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 »

Larry Ellison had some interesting thoughts on the on-demand model, especially intriguing as he retains his interest in NetSuite, the on-demand ERP provider. His ownership stake, which might appear to be a conflict since Oracle competes with NetSuite, is in some sort of blind trust.

Oracle’s CEO said the company’s on-demand business posted 25% growth year over year but seemed to agree with a questioner that it had been hovering at about 3% of overall revenue for some time.

“We’ve been in the on-demand business for almost a decade. We’re the second largest provider of sales automation software behind Salesforce.com and Q4 was the first quarter we actually made money [at it],” he told analysts on the fourth quarter and fiscal year ‘08 earnings call Wednesday night.

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It’s that time of year for the database market share squabble. IDC has released its numbers–at least to the vendors–and two of the three big database players are claiming victory.

From the snippets the vendors themselves release, it’s hard to draw conclusions. It’s like the blind men and the elephant: You can’t judge the entire gestalt from mere fragments.

On its earnings call last night, Oracle president Charles Phillips crowed about IDC data showing Oracle’s database share at 44.3% vs. 21% for IBM vs. 18.5% for Microsoft.

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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 »

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 »

For many VARs, cloud-based computing is a worrisome prospect.

The notion of functions served up direct to users from a vendor-owned-and-operated cloud poses a huge disintermediation threat to partners, as Richard Warren, of North Carolina Technologies told SearchITChannel.com, earlier this week.

 But the cloud vendors still need to prove themselves able to fully compete in a world where 99.9% of users need remote or offline capabilities. They need to work on their data and apps even if they’re not (gasp) connected to the Web.

Google execs say they will prove their technology worthy of the enterprise, blazing the trail with the Google Appliance. Google Gears is starting to bring offline capability to the company’s consumer and business services — Google Reader is “Gears enabled” as is Google Docs. (The spreadsheet and presentations so far  support just view-only offline access.) Read more »

MySQL execs took to the road this week, talking up the database’s increasing relevance to big businesses.

The message at a Boston event Tuesday night, was that Sun Microsystems’ buyout of the open source database company gives MySQL easier entry into very large accounts.

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Earlier this week, a partner asked Microsoft the following question: If Software Assurance expires on Small Business Server 2003, will the client lose the right to install SBS 2003 on new hardware?

Seems like a simple enough question, right? Wrong. On the Microsoft SMB Community Blog, it takes Microsoft senior manager Eric Ligman nearly 650 words to answer.

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The Microsoft-Yahoo acquisition saga may not be over. In fact, the real juicy part may be just beginning.

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn is already trying to take control of Yahoo’s board of directors. Now he’s telling The Wall Street Journal that he’ll get rid of Jerry Yang — who’s not only the Yahoo CEO, he’s also a co-founder — if his proxy bid is successful.

“It’s no longer a mystery to me why Microsoft’s offer isn’t around,” Icahn said. “How can Yahoo keep saying they’re willing to negotiate and sell the company on the one hand, while at the same time they’re completely sabotaging the process without telling anyone?”

Icahn made these latest comments after a Delaware court unsealed a lawsuit that shareholders filed against Yahoo earlier this year. The suit says Yahoo rejected a $40-per-share offer from Microsoft way back in Janaury 2007, then set up a generous severance plan for employees who would lose their jobs in the aftermath of an acquisition — a deterrent for any potential suitor.

Yang has taken most of the blame for Microsoft pulling its offer, but he does have supporters — or at least people who see his point of view. BusinessWeek, for one, gives some “reasonable justifications” for the actions of Yang and his board (namely, holding out for more money).

And Icahn isn’t exactly the most popular guy in the tech world, either. Information Week blogger Eric Zeman asks if Icahn is the “biggest egomaniac ever” and questions his real motivation for sticking his nose in Yahoo’s business.

When Microsoft first made its offer, partners wondered if the potential Yahoo acquisition would become a distraction. There’s been a lull for the past month or so, but it looks like those questions will be on the rise again.