Salesforce gobbles up Clipboard

Posted on May 10, 2013 by - News

pacpacSalesforce has taken over Clipboard but is refusing to spit it out, marking an end to the company.

The customer relationship company bought the service, which allows users to save and share content for a reported figure in the ball park of $10 – $20 million, in a bid to get its foot into the social enterprise arena.

However the company doesn’t seem to want to continue with the service, which was launched two years. In a blog post Clipboard told its users: “We have some bittersweet news.

“We are extremely happy to announce that salesforce.com has signed an agreement to acquire Clipboard, allowing us to pursue our mission of saving and sharing the Web on a much larger scale.”

It said the service would be discontinued on June 30, 2013.

Clipboard’s CEO Gary Flake will be vice president of engineering at Salesforce.com. The company said that its core engineering and design team will join the cloud computing company to work at its Seattle office and report to Flake.

Users of Clipboard can still preserve their personal data in an archive from which the clips and boards can be viewed offline.

Ingram Micro promotes channel love-in

Posted on May 10, 2013 by - Events, News

IMIngram Micro has opened its doors to 350 channel partners from across the globe.

The distie has hosted what it claimed is its first International Solutions Partner Invitational in Hollywood.

The event, which began on 8 May and runs until today saw partners fly in from North America and Latin America, as well as Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa.

It is sponsored by 15 technology vendors including Signature Sponsors Motorola Solutions and Psion, now part of Motorola Solutions, and Platinum Sponsors Axis Communications, Elo Touch Solutions and Intermec.

Themed “Mix it Up,” the Invitational is claimed to try and inspire the 600-plus vendor and reseller partners in attendance to think about business differently in 2013, and seek out new markets and  service opportunities that will help them grow faster and more profitably.

The event is also claimed to offer channel partners insight around industry best practices and market trends including where the markets are heading and what channel partners need to do to better position their business for success now, and in the future.

Throughout the event, attendees will hear from speakers including Scott Deming, a customer service and emotional brand building expert, Juliann Larimer, vice president of worldwide channels and sales operations for Motorola Solutions and Paul Bay, president, Ingram Micro North America.

It will also feature new Ingram Micro vendors, including TSC Printers and APG Cash Drawer, as well as more than 20 ISVs from across the Americas.

Windows 8 gear set to get cheaper

Posted on May 9, 2013 by - News, Opinions, Products

pc-sales-slumpThe PC market is in the middle of its worst slump ever, but there might be some light at the end of the tunnel. PC makers believe prices of Windows 8 devices will fall dramatically in the not so distant future. 

On Wednesday Acer President Jim Wong said Microsoft is becoming increasingly considerate to its hardware partners and that it is finally starting to listen to their suggestions and ideas. Shifting the focus to cheaper products seems to have been the loudest suggestion. Wong also pointed out that touch enabled devices will open up a lot of possibilities for PCs, but he also warned that many simply don’t need touchscreens on their trusty PCs.

On the other hand, more touchscreens and mouth-watering price points could spell more competition in the cutthroat tablet market, dominated by Apple and Android gear. A number of manufacturers are already working on smaller Windows 8 tablets as well. The success of the iPad mini and even cheaper 7-inch ARMdroids did not go unnoticed, but it will take some effort to make Windows 8 truly competitive in this market, which is already becoming overcrowded.

First of all, Windows 8 is a bloated operating system by tablet standards. This means Windows 8 tablet designs need a lot more storage than their iOS or Android counterparts, which tends to drive the price a bit higher. Windows 8.1, or Windows Blue, could try to tackle this shortcoming. Secondly, they need very efficient x86 chips to be economically feasible, but upcoming x86 SoC designs from Intel and AMD should go a long way towards addressing this issue. Finally, Redmond has to cut Windows 8 prices, plain and simple.

However, Asus CEO Jerry Shen warns that there is no quick fix for Microsoft’s tablet woes. Windows 8 tablets are quite a bit pricier than their Android counterparts and they cost at least $150 more. Shen believes the price gap could narrow to about $50 this year, which should considerably improve Microsoft’s competitiveness.

Acer Chairman J.T. Wang said Microsoft’s willingness to adapt to change is a good sign for the PC industry, reports the Wall Street Journal.  He was rather blunt about it, too.

“In the past we consider they (Microsoft) live in heaven,” he said. “But now they go down to earth and they start to learn how people living on earth think.”

Although tablets are generating all the buzz lately, there are some changes on the PC front as well. An increasing number of all-in-ones and more powerful mini-PCs are hitting the market. Ultrabooks sales are still failing to impress, but there is some good news to report on the notebook front as well. Prices of Ivy Bridge notebooks are seeing double-digit cuts, as Intel partners gear up to introduce Haswell-based models over the next few months.

Avnet extends marketing initiative

Posted on May 9, 2013 by - News

avnettsAvnet has extended its Socialondemand service in the UK.

According to the distie, since the marketing initiative launched in April 2012, seven supplier partners and over 150 business partners have joined up.

It said in the last nine months 353 media posts have been reposted by business partners achieving click-through rates of up to 50 percent, with more than 86,000 downloads and retweets.

Initially introduced with Microsoft, Avnet socialondemand is a social media service which syndicates and disseminates targeted social media content from Avnet supplier partners to the social media connections of its business partners.

Avnet claims it’s able to input, categorise and target social media content and then control and track what, when and where it is published, for example, via business partners’ Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts.

Linda Patterson, marketing director, at the company said Avnet and supplier developed content went further and allowed partners to decide how and when to target customers, while tracking exactly when, where and by whom the content is being read.

She pointed out business partners often had stretched resources particularly in terms of their use of social media and yet they appreciate its value.

“Public Cloud First” gets round of applause

Posted on May 9, 2013 by - News

cloud 1A cloud service provider has welcomed the government’s “Public Cloud First” mandate.

Earlier this month the Cabinet Office confirmed that the cloud would be mandated as the first choice for all new IT purchases in government, as part of moves to push more departments into using commodity cloud services.

The announcement coincided with the third G-Cloud supplier framework going live, offering more than 700 suppliers and over 5,000 services to the UK public sector. Around 80 percent of all suppliers were small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), said the Cabinet Office.

A recent survey by Fasthosts found  that over two thirds of small and medium businesses in the UK have said that adoption of the cloud will be an important factor to contribute to the growth of their business in the next 12 months, with the same number claiming that the cloud was “extremely important” to their business growth strategy.

Skyscape agreed claiming that both government announcements were “excellent news for the UK public sector.”

Phil Dawson, CEO of Skyscape said that by putting the ‘Cloud First’, the Government was further demonstrating the “growing confidence” in G-Cloud, where suppliers have proven that highly secured, resilient utility services can be rapidly deployed at transparent price points, helping to drive innovation and competition.

He added the G-Cloud Programme had “quite simply started a revolution in the way that the UK public sector deployed ICT.”

“With the arrival of Giii, the Framework will continue to make this process easier, helping to broaden the market and providing a platform for SMEs, such as Skyscape, to market their services to the public sector,” he said.

Ivy Bridge notebook prices slashed

Posted on May 9, 2013 by - News, Opinions

Intel-logoThe UK market is following in Taiwan’s lead and slashing Ivy Bridge notebook and desktop prices in preparation for Intel’s Haswell launch, resellers have said.

However, they have warned that in the current climate the company is doing itself no favours with the price reductions.

The comments come after a report in DigiTimes suggested  that retail channels in the Taiwan market had begun to slash prices of Intel’s Ivy Bridge machines, which retail from $611, by an average of 10 percent. However, other models were reduced further with discounts between 20-30 percent.

And the orders from above have filtered down to the UK with resellers also feeling the pressure to slash.

“We’re getting orders for reductions too for the same reasons. But, this isn’t anything new, it’s the way the cycle works,” one reseller told ChannelEye.

“I’m not sure about the 20 to 30 percent reductions. At the moment we’re seeing five to 15 percent. But as the date of launch comes closer we’ll probably be forced to slash prices even more.”

However, others claimed the company wasn’t doing itself or the new launch any favours with the reductions.

“Whenever Intel is about to make a new release we see the old models, even if they haven’t been on the shelves for long, slashed in price,” another reseller added.

“While it works for us in terms of not carrying so much surplus stock, for companies it means they are losing potential customers and money with consumers and businesses now taking heed of these sales and waiting until these price cuts happen.

“Once the new products are launched the sales circle starts again.”

Another agreed, telling ChannelEye: “This is nothing new. It’s the way of retail life. But it’s not a good model to follow, especially in this climate where consumers are waiting to pounce on bargains and refusing to pay full price for anything.

“Maybe Intel should concentrate on getting existing lines right before making price cuts and new products that will no doubt be left sitting on the shelf.”

Gartner gives advice to shops

Posted on May 9, 2013 by - News

gartnerDemand driven retail success is dependent on getting a range of factors right, Gartner has said.

According to the company, defining the role of supply chain, span of control and metrics maturity are the key  to  retail success.

Demand-driven retailing is based on a range of technologies and processes that analyze and capture consumer behaviour. This is then teamed up with  demand, supply and product analysis in a bid to to fulfil customer expectations, improve operational performance and in turn give a profitable response across a network of suppliers, employees and sales channels.

In a survey of retail industries in North America, Western Europe and Asia/Pacific, the company said that there were three important bit to  getting this right.

Firstly the supply chain, which Gartner pointed out varied in role by retailer, was
named as one of the key things to help businesses with their strategy. It said its survey highlighted that 64 percent of respondents were more likely to deliver return on assets (ROA) of greater than 16 percent when using this chain properly.

The supply chain so-called “span of control” was another factor highlighted by the company, which said although the role of the supply chain may differ by retailer, the best shared one common trait — they define their supply chains more inclusively than their peers.

It said many retailers use a narrow span of control (such as distribution centre [DC] operations, transportation and procurement) to define their supply chains.

Smarter retail supply chains went a step further and broadened the span of control to include forecasting, replenishment, new product launch and sourcing responsibilities.

Finally, Gartner said that establishing a robust set of end-to-end supply chain metrics was also an important factor with many retailers today measuring aspects of their supply chains, but also identified a need for a more-comprehensive measurement program.

New CEO of Virgin named

Posted on May 8, 2013 by - Moving People, News

Richard BransonTom Mockridge has been named as the new chief executive of Virgin.

The ex head of the UK arm of News International will join the rival after the $15.75 billion acquisition by US cable company Liberty Global completes.

Mockridge was previously chief executive of European Television operations, chief executive of Sky Italia and and most recently chief executive of News International.

He will succeed Neil Berkett, who will continue in his role as CEO of Virgin Media until closing of the transaction, having previously announced his intention to retire from Virgin Media upon closing the deal.

Mike Fries, President and CEO of Liberty Global, said the new recruit would bring experience into his new role, admitting he’d know him for 15 years.

Lamborgini celebrates 50th

Posted on May 8, 2013 by - Fun Stuff

lambSports car fanatics over in Italy will today get their fix as 350 super Lamborginis hit the streets of Milan.

The cars from the House of the Raging Bull are beginning a Grand Tour as part of Lamborghini’s 50th Anniversary celebrations.

Starting in Milan, the cars will then pass pass through the landscapes of Lombardia, Toscana, Lazio, Umbria and Emilia Romagna, stopping over in Forte dei Marmi, Grosseto, Roma, San Giustino Valdarno and Bologna, where they will arrive on 10 May in the afternoon.

On Saturday 11 May the Lamborginis will depart again for Sant’Agata Bolognese, for the final celebrations of the 50th anniversary.

The convoy will be more than 4.5 km in length, with a combined power of more than 190,000 hp.

From the first car produced in 1963, the 350 GT, it will include the entire model range right up to the current Gallardo and Aventador models.

Drivers and co-drivers will arrive from all over the world: with 65 percent men and 35 women, their ages range from 22 to 75 years old.

Demand for SSDs to stay strong

Posted on May 8, 2013 by - News, Opinions, Products

hdd-hugeAlthough the PC market has seen better days, shipments of solid state drives are expected to grow more than 600 percent by 2017, according to the latest figures released by IHS. However, even at this rate, two thirds of PCs shipped in 2017 will still have mechanical hard drives, although many of them will probably be hybrids. 

PC SSD shipments are expected to hit 227 million units in 2017, up from 31 million last year.

Hard drive shipments will drop to 410 million by 2017, down 14 percent from 475 million in 2012. In just five short years SSDs will claim 36 percent of the market, up from just six percent last year. HDDs will account for the remaining 64 percent, but memory makers stand to cash in from them as well, as hybrid drives hit the market in ever increasing numbers.

The driving force behind the SSD boom will be ultrabooks and other ultrathin devices. IHS analyst Fang Zhang believes ultrabooks and ultrathins, combined with touch screens and convertible form factors, will become very compelling machines, designed to lure consumers away from smartphones and tablets.

Of course, none of this is possible without more consumer interest. Although enthusiasts have been buying SSDs for years, the standard PC box buyer doesn’t care too much about the latest storage technology, which is still too pricey for mainstream adoption. Ultrabooks are slowly changing the public perception of SSDs are geeky devices for gamers and enthusiasts. Consumers are slowly starting to appreciate the added agility and responsiveness of SSD-based systems, and prices are tumbling as well.

On Tuesday Seagate announced its first series of SSD products designed to cover all market segments. The news was closely followed by an announcement from Western Digital and SadDisk, who will collaborate on new hybrid drives. Traditional HDD churners simply have to transition to SSDs and hybrid drives, it is just a matter of time.

“SSDs have dropped in price this year. The industry would probably put this down to supply and demand – but if I’m honest I think it’s all down to competition. Big players are moving in and really taking this industry to the next level – this week WD and Seagate separately announced their SSD push – and it wouldn’t surprise me if these larger players triggered a price war to push smaller players out of the market,” a reseller told us. “In terms of getting consumers more involved isn’t it just a case of making them a more prominent feature of gadgets and cost points? The average consumer just cares about what they can get and for how much.”

More marketing cash from the likes of Seagate and Western Digital will help, but so will tablets and smartphones. Consumer are already enjoying the perks of speedy solid state storage on their iPads and Androids, which means they are far more likely to go for an SSD based PC next time they upgrade. It is basically a case of not downgrading from a horse to a donkey, as Balkanese old wise men would say.

Kids buy apps and raid parents’ accounts

Posted on May 8, 2013 by - News

Apple, iPadChildren are costing their parents cash, running up bills on apps and in-app purchases on their tablets and smartphones.

According to research conducted by Microsoft, parents have spent on average an extra £341 on their bills, unaware of their kids’ app spending, totalling over £30 million for parents across the nation.

Over a quarter of the 2000 parents asked admitted to falling foul of their kids making unauthorised app and in-app purchases, with 83 percent of these parents suffering from an increased monthly bill as a result.

Just over one in ten parents said that they were concerned they were unable to pay the extra cost, while  a third have resorted to hiding their smartphone and tablet from their kids.

Nonetheless, 17 percent of UK parents still share their smartphone and tablet passwords with their children, with 23.5 percent of parents not having a security password at all.

Eight year olds are running up the largest app costs, having added on average an extra £59.59 to their parents’ smartphone or tablet bill.  And, demonstrating the widespread issue of ‘accidental’ buys by very young children, well over a third of kids aged four and under have made app and in-app purchases without permission.

The research reveals that fun-loving kids are spending on average three hours and 21 minutes a week playing smartphone games and apps. Surprisingly, one in ten parents give their children free rein to access whatever content they want and over half link their smartphone or tablet to a subscription service or direct debit account that can be easily accessed.

As well as the financial implications of the unsupervised use of a parent’s smartphone or tablet, there is also the risk of social media pranks. Over a quarter of kids have sneakily updated a parent’s Facebook status, and one in five updated their Twitter status.

Potentially causing a career limiting move, one in ten kids have also hijacked a parent’s Facebook profile to comment on or insult their boss.

Microsoft said its Windows Phone 8 handsets could help parents reduce the likelihood of suffering ‘bill shock’, providing a Kid’s Corner feature which prohibits in-app purchases and only lets kids roam around in the specific area.

Resellers need wider mobility portfolios

Posted on May 8, 2013 by - News

DominicWordsworth_newResellers must begin to start building wider mobility portfolios and get cosy with disties in a bid to exploit the latest opportunities within the market, Computerlinks has said.

The company, which earlier this week announced an agreement in the UK and Germany with MobileIron, said the recent BYOD trend had been  good for starting conversations about mobility strategies organisations.

However, Dominic Wordsworth, product group manager at the company pointed out that the industry was now moving beyond just securing devices to considering how they can make staff not only mobile but also productive.

“MDM was the ‘knee jerk’ reaction by many to BYOD (both vendors and end-users) – securing the devise is an important start, but enabling and managing applications is the real challenge,” he told ChannelEye.

He pointed out that the companies with insight who initiated pilot mobility projects were now starting to move into company-wide rollouts.

“[This gives] the channel plenty of opportunities to get involved as businesses need to evaluate what applications are needed, who needs them and why. Vanity projects such as handing out iPads to executives are becoming more scarce, as organisations are becoming to demand real value from all of their devices,” he added.

Many channel partners are offering mobility products which allow IT departments to manage devices, however, Wordsworth claimed it was becoming clear that security was not the only factor at play here.

“To exploit the latest opportunities in the market, resellers should be building wider mobility portfolios around devices, applications and content. Focusing on one aspect of the mobility pitch won’t bring in those high-value contracts as organisations will generally be looking for the whole package rather than just a point solution.

“One way resellers can get ahead of the competition is by working with distributors that can offer extra services to help companies get mobile more easily, such as pre-sales support which can gives them access to current market expertise and knowledge,” he said.

Computerlinks claims that its new partnership with MobileIron will further continue to help resellers to drive their customers to deliver useful business applications to users over enhanced mobile networks to a secure endpoint, whatever the device.

It has also promised training for its channel partners around the new announcement, as well as helping them take advantage of its highly qualified pre and post sales consultants to support their own teams.

Dell attacks Cisco in mid-market

Posted on May 7, 2013 by - News, Products

mikedellcloseupDell is talking big about taking on network behemoth Cisco, announcing its SonicWall NSA firewalls that it believes will disrupt the market.

Dell is promising protection for mid-sized organisations with its latest firewalls, promising customers that the SonicWall NSA software will assure “optimal network performance and total cost of ownership”, going on to say that its technology will even “render competitors’ traditional firewalls obsolete”.

Using a patented single pass, low latency Reassembly Free Deep Packet Inspection, or RFDPI engine, this kit, Dell claims, has enough power to take note of all network traffic, no matter the port or protocol, and can block threats before they worm their way into the network.

Dell boasts that the RFDPI engine has the twin benefit of combining a firewall with an intrusion protection system, and the software sports features like 10GbE SPF+ interfaces and high performance SSL decryption. Medium sized organisations will be able to use the kit to take advantage of security usually only afforded for enterprise grade network security, Dell claims.

Dell exec director in product management, Patrick Sweeney, said the company believes these “products are game-changers as we take on Cisco in the critical mid-market”.

As web threats get more sophisticated, penny pinching mid sized organisations swamped by economic stagnation need excellent security to make sure they are not even more vulnerable than they already are. Problems with funding staff training or specialisation are common, too, so Dell thinks its latest product can help.

Avaya loves its partners

Posted on May 7, 2013 by - News

Hands across the waterAvaya is moving to help partners and disties speed up access to its portfolio of unified communications, contact centre, networking, and SME products.

The business communications and collaboration systems and services company has announced that it will be rolling out its Avaya One Source globally.

It’s also announced three new Avaya Aura suites of UC, mobility and collaboration applications that help simplify pricing and the delivery of UC applications.

According to the company, the suites make it easy and cost-effective for channel partners and customers to select and deploy the right mix of UC capabilities across their entire workforce.

Avaya One Source is said to speed quoting and ordering of all Avaya products through more efficient pricing, processes and tools.  New automation capabilities, real-time access to standardised pricing, and an integrated and centralised web-based system is also claimed to significantly reduce order cycle times, enabling channel partners to deliver quicker responses to customers.

The service is said to be available to all 9,000 Avaya Connect channel partners and will also include simplified global pricing and discounting reduces 1,400 Avaya material price groups to 13 and combines over 200 separate pricing catalogs into one.

Avaya One Source is already deployed in key regions throughout the world, with full deployment planned for all countries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific by July.

Tradeshift shouts about success

Posted on May 7, 2013 by - News

megaPhTradeshift has released a teaser statement declaring its  success in the first quarter of this year.

The company, which has reams of blog posts about how well it’s been doing, has announced that 250,000 new suppliers have joined up to its services.

Tradeshift first began by helping companies handle invoicing online. Since, it has grown into offering customers a range of apps that allow them to add functionality such as quotes and purchase orders.

The company said it had seen new clients such as  Deutsche Post DHL with large supplier volumes, as well as a “massive” public sector organisation with 130k suppliers joining its books.

A global healthcare company, claimed to have 15,000 suppliers, as well as products sold worldwide through subsidiaries and distributors, had joined Tradeshift’s books, while a  global publisher working with 5,000 suppliers in the industry has also signed up.

Though it is just releasing teaser statements for now, it promised more details would be available soon. Existing customers include the NHS and the French government.