EMC is buying Pi Corp., and Pi’s founder, Paul Maritz, will now head EMC’s software-as-a-service effort. The news was reported by The New York Times and others.

And it is extremely interesting news. Maritz was a well-regarded top Microsoft exec for 14 years before taking his act on the road.

In its earlier “about” statement on the company Web site , Pi said its “next generation software environment” was expected to be available in both “free (open source) and licensed forms.” That open source verbiage is now only viewable in a cache. Hmmm.

Note: Pi ’s environment was going to help “users create, repurpose, store, share and access personal information in novel ways.” (Personal Information = PI. )

Barbara Darrow can be reached at bdarrow@techtarget.com.

The rolling pre- launches of the Windows 2008 “platform wave” continue apace a week before the February 27 launch event.

Microsoft made what it calls a feature-complete Community Technical Preview of SQL Server 2008 available for download on February 19.

Data compression, improved policy-based management, and integrated text search are all in there, a Microsoft said in e-mail. The first CTP went live in June of 2007.

Last month the company acknowledged (although it buried that tidbit in a blog’s fine print) that final release date for the database had slipped into Q3 2008. It had been promised in the first half of 08.

The latest word on SQL Server 2008 is that final shipment is now on for Q3 2008 — basically a slip of a quarter.

 The company had said to expect the database in the first half of the year with a lot of noise to come out at the February triple “launch” of Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and yes-SQL Server 2008. It plans to drop another Community Technical Preview (CTP)  of SQL Server 2008 for that Los Angeles event. 

The clarification is noted  — if you read down far enough — in this Microsoft blog. This blog is an excellent example of burying the lead. Kudos.

The company contends that the release, once known as “Katmai”  is still on track to ship within 36 months of SQL Server 2005. If memory serves, that was in the fall of  2005.

As usual, they’re cutting it close.

Send your thoughts to bdarrow@techtarget.com.

My old, er long-time, colleague Barbara Darrow beat me to the punch about a week ago by posing 10 questions that are likely to define the businesses of every VAR, reseller, systems integrator, IT solution provider—whatever you choose to call yourself and your company—in 2008.

She was wise in taking this approach. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my more than 18 years covering this complicated business organism called the channel, it’s that most predictions any of us outsiders make will be wrong. But that won’t stop me from putting my neck out anyway. So, here goes nothing. Except I’m not going for the more obvious things I believe will be big—such as wide area wireless access and unified communications solutions. Rather, here are five trends I believe will creep up on your business in 2008. Are you planning to be surprised?

Sleeper Trend #1: Your clients will turn green-er.
Groan. I can hear you now, calling me a despicable treehugger, like my father sometimes does, and laughing at me for bringing this up. But here’s the thing: Contrary to popular belief, being green can actually save your customers money. Proof point #1: Electricity costs. There isn’t a single business in existence that isn’t worried about escalating facilities costs. The fact is, the right technology and the right technology management can help companies be more energy-efficient. So, even if you’re cynical about whether or not global warming is a myth, embrace the ethos of energy-efficiency. It’ll impact all sorts of things you represent—from virtualization technology to storage to unified communications.

Sleeper Trend #2: Software as a service will quietly gain more converts, especially among small businesses.
Sometimes I think solution providers don’t channel their own experiences as small-business owners into ideas that could serve their own clients. I talk to enough entrepreneurs to know that one thing in particular colors how they look at technology: their need to work from anywhere at any time. What does that mean? For one thing, data synchronization is ultracritical for small-business owners. That is, they want to get to the latest revisions of files from home, from hotels and from their office. They don’t so much care whether their spreadsheet lives on their computer or off on a server somewhere just so long as the information they need is always available. I won’t even pretend to have market statistics on this, but I’d be willing to bet that pretty much any business that is willing to host its e-mail service elsewhere will look at hosted versions of their other applications, especially if it’s less expensive. Small businesses care less about hype and more about whether or not something works. So, do I think all the software as a service companies will come up with channel programs? I DO think that Salesforce.com and NetSuite will continue to flirt with partners, but they’ve got a long way to go. What it DOES mean is that the case for big software upgrades from established software developers, including Vista, will continue to be hard to make.

Sleeper Trend #3: Apple technology will continue to backdoor its way into the business world.
I’ve been reading all sorts of articles and analysis reports lately about the iPhone and its effectiveness as a business tool. I can tell you firsthand that it wasn’t designed to be all that easy to use with corporate e-mail and calendaring accounts, but there are workarounds. Here’s another telling stat: During the third quarter, Apple was expected to ship about 1.34 million Macintosh PCs, or about 8.1 percent of all systems shipped in the quarter. There is still a substantial gap between Apple, and Dell and Hewlett-Packard in this regard. However, Apple’s shipments grew more than 37 percent year-over-year. And, it’s worth noting that its shipments during the quarter were higher than Toshiba, which just introduced a series of new notebooks. Certainly, corporate accounts still frown on Apple, but small businesses and midsize companies are more willing than ever to consider the alternative.

Sleeper Trend #4: People will get smarter about what data and files they store.
The more I learn about storage software, the more I marvel about its potential to make our life easier—if we would only use it properly. I believe that data deduplication will become a mantra that is used as often in 2008 as compliance was 18 months ago. Both humans and storage systems could stand to be more efficient about what data is kept and how it is catalogued. There’s something to be said for librarians. Heck, maybe the field of library science can jump in here and help us.

Sleeper Trend #5: Someone, somewhere WILL find a way to solve the ridiculous spam deluge that wastes so much of our collective time.
It’s one thing to manage incoming e-mail on a high-speed corporate network. It’s another thing, entirely, to have to wade through dozens of junk messages on a wireless handheld device just to get what you need. While I don’t know who has the answer right now, you can bet that the second someone comes up with a truly effective spam filter that lets all the right stuff through and prioritizes it, we’ll hear about it. Better yet, why don’t YOU come up with the solution and please let ME know about it as quickly as possible.

What do you think will creep up on you in the New Year? Share your thoughts and comments via e-mail at hccollins@mac.com.

Heather Clancy is a business journalist and communications consultant who has been covering the high-tech channel for more than 18 years.

Well, credit Dell with putting on a  good show for solution providers with its most recent pledge to embrace the channel. Maybe the company will make good on its promises this time around but here are a few things to remember.

First, this whole Dell-vs.-the-channel thread isn’t as cut-and-dried as it seems. I’ve talked with several resellers over the years who preferred dealing with Dell than with the allegedly more channel-friendly HP or other hardware vendors.  Many said that hardware margins were so thin anyway, they usually skipped that part of the sale unless the customer insisted. And in those cases, Dell was as good a choice as any. At least until Dell service woes surfaced so publicly.

And, many solution providers who had healthy hardware businesses a decade ago are now software-and-services only. That tells you something about the nature of competing not only with Dell but with CDW and other low-cost suppliers.

Let us not forget that Dell built its fortune on being great on logistics. It never led the field in great, creative, fun machines. Nor on service.  (I’m sure Michael would beg to differ–what would you expect?) But there’s nothing wrong with using a supplier who can drop-ship you a server or a PC but fast.

And another thing: Dell has had many enablers in its partner-bashing past.  You know who they are.  Big names. Like Oracle and Microsoft. When it was top dog, Dell got T&Cs from all of these guys–Intel too, I’d wager–that no one else could hope for.

Dell’s sales force types are no angels. Witness the tales of VARs who say the a strategicically gifted flat-panel TV to a customer exec spelled the difference between them and Dell winning a given deal. But is that sales force any worse than Oracle’s  or IBM Global Services in the enterprise arena? All of these vendors–including Microsoft– want account control for themselves. No partner can ever forget that.

So, let’s wait and see what happens with Dell’s new programs. But how hard is it going to be for any VAR battered by Dell in the past to start registering leads with the vendor now?

Most solution providers will tell you they see lead registration as a vendor tool for collecting customer info it later uses for its own (often direct) benefit. And Dell certainly didn’t patent that idea.

Barbara Darrow, a Boston-area reporter, can be reached at badarrow@comcast.net.

I keep forgetting how hard it is to take notes about a panel that I’m moderating myself. But that doesn’t stop me from trying. I picked up several compelling tidbits earlier this week during pretty much all the presentations at the Storage Strategies channel conference in San Francisco, hosted by the publisher of this blog, TechTarget.

Certainly, what I notice may be different than what you notice, but I offer up these 4 Storage Observations that may be worth some business planning research on the part of storage solution providers.

1. Archiving vs. Backup (they are not one in the same): Tony Asaro, analyst for Enterprise Strategy Group, observed during his presentation that 60 percent to 70 percent of all the data being stored on primary (read more expensive) storage devices actually is dormant within 90 days. So, there’s a very real differentiation between backup of files you might need promptly vs. archiving of files for compliance and strategic purposes. Here’s a deeper report on database archiving that the firm just released this week.
2. The use of storage virtualization is on the rise: According to twice-annual buying intentions by Storage Magazine (also published by TechTarget), the last year has represented a breakthrough for storage virtualization. While 61 percent of storage managers HAD NOT virtualized any storage last spring, that number fell to 43 percent when the magazine ran its second survey of the year.
3. Encryption is still underutilized: According to the Storage Magazine survey, close to 60 percent of the storage managers are not using encryption for their storage devices. This despite new compliance and litigation rules that seem to kick into effect every day.
4. Buyers are looking for different skills in storage solution providers than in the past: According to the survey, about 20 percent of the buyers cited technical support and service as key factors in their storage purchases, with about the same number also pointing to a storage solution provider’s ability to provide other technologies as critical. So, there is a shift going on to favor integrated solutions rather than point products. Are you in a position to accommodate?

E-mailcomments and thoughts to Heather Clancy and we’ll have an online dialogue. I swear it will be MY priority to share your responses.Heather Clancy is a business journalist and communications consultant who has been following the high-tech channel for more than 18 years.

Talk about strange bedfellows.

Dell’s  decision to buy EqualLogic, a company led by CEO Don Bulens, made some heads spin.

Bulens, before his stints at Radnet and Trellix, was the chief partner advocate for Lotus Notes. He was, in short, very much in tune with the needs of Notes partners (I was going to use the word ‘ecosystem’ but just couldn’t spit it out.)

He was a popular leader who helped engineer the shift of Notes from a direct-only sale to a partner sale. After he left there was considerable backsliding, but no matter.

The idea that Bulens, the ultimate partner guy, should ally himself with Dell which is seen as anything but, is mind boggling.

Also, Dell now has to balance its existing storage alliance with EMC with this new entry.  

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dell et al. is trying to become more channel savvy and perhaps even partner friendly. Suffice it to say, I’ve heard that before.

Having Bulens and Equallogic aboard may help in that regard. Maybe.

Barbara Darrow, a Boston area freelancer, can be reached at badarrow@comcast.net.  

Been prepping this week for a presentation I’m giving on behalf of my colleagues at channel consulting firm SWOT Management Group to Oki Data’s solution provider advisory council (full disclosure on where my head is right now). So thinking quite a bit about printing and imaging. I know: Probably not your usual fare here at SearchITChannel.com.

In my days as a reporter, printers were, quite frankly, a bit overlooked as a coverage area. That is, until marvelous inventions like Adobe PostScript promised to pull these peripherals squarely onto the network and into the workgroup realm. The latest wave of innovation began when features from the office equipment world began to creep over—management software, scanner support and the like. In reality, if you sit back and mull the technology over a bit, today’s printing and imaging segment is one of those practice areas that could be a very logical, practical extension to your existing infrastructure practices in storage, security and collaboration.

Let me explain.

First, some market statistics. Gartner reported fairly recently that U.S. shipments of printers and copiers declined 4 percent in the second quarter. That is, printer sales declined 15 percent, but purchases of flatbed multifunction peripherals (MFPs) grew 19 percent compared with the second quarter of 2006. The color-enabled portion of this market is growing at a rate of 29 percent year over year, according to another market researcher, IDC. A related area, document scanners, is also posting respectable growth. Here’s some thoughts from market research company InfoTrends on the role of scanners. The transition to digital fax machines, of course, started happening years ago.

In my opinion, there are several dynamics driving this growth: new forms of business collaboration, as illustrated by software platforms such as Microsoft SharePoint; compliance regulations that dictate better document management policies and strategies; and the rise of Web 2.0-related portals that have made the job of managing content in both electronic and printed forms a whole lot more onerous. Of course, price points for MFPs have simply made the investment in these devices more worth it.

So how does this relate to something like storage? Think of printing and imaging as the front-end to the document management and workflow applications that have been slowly finding their way into business continuity and back-up solutions. You could even tie together a start-to-finish managed service: one that starts with an MPF, links into the appropriate software and archives accordingly, as business conditions dictate.

Similarly, protecting these documents with some sort of digital signature or encryption methodology could be a concern of your data security practice.

The fact that there are really no “standard” ways of handling documents, that every company’s workflow and retention strategy is probably slightly different, that this entire process really could benefit from ongoing management and services . These things make a printing and imaging solution look a lot more like an infrastructure practice than a commodity PC sale. Have you been thinking about it that way?

Despite the need to project budgets and hiring plans into the future, relying on generalized economic indicators can be iffy and, in some cases, counterproductive.

Right now, for example, a price of consumer goods and corporate profits, generally low inflation rate tell a different story.

The problem is that all the general economic indicators make broad market projections, but not in your specific market.

Read more »

Avnet Inc. today announced that it will acquire the IT solutions division of Acal plc., a strategic move that pushes Avnet’s distribution channels further into Europe and shores up its storage offerings to customers in the European Union. 

Acal IT Solutions is a leading value-added distributor for storage area networking (SAN), secure networking and electronic document management products and services. Acal IT Solutions has operations in the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France and Sweden, and the division will be integrated into Avnet Technology Solutions’ EMEA business, but not before the transaction is approval by Acal shareholders and EU merger control clearance.

“Avnet has outlined a strategy of growing our business by delivering complete solutions to our partners around the globe,” said Vincent Keenan, Avnet’s vice president and director, investor relations.  “The acquisition brings us new supplier relationships and ultimately more storage solutions for VARs in Europe by offering a broader line of products. For the U.S. there is no immediate impact,” Keenan added.

With the deal Avnet will assume an additional 2,000 Acal resellers and system integrators as well as 180 experienced personnel that design and install complex storage networking systems and document management requirements.

Acal IT Solutions markets a wide range of storage networking, networking and fibre channel products from several manufactures including Brocade, Cisco, Emulex, Juniper and Qlogic and document management products from Canon, Fujitsu and Kodak.

“The acquisition does not specifically impact the cost of storage products, but does give Avnet’s partners in
Europe the opportunity to offer a wider variety of complete storage solutions to their customers, potentially increasing their revenue and growth,” Keenan said.

Another benefit to Avnet will be Acal IT Solutions’ Headway Technology Group, which focuses on document management and storage with a portfolio of products including document capture software, scanners, optical, CD and DVD storage hardware and software and tape backup solutions.

Additionally, the acquisition will bring to Avnet a value-added services unit that provides network infrastructure planning,  implementation and training as well as technical support.

Acal IT Solutions’ revenue was approximately $200 million in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2007.