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 »

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.

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I have become so hopelessly addicted to my Apple iPhone for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is that it has saved my butt on more than one occasion when I have been unable to get to my notebook to update this and my other way-to-many blogs. Indeed, when my laptop crashed a few weeks back on a trip for TechTarget to Chicago, I even submitted the repair request using the built-in Safari Web browser.

Needless to say, I am HUNGRY for the July 11 update iPhone software, which will mean that I can download e-mail from my work accounts transparently. But I am dreading the onslaught which MUST becoming of security threats released by both the nefarious and naughty. Data from the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) suggests that my feeling of dread is not unfounded. Here’s the blog entry that I wrote last month.

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WiMax is having a rough life — and this week epitomizes that.

The wireless protocol for broadband access — known in long form as Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access — started off the week on a high note. On Monday, six tech heavy hitters, including Cisco Systems, Samsung Electronics, Alcatel-Lucent, Intel, Sprint and Clearwire formed the Open Patent Alliance.

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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 »

By Rivka Little, Senior News Writer 

A top operations executive is leaving Juniper Networks — closely following the departure of the company’s COO in January.

Edward Minshull, Juniper’s executive vice president for worldwide field operations, resigned last week, giving five months notice, the San Jose Mercury News reported in a blog. Juniper officials confirmed Minshull’s departure today in an email to SearchITChannel.com, writing:

After more than 7 years of professional and personal contributions and commitments to the growth and success of Juniper, Eddie Minshull has made a personal decision to leave the company.

In his role as executive vice president of Worldwide Field Operations, Eddie has assembled a global team of seasoned sales leaders who continue each and every day to focus relentlessly on the company’s execution and leadership in high-performance networking. Eddie will continue to lead the Company’s Worldwide Field Operations organization through the third quarter, with his formal departure scheduled for September 30, 2008. We have initiated a search for his replacement and Eddie will actively participate in the search for his successor.

In January, former Juniper COO Stephen Elop left the company to go to Microsoft, sending Juniper’s stocks spiraling downward for a short period. Elop is now president of the Microsoft Business Division, where he oversees the Business Solutions Group and the Unified Communications Group.

It is not clear what Minshull’s next move will be.

This seems to be my week for rambling about training. In the blog I write for my employer, SWOT Management Group, I coughed up these thoughts about whether or not vendors should tier their training and favor their most committed VARs. This post here for TechTarget falls more along the lines of suggesting where you might consider spending your own training budget.

CompTIA reports that in all but two of 14 countries surveyed, wireless and radio frequency technology implementation and service skills will dramatically increase in importance over the next five years. Wireless skills were actually the second most important skill set for future hiring in South Africa (behind security) and France (where it came after Web technologies.) The countries covered by the survey included the aforementioned nations plus … Australia, Canada, China, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

When it comes to specific industries, healthcare managers and IT teams in the education sector were more likely to say wireless would be critically important three years from now.

What does this all mean? For starters, this just plain makes sense in emerging countries, where the investments in data communications infrastructure have been less substantial than in the United States. Why on earth wouldn’t you look to advanced wireless first in some of these countries? Meanwhile, the radio frequency movement, believe it or not, is gaining some momentum from all of the green technology and sustainability efforts going on. One big growth area will be wireless sensors: for home energy management applications, in the so-called smart grid (on your electric meters) and within data centers, where they’ll be used to track energy efficiency.

Here’s some more data on where IT managers surveyed by CompTIA see future potential skills gaps.

Heather Clancy is a channel communications consultant for SWOT Management Group, where she focuses on simplicity and seeing eye to eye. You can e-mail her at hclancy@swotmg.com.

Chances are at least SOME portion of your business comes from wireless networking at this point, but I’d bet most of it is of the indoor variety. Well, Tech Data is throwing down the gauntlet to some of the specialized wireless distributors through its new relationship with BIG Wireless, which sells various outdoor wireless technology and services.

The deal, which points back to Tech Data’s Wireless Specialized Business Unit, will let Tech Data VARs “purchase, brand and resell” BIG Wireless’s services. The company’s specialty is outdoor wireless for municipalities, corporate campuses or universities. These include wireless site surveys, point-to-point path studies, voice/video over wireless, GPS location, Federal Communications Commission licensing compliance and so on. Many of the more obscure requirements for outdoor wireless that a traditional solution provider might not have been able to invest in. If the reseller chooses, they can brand BIG Wireless’ services as their own.

How much business is in outdoor wireless? My gut is that it’s going to be sort of like Wi-Fi adoption: It will creep up in adoption for the right reason, it helps people do their jobs better. There will be some debates over format of course (ala the WiMax specification I wrote about in January), which is all the more reason why you might choose to team up with a company like BIG rather than investing in your technical skills right now.

Heather Clancy is a widely published business journalist and strategic channel communications consultant with SWOT Management Group. You can reach her at hclancy@swotmg.com.

HP brought in NFL Hall of Famer Steve Young to speak to the partner faithful bright-and-early Wednesday morning. And he did not disappoint. Some 1,000 or more partners were in Las Vegas for the annual partner conference and a pretty good number showed up for Young.

Peering out at the darkened hall, Young noted the obvious: “A 9 a.m. talk at Caesar’s Palace and there are people here? Was attendance mandatory?”

Young said his speaking gigs are relatively easy given the prevalent jock stereotypes, and the low expectations they engender.  ”If I can string two sentences together, people think, ‘Hey! Not bad.”

Who knew that aside from his Super Bowl MVP and top quarterback rankings Young is also a lawyer? And a big philanthropist? Not me, but then again, baseball’s my game.

Young followed printer kingpin Vyomesh Joshi who issued a call to arms to a pretty fair subset of the 1,100 partners in attendance for his 8 a.m. keynote.

“If you’re in hardware, get into supplies. If you’re in hardware and supplies, get into services,” Joshi said

Joshi, often known as VJ, painted a picture of a whopping $280 billion market for printing and imaging from the home devices to huge commercial printers that use ink by the liter.

The Scitex wide-format machines that print signs for Times Square and similar venues soak up liters of ink. “Not ccs, liters. I love liters,” Joshi joked to the early morning crowd.

Conversely , he also touted HP’s recycling and green printing efforts.

He estimated the worldwide enterprise printing and image market to be about $53 billion. In that segment, HP reserves 900 named accounts for its direct focus. He cordoned off about 4,000 accounts in “named territory” accounts and the additional 8 million SMB accounts which the company hopes to attack with partners.

“We will be consistent and clear. We will not go after those 4,000 accounts, we’ll provide the names and help plan for them but for those 4,000 accounts we need your help.”

The vast majority of printing remains analog. Translating all of that to digital “where HP can play” is a huge opportunity. And for that to happen, partners need to help HP persuade IT departments to network all their printers and copiers, he said. That infrastructure work is another opportunity for VARs.

Joshi then gave way to the former San Francisco 49er great .

Ensuring attendees left on a high note, Sheryl Crow played Wednesday night. Some of us couldn’t be there — flying out of lovely 70-degree-and-sunshine-Vegas weather back to the frozen Northeast tundra. But according to second-hand accounts, Crow was stellar.

Barbara Darrow can be reached at bdarrow@techtarget.com

Breaking news this afternoon has cast Microsoft’s acquisition of Danger in a whole new light. Microsoft spent $500 million on the pickup, according to GigaOM — a figure sure to raise more questions among Microsoft channel partners about the company’s long-term focus.

GigaOM’s Om Malik thinks there’s only one reason Microsoft would pay such a high price: Google. Microsoft could use Danger’s Software as a Service (SaaS) platform to deliver its Search, Windows Live Mail and Messenger services to mobile devices, creating new competition for Google Android. 

Of course, Google is also the reason Microsoft is pursuing a Yahoo takeover. And even though the reported Danger price is just 1% of Microsoft’s $44.6 billion Yahoo bid, it’s still one of the biggest deals in Microsoft history, according to Todd Bishop’s Microsoft Blog. Microsoft partners were already worrying about the company’s seeming preoccupation with Google — at the expense of the products and services they’re supposed to be selling — and this news sure won’t help ease those fears.

Microsoft announced the Danger acquisition yesterday. Both Om and Venture Beat’s Matt Marshall believe Microsoft should make the Danger platform open to attract developers. But others like tech exec Ian Bell say an open Danger platform would cut profitability, which is always a concern when you’re talking about a $500 million investment.

Microsoft critics are also jumping all over the acquisition, much as they are with the Yahoo takeover attempt. One GigaOM reader identified as “Brian” commented, “Microsoft seems to enjoy spending money on bad investments.” And another, “Bill,” wrote, “Just another property for MS to run into the ground. When are they going to fire Ballmer?”

With the Yahoo situation quickly becoming a fiasco, the Danger acquisition, ongoing Windows Vista problems and several major new product launches, Microsoft will have a lot on its proverbial plate this year. It will remain to be seen whether the company keeps its focus on the issues that matter most to its partners.