Opinion

Cloud is a state of mind

Let's face facts: if the cloud can't deliver plenty of useful, secure, speedy and easy-to-use business applications, then it's never going to take off beyond a niche audience. Continue Reading
Downturn cannot hold back firms' growing data storage requirements

P6One of the slides that was put up by Hewlett-Packard during the announcement of its Storage Works product enhancements last week caught the eye and summed up the state of the industry. Continue Reading
Time to get protected

At a recent gathering of both good and bad hackers in a dingy pub in Leicester Square, I asked them whether the economy was opening up new opportunities for them. Continue Reading
Can managed print services revive the printer market?

Over the last 18 months the topic of print management, or managed print services, has begun to feature more and more on the radar of vendors, customers and resellers. The credit crunch has only heightened interest in the subject. Continue Reading
Opportunities in new security agenda

If there is a theme in the security world, apart from helping customers combat day-to-day threats, it is about making the transition towards a situation where protection is twinned with business processes designed to increase efficiency. Continue Reading

Comment: Resellers can profit from helping buyers cut costs

The winners in storage selling in 2009 will be suppliers that convince customers that storage products and services will help them cut costs. Through this year, the stronger customers will want to cut costs and look to prune expenses or deliver ... Continue Reading
The road to virtualisation

One of the questions resellers often ask is where some of the account managers and sales directors that they enjoyed dealing with in distribution have moved to. Continue Reading
SSD – the real winner against HDD?

The solid-state drive (SSD) has big shoes to fill. Its reputation as the technology frontrunner set to replace hard disk drives (HDD) means it faces a public downfall if its promises are not delivered. They can, and will, be compared against each ... Continue Reading
Finding the perfect partner

Unlike the famous, 80:20 rule in direct sales, it’s estimated that approximately 95% of a vendor’s channel revenue will come through 5% of its partnerships. That means that all of those other resellers are focussed on someone elses products. Continue Reading
IBM finds CEOs keen to collaborate and partner

The findings of a global CEO study carried out by IBMindicate that expectations of significant change in the future with a greaterrole for the internet is not just limited to those operating in the channel. Big Blue went out and asked senior ... Continue Reading
Visibility is vital

When the first ISPs started offering services to customers, the main features were web browsing, file transfer, email and news group access. Most of the internet content came from the US and the main access platform was dial-up through modems. Continue Reading

Generating an attractive return

The great attraction of the accounting software market has always been its recurring revenues. Tax changes and, increasingly, compliance regulations, mean businesses are willing to pay vendors a maintenance charge of about 20 per cent of the ... Continue Reading
Me and my digital shadow

EMC and IDC got a lot of publicity a couple of weeks ago when they released research suggesting that the digital universe was 10 per cent bigger last year than originally estimated at 281 billion gigabytes (281 exabytes) and growing by nearly 60 per... Continue Reading
Connecting to a diverse market

Once upon a time the channel for mobile communications was an entirely separate industry from the IT channel. Continue Reading
Leading the way through Web 2.0

No longer can the sole preserve of savvy teenagers, Web 2.0 now offer genuine business benefits, but how can the channel help customers to understand its potential and make it work for them? Continue Reading