked an ...  Continue Reading

• In-depth: 2010 component review - a turning point

  New technologies and components could transform the fortunes of the channel this year, writes Cliff Cheetham.  Continue Reading

• In depth: Getting ahead in the cloud

  The channel must adapt to meet the demands of cloud computing and embrace the commercial opportunities it presents, writes Billy MacInnes.  Continue Reading

• In depth: In search of a killer app for tablet success

  Apple has joined the ranks of the tablet computing zealots, loud in their praise of the ultra-slim computer as a device set to sell and sell. But, as Tony Glover reports, in the absence of a killer app the channel is reserving judgment.  Continue Reading

• In depth: Checking your employee's criminal record

  Does your new recruit have a criminal record? Do you have a right to know? Adam Rice advises on employment law  Continue Reading

• Analysis: Time to face some social networking changes

  Those in charge of communications and marketing in businesses should brace themselves. The goalposts are moving fast and the internet strategies that have found favour up to now might not win boardroom backing in the future.  Continue Reading

• Analysis: Expect sweeping public sector changes

  The public sector has been bread and butter for many in the channel, but change is coming, regardless of who wins the General Election.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: Threat-driven business

  Industry experts are predicting a year of growth in the security market as demand picks up.  Continue Reading

• Analysis: A turning point in software crime

  The past week might well be looked back on as the moment when something changed in the world of pirate software.  Continue Reading

• Analysis: Is China losing its allure?

  If you were to take a guess at some of the major news themes of the forthcoming year, China might well sneak into the top five.  Continue Reading

• In depth: The desktop revolution

  Could 2010 be the year that virtualisation finally reaches the desktop? Billy MacInnes talks to the industry's experts. Now that virtualisation has proved itself at the server level and in the datacentre, people are starting to ask whether this ...  Continue Reading

• In-depth: Clouds on the horizon

  Cloud computing has been one of the hottest topics over the past few years. Cloud conferences fill expo centres and hotels across the world.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: A game-changing year

  The last year of the 'noughties' was a big one for the technology sector, and many of the developments will have repercussions throughout this year and beyond. David Binning reports.  Continue Reading

• Analysis: What matters for the IT industry in 2010?

  Suppliers and industry analysts have identified security and trust as the biggest issues for the IT industry in the coming year, writes Rebecca Thomson. Experts at the Regent Conference, organised by IT trade association Intellect, said 2010 is ...  Continue Reading

• Analysis: Learning from Hasso the priority for SAP co-CEOs

  One of the challenges for any vendor having lost its CEO in surprising circumstances is to come out into the daylight to explain what happened and just where things go from here.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: Technology trends for 2010

  We all know that a year is a long time in the technology industry, and there's barely been a 12-month period in the past 30 where people have failed to remark on the "speed of change".  Continue Reading

• Analysis: The free element of a marketing strategy

  Giving anything away for free might sound like an idea dreamt up by someone in marketing trying to gain publicity rather than revenue, but it can be an approach that works.  Continue Reading

• Analysis: Targeted attacks set new challenges

  The phrase 'cold war' is one that most people would consider to have been consigned to history after the USSR collapsed and the Berlin Wall came down. But the phrase is being heard again, with a sense of urgency and a new spin - cyber cold war - ...  Continue Reading

• Analysis: Turnaround in networking fortunes?

  Despite networking market declines last year, some technologies hold the promise of growth in 2010, writes GfK's Greg Allen The past year has been particularly challenging for the networking market, with both the retail and business channels ...  Continue Reading

• Analysis: Educators fear IT budget cuts

  Although the weather might have hit the numbers, more than 30,000 visitors were expected to walk the floors of London's Olympia at this year's BETT Show over its four-day span. One first-time attendee to the education technology show earlier this ...  Continue Reading

• Analysis: Channel to play a vital role in battle for mid-market

  If you are looking for a theme for the year aside from the long-awaited recovery, there is one area of the market that holds great promise.  Continue Reading

• In depth: Lessons from BETT 2010

  Heavy snow, icy pavements and frozen roads only heightened the buzz at last month's BETT show at London's Olympia. The world's largest annual technology in education show, the event had 750 exhibitors - 50 more than the previous year - and attracted...  Continue Reading

• In-depth: Opportunities as BI vendors look to SMEs

  Research group Gartner says business intelligence (BI) is once again the top spending priority for large enterprises as they attempt to exploit corporate information more effectively to reduce costs, boost sales and increase the efficiency of their ...  Continue Reading

• Analysis: Remote working is business enabler

  In February 2009, parts of the UK ground to a halt as the country experienced some of its heaviest snowfall since 1991.  Continue Reading

• In depth: Election fever – what the main parties promise for business

  By 3 June 2010 the UK will have had a general election and quite possibly a change of government. Each of the main political parties has much to say in terms of their policies, but what specifically are they offering business?  Continue Reading

• In depth: Sustainable technology solutions

  In April next year, the British government's Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) scheme comes into effect and with it a minefield of fines and other penalties for companies that fail in their responsibilities for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  Continue Reading

• Analysis: Can SAP rise to the SaaS challenge?

  SAP reported poor third quarter results last month as attendees of its TechEd summit in Vienna saw a company at pains to show how it plans to reinvent itself and stave off the many challenges to its once unrivalled position in the enterprise. It was...  Continue Reading

• In depth: VAT – are you ready for 1 January 2010?

  Resellers will hopefully all be aware that the temporary reduction of the VAT standard rate to 15% will end on 31 December 2009.  Continue Reading

• In depth: Making software count

  Vendors and resellers in the accounting market say they have begun to see signs that the worst of the recession is over. Customers are buying reporting tools to give them a better understanding of how their businesses are spending money and to ...  Continue Reading

• Analysis: Time for the channel to implement marketing 2.0

  One of the most common demands that resellers make ofvendors is for assistance with marketing – not just in those cases where theycannot afford to do any themselves, but also to help channel marketers improvetheir performance. So it was refreshing ...  Continue Reading

• In depth: Bright ideas in the cloud

  It has been a long time since a concept was hyped by the IT industry quite as much as cloud computing.  Continue Reading

• In depth: Recession has reshaped the components market

  One of the interesting things about the components sector is that its performance tends to mirror that of the wider economy. This is because there are relatively few products on the market these days that do not contain some form of electronics.  Continue Reading

• In depth: How to exit a property lease

  Tenants must face the fact that the lease is a legal document into which they are most probably tied for a number of years. That said, there are options available for businesses which need to dispose of their lease or renegotiate its terms.  Continue Reading

• In depth: Selling Windows 7

  It is the biggest release of the year and arguably the most important in Microsoft's history, but will Windows 7 live up to expectations and erase the ill will caused by Vista?  Continue Reading

• In depth: Getting the best deal from rent reviews

  Rent is usually one of the biggest costs for a business, and for a number of years landlords have had the upper hand as commercial rents have risen ever higher. Despite today's recessionary market, tenants may still be hit with a request from their ...  Continue Reading

• In depth: Confess your tax sins

  HM Revenue & Customs will be running a tax amnesty this autumn to encourage individuals and companies with unpaid taxes to confess their offences in exchange for a small penalty.  Continue Reading

• Analysis: Cisco sees its future in video on the mobile internet

  When you look at Cisco's recent movements in the acquisition space it is possible to see where the vendor believes the next stage of the internet is heading and what parts of the infrastructure jigsaw are going to be needed to support that.  Continue Reading

• Storage Expo 2009: preview

  We highlight the product launches happening at the data storage and information management event next week. It is a measure of how far things have changed over the past year or so that cost savings should be such a dominant feature of this year's ...  Continue Reading

• In-depth: Tap into Middle East tech boom

  At a time when European markets have reached saturation and organisations in the developed economies are cutting back on IT expenditure, the Middle East offers sellers and resellers a rapidly expanding market.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: Selling digital displays

  Given the slow-down in corporate and domestic spending, the AV market has held up surprisingly well in the past 12 months. Although product pricing at the bottom end of the screen and projector market is very competitive, budgets for schools and ...  Continue Reading

• In-depth: UC step by step

  Although organisations are purchasing elements of the unified communications (UC) vision to boost staff productivity in difficult economic times, few beyond the largest are buying into the full dream.  Continue Reading

• Analysis: Channel adjusts to Nortel exit

  The purchase of Nortel's enterprise communications business by Avaya for $900m marks the beginning of the endgame for Nortel. With few units now remaining, this once powerful vendor has little left beyond its Metro Ethernet Networks unit and a ...  Continue Reading

• Analysis: Future Orange for channel

  Last week's merger of Britain's third and fourth largest mobile phone networks, Orange and T-Mobile, has raised eyebrows across the industry. The merger creates a 50:50 joint venture.  Continue Reading

• Analysis: Microsoft battles it out for last Word

  Sorry - Billy's analysis at last for Monday. A tiny company in Toronto is threatening to bring a lucrative part of the Microsoft ecosystem to a grinding halt after winning a permanent injunction to halt the sale and distribution of the software ...  Continue Reading

• Analysis: What future for Avaya Nortel channel

  The long-running Nortel soap opera took another twist last week, as the auction of the bankrupt network supplier's wireless business neared.  Continue Reading

• Interview: Sir Peter Rigby finds fortune favours the brave

  As is the case with most successful entrepreneurs, it is possible to look at the winner of this year's MicroScope Awards for Channel Excellence lifetime achievement award, Sir Peter Rigby, and gloss over the hard work and visionary career that has ...  Continue Reading

• Analysis: Public sector key to wireless adoption

  The halcyon days of global and industrial supremacy may belong gone, but there are still some areas where Britain is leading the world, and when it comes to the deployment and use of wireless networking technology we’re still at the top of the pile.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: The enthusiast market

  The enthusiast market for PCs is often overlooked by the business channel that sees it as dominated by teenage gamers with little money to spend.  Continue Reading

• Analysis: Who's lining up for a slice of Nortel

  When Nortel fell into administration at the start of 2009 the industry mourned the first major IT casualty of the recession, but the optimistic expectation was that Chapter 11 would turn out to be a boon for the firm.  Continue Reading

• In-depth: Clear benefits of remote working

  Some people love facts and figures, and snowfall of up to 10in across much of the UK last week will no doubt have kept those keen to label this as one of the coldest winters on record busy with measurements and log-keeping.  Continue Reading

• Roundtable: The channel's role in security

  Security remains a thriving market and businesses of all sizes face a variety of threats daily. But for SMEs, a security breach can be devastating and the channel has adopted the dual role of advisor and educator, as the participants at the Trend ...  Continue Reading