Robert Deshaies and Cynthia Bates will divvy up responsibilities for Microsoft’s US partner organization, Microsoft said late Wednesday night.

Deshaies, who had been vice president of the US Partner Group is now vice president of Partner Business Development & Sales, a new role. Cindy Bates, who had been general manager of Microsoft’s Small Business Group was promoted to vice president of US Partner Strategy for marketing and programs. Read more »

Summertime is the time to mull.

Today I have the time to consider whether Microsoft and Nortel — currently unified communications (UC) partners — will move from heavy dating to marriage.

According to channel partners of both companies, rumors of such an acquisition have been swirling for some time. They say that while an acquisition is not apparent in the near term, none would be surprised to see it happen eventually. Read more »

Hewlett-Packard’s (HP) $13.9 billion bid to buy Electronic Data Systems (EDS) made it through U.S. antitrust review, the companies reported Monday. The deal still hinges on approval by European regulators and a vote by EDS shareholders, who will meet July 31.

It remains unclear how the deal will affect channel partners from both companies. HP CEO Mark Hurd has said that there will be no bumps in the road for channel partners since EDS and HP play mostly in different fields. Still, concerns run high among partners and will until the future unfolds after final approval. It is also unclear what will happen to the long-term relationships EDS holds with HP competitors like Cisco Systems, Dell and IBM. Read more »

Since many IT solution providers who poke around in this blog are themselves small businesses, it will not be a major shocker to hear that a recent survey shows that smaller companies are latching onto the benefits of Web 2.0 less quickly than larger ones. Then, again, I’d bet that many of those same companies ARE using some aspect of Web 2.0 — which I count as blogs, software as a service, social networks, online collaboration services, and “presence” applications — without realizing it.

Here’s the data I’m referring to, courtesy of CDW, which polled 1,060 IT decision makers about Web 2.0 between March 27 and April 4 of this year. Read more »

The VAR community has been abuzz since it became public that a silver-level Cisco partner sued the vendor for poaching a customer and handing it off to AT&T Business.

The twittering is because most partners agree they’ve had the same problem but never taken any action for fear of losing their businesses.

Last week SearchITChannel.com ran a story about Infra-Comm Corporation suing Cisco on claims that the vendor violated the deal registration process by passing along a multimillion dollar customer to AT&T at the very same pricing structure Infra-Comm had negotiated. Sources close to Cisco said the company lived up to its obligations under the deal registration agreement by providing exclusive pricing and protection to Infra-Comm, but couldn’t stop the customer from wanting to change VARs.

Read more »

Being an Oracle partner can be a pricey business.

For example: If you’re a select Oracle partner who wants face time with Oracle reps at the vendor’s yearly sales kickoff, you can pay either $6K, $10K or $25K for the privilege.

For that amount you get to be an Exhibitor Partner at the big Las Vegas event. The idea is to get your pitch to Oracle sales reps. There are many. The event draws some 40,000 people in early June. Maybe even (knock wood) get a look from Charles or Larry. Read more »

Dell has launched a new wiki, PartnerStorm, that is already fielding reseller complaints about the fledgling Dell channel program.

On PartnerStorm, the channel version of Dell’s popular IdeaStorm forum, users can post their ideas about the channel program, which is called PartnerDirect. They can also comment on each others’ ideas and vote on which are the best.

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This year’s Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference will be in Houston. In July. One word: Ugh.

And, interestingly, insiders say preliminary numbers show that more than half (60%) of attendees will be from outside the U.S. That’s a first, to my knowledge and is at least partially attributable to the incredible shrinking dollar.

Note to vendors: If you’re gonna drag people into triple-digit heat and humidity, make it cheap.

As for news: Look for Microsoft to talk up repeatable solutions in SMB markets. And don’t forget SaaS and the mega-billion dollar question of how partners fit into Microsoft’s software plus services game plan. That’ll be a big theme.  Read more »

Avaya appointed former Motorola channel executive Jeremy Butt to be its worldwide channel chief today. The appointment is the latest in a series of executive changes at the company in recent months.

Butt most recently served as vice president of worldwide channels for Motorola’s enterprise mobility business, and he is credited with greatly expanding the division’s channel reach globally. Read more »

What the heck does a network integrator intend to do with a interactive multimedia company?

That was my first reaction when I heard the news that network integrator and managed service provider Atrion Networking (based in Warwick, R.I., and a company I know well), is buying Shazamm (a company I’ve never heard of—but one that is apparently an Atrion neighbor in Providence, R.I.) I have no idea what Atrion paid, but after thinking about the whole situation for a few minutes late tonight and checking out the Shazamm Web site, I think I do know what Atrion is after: Shazamm’s digital signage management and distribution application called Z-One and a Web asset management system called Z-Media. Read more »