Opinion

Opinion

Network Infrastructure Solutions and Services

• Orange scores own goal with iPhone 4 plans

  Following the news last week that O2 is to can unlimited mobile data plans on the iPhone, Orange has revealed its pricing plans for the iPhone 4, reducing its fair use data limit to 750MB across its business and consumer price plans, with only the ...  Continue Reading

• Mobile porn growing threat to corporate networks

  Most IT departments have long had policies in place that have largely wiped out the problem of pornographic websites being viewed over the corporate network. However, according to research from Damovo when it comes to mobile device policies we still...  Continue Reading

• HP must come clean over Palm

  As the assimilation of mobility vendor Palm into the Hewlett-Packard Empire nears, several key members of Palm's webOS dev team have jumped ship. The beneficiaries? Palm's rivals Android and Apple.  Continue Reading

• Nortel's name will live on

  In the last eighteen months, MicroScope has been following the sad demise of Nortel closer than any other UK tech publication, and in that time the vendor's other business units have all found new homes The sale of its businesses has meant ...  Continue Reading

• Just as smart phones deliver O2 scraps unlimited data use

  As an iPhone owner and an O2 customer it always seemed inevitable that sooner rather than later the question of unlimited data use would be one that was tackled by the phone company.  Continue Reading

• Snail mail still rules up north

  This will probably come as no surprise to the average Mancunian, Scouser or Geordie, but it turns out that people in the north would rather take things slowly and have a friendly face-to-face meeting and have little truck with any of that poncy ...  Continue Reading

• Avaya adds a bit of Mojo to its line-up

  Interest and, dare I say it, a little excitement, is mounting over the imminent debut of an Avaya tablet device after the firm passed a device referred to as a 'Tablet PC' through the FCC.  Continue Reading

• Forget Inter, Rafa, your face fits in the channel

  Those regular reader(s) of this blog might recall a story last month when the then Liverpool manager was mistaken for a reseller by two of distributions finest.  Continue Reading

• Hurd to blogosphere; no HP smartphone

  Well, it looks like pretty much everybody called that one wrong. There won't be an HP smartphone anytime soon.  Continue Reading

• England vs Slovenia will be litmus test for SMB networks

  As the countdown to the World Cup in South Africa reaches fever pitch, commercial SME ISP Easynet Connect is warning that demand for HD video streaming during games that fall in business hours could knock SMEs on low-end business or consumer plans ...  Continue Reading

• Opal staff take over Red Cross stores

  Opal Telecom employees have been out and about raising cash for the firm's first annual charity drive, with staff from its various UK offices pitted against each other in a brutal Apprentice-style 'Store Wars' game that may well yet be sold as the ...  Continue Reading

• Competition time; celebrate 25 years of Wi-Fi

  This week is the 25th anniversary of a landmark decision by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to open up the radio spectrum and allow unlicensed access for communications, and to mark the occasion we've teamed up with D-Link to run a ...  Continue Reading

• Is Vodafone dialling up a channel extension?

  Vodafone's efforts to build an IT channel have floundered so it appears to be going for the next best option - to acquire its own networking integrator. In the past month the telco behemoth has been liked with several firms including the reseller ...  Continue Reading

• Congratulations to ACEs networking nominees

  Tonight marks the fourth annual MicroScope Awards for Channel Excellence (ACEs) and those attending this year's event at the Lancaster London are promised a night of gourmet food, fun and frolics and top-notch comedy from our mystery guest! Things ...  Continue Reading

• Prepare to redecorate; Cisco wants into your living room!

  Wallpaper paste at the ready. A £350 home tele presence system could be gracing your living room in the near-future if remarks made by Cisco worldwide operations veep Rob Lloyd last week are anything to go by.  Continue Reading

• Westcon Group scoops vendor awards

  Congratulations to convergence and networking distributor Westcon and its Cisco unit, Comstor, which have both picked up some vendor awards this week.  Continue Reading

• No network on the high seas for Captain Bligh

  How the world has changed; Captain Bligh sailed a thousand miles across the South Pacific in an open boat with just a sextant, a compass and sheer dumb luck to guide him after being chucked off the Bounty.  Continue Reading

• Is Cisco's absence from UCIF really a source of concern?

  The new Unified Communications Interoperability Forum announced today has raised eyebrows in the industry after it emerged that Cisco had been invited to join the alliance - which seeks to foster open standards and interoperability in the complex.  Continue Reading

• Who was Palm's mystery suitor?

  A bloodthirsty bidding war between five companies took place behind the scenes before Hewlett-Packard emerged victorious in the race to acquire troubled handset builder Palm, it has now emerged.  Continue Reading

• The inconvenient truth of acquisition

  Earlier today we heard the sad news that optical networking specialist Ciena, which now owns a substantial part of Nortel's business, is readying P45s for 17 workers at the vendor's facility in Northern Ireland.  Continue Reading

• Broadband still on government action list

  Despite there being no mention of the subject in the agreement thrashed out by the Lib Dems and the Conservatives this week.  Continue Reading

• The ghost of Cisco yet to come

  It's always a chore when the quarterly results season comes around, trawling through the dry earnings releases and transcribing the committee decided executive statements.  Continue Reading

• Orange and T-Mobile? It's Nothing Anywhere, yet

  So, Orange and T-Mobile have named their new baby Everything Everywhere, presumably after a late-night brand strategy session with the ad agency.  Continue Reading

• Pity Rafa now he's mistaken for a reseller

  If things weren't bad enough for Liverpool FC manager Rafa Benitez then imagine the moment when he was mistaken for a reseller.  Continue Reading

• Alcatel-Lucent latest to own up to supply chain issues

  After Cisco came clean over the impact of components shortages on its supply chain at last week's Partner Summit, Alcatel-Lucent has admitted it has been suffering from the same problem.  Continue Reading

• HP may hit reboot button on tablet project

  It didn't take long. We're already starting to hear that HP may be dropping development of the Windows-based mobile Slate device it showed off at CES earlier this year.  Continue Reading

• Gongs for European Cisco partners

  Azlan and Logical were among the worldwide Cisco partners recognised at the vendor's annual partner awards, which were announced in San Francisco last week.  Continue Reading

• New partner programmes show networkers lust for glory

  One of the things I'm hoping to use this space for is to flag up some of the new vendor partner programmes in our corner of the industry.  Continue Reading

• Internet takes greater role in election campaign

  Well, the final debate is over, and now just six days of increasingly frenzied campaigning, sound bites and stunts remain before Britain goes to the polls for the 2010 General Election.  Continue Reading

• In the Palm of HP's hand

  Hewlett-Packard suddenly buys Palm.  Continue Reading

• Hidden gems at the Cisco conference

  Lots more to ponder from Cisco this morning as the announcements start to flood in from California.  Continue Reading

• Cisco cleans up in California

  The first swathe of announcements from the Cisco Partner Summit have now gone public, and although there's not yet any sign of a shakeout in the vendor's partner programme, a couple of tech announcements should serve to whet reseller appetites.  Continue Reading

• Will Red Bull give Claranet's channel wings?

  Managed network and hosting services provider Claranet is attempting to drum up some new business in the comms channel with a series of recruitment sessions, the first of which was held at the Red Bull Formula One team's factory.  Continue Reading

• Are you coming to the Cisco Disco?

  From my conspicuous absence at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis you can probably tell I'm not going to the Cisco Partner Summit this year.  Continue Reading

• Comment: Talking the talk on voice services

  Talk may be cheap but voice services could be raking in the readies for resellers, writes Jim Kent, chief executive officer of Datapoint, the communication systems integrator for businesses.  Continue Reading