June 2010 Archives

Sitting down with the CEO of KACE, the systems management specialists recently acquired by Dell, we got to that part of the conversation where he asks if there are any trends that I've picked up on.

Apart from sharing the usual one about the downward trend in journalist's pay we discussed the current obsession that most vendors seemed to be having with the mid market.

This space is apparently one that has been "neglected" and one "hit hard" by the recession leaving the channel armed with products specifically focused on that market from kindly vendors able to be the mid market firm's friend and saviour.

Those of us who have been around for long enough remember the same excitement and expectations about the SME market and in fairness a great deal of those turned out to be close to the mark.

From a channel point of view the positive is that all the vendors I've spoken to view resellers as the route to market so this should extend the reach for resellers looking beyond their SME horizons.

The most unusual thing about the spy row that has broken out between the US and Russia is not so much the fact that despite the end of the Cold War these things continue to happen but the methods being used.

In a way it's refreshing to find out that in a era when all this spying business is meant to be done via computers and the web that real people are still involved out there. The thought of shady looking characters in long Macs peeking out from behind newspapers and swapping briefcases on park benches is a blast from the past.

So now we find out that a group of ten spies posing as couples that were on a long-term strategy to infiltrate the US government have been exposed and now face possible prison sentences. They will be heralded as abused heroes back in the Motherland. But they will also take a fair bit of the spotlight away from the cyber efforts being made by Russia and other countries.

Where are the hackers and scammers hiding behind banks of monitors and flashing lights? perhaps we have all rushed too quickly to discount the old methods.

Your business appoints a head of sales. He tells you that he will rebuild your sales team but won't bring in anyone who has been missing their targets or failed to seal a deal for a long time. You expect great things but as he comes under pressure to hit his quarterly sales numbers his performance is worse than some of the small, seen-better-days outfits that lurk in the darker corners of the industrial park.

He looks like he might manage to miss the target by some considerable margin and decides to lean on members of the sales team who couldn't seal a deal if their lives depend on it. Now you realise he has not managed to deliver on his promises. But before you can get him into the office for a talking to he stands up on the sales floor and tells everyone that their performance is improving, and although everyone is tired, they will be pleased to hear he is not going to resign.

Add into the equation that this man is paid millions and the situation starts to become even more black and white.

Data is something that those of us who have smart phones and take for granted are going to have to get used to paying for in the future.

As the hundreds queued down Regent Street outside the Apple store waiting to get their hands on the latest iPhone the latest major mobile operator, Three, announced that it was following in the footsteps of O2 and Vodafone and introducing caps of 1GB on monthly data use.

This might not seem like a big deal now with most colleagues I mentioned it to shrugging their shoulders and commenting that 1Gb was plenty of data. But things are developing so quickly that give it just a few months and there could well be an whizz-bang application that involves video and sucks your monthly data allowance in just a couple of uses.

The fear that is growing in my mind is that we might be entering an era of not so much the digital have and have-nots but a tiered world where access to the full bells and whistles of the web is restricted only to the minority that can afford it.

So you might be able to afford an iPhone but not the highest data package restricting your ability to join in on the latest must-do craze. or you might have a home network and link up your PC, console, smart phone and iPad and find yourself breaking through the caps set by internet providers because wherever you go data is going to cost and increasingly be capped.

Add to this the tack that the government is taking towards rural broadband and its view that private companies will fill the gap left by scrapping the landline tax and you have a recipe for even more people to become digital disenfranchised.

Of course data has to cost but perhaps what we are starting to be penalised for is the fact that networks and operator infrastructures have not kept up with the growth of web usage and the explosion in streamed audio and video content and their mistakes and inability to invest is now becoming a problem for all of us.

It's 2010 and the web is still developing. Data capping might seem like the answer now but going forward the infrastructure has to improve and the limit of those caps has to start spiraling significantly upwards. Fail to do that and more and more people will be unable to afford the web.

The Russian president has been touring some of the largest vendors in the computer industry over the last couple of days hoping to pick up some ideas to take home.

President Dmitry Medvedev has made no secret of his ambition to foster a Silicon Valley culture in Russia and popped into press the flesh with the likes of Apple CEO Steve Jobs as well as swinging by Cisco and Twitter's offices.

In the spirit of using technology to share his activities Medvedev signed up to Twitter yesterday to post his progress through California.

"Silicon Valley's greatest asset is communication. People discuss their work not trifles. Russia would benefit from this kind of environment," he tweeted.

"The government's task is to create job opportunities. We have the money now, but we don't have a Silicon Valley. We must spend wisely," he added.

In some ways he is a modern day Peter the Great who toured the dockyards of Woolwich and Greenwich picking up ideas he could take home to his own navy.

Now there are a couple of things to be said for this. Firstly, the obvious is that Twitter gives an unparalleled insight into the lives and actions of the great and good.

But the second is that there might be a new stage in the development of the Russian computer industry. Over the last few decades all the main players have engaged with the market and there have been a few home grown brands emerging like Kaspersky Labs.

But if it wants to develop more of its own industry and encourage others in then it might well provide a new source of vendors and marketing money for the channel as these companies look to expand into Europe and the lucrative UK market.

I'm being a good boss today one director of a reseller told me this morning as he reeled off the list of things he was providing for staff this afternoon.

"A big screen, a couple of barrels of beer and some crisps," were being offered to his staff as they watched the England game.

But as we discussed his enlightened attitude we both wondered what would happen if you didn't give staff the time to watch the match.

Imagine the scene:

Reseller sales person: "Hello? Mr customer I'm just calling about your latest order."

Customer: "You not watching the game?"

Reseller: "I'm working. Here at [insert name of firm] we pride ourselves on delivering a 24 hour seven day a week service to our customers."

Customer: "So your boss won't let you watch the game then?"

Reseller: "Well it's not as bad as that. But work has to come first, surely you appreciate that?"

Customer: "Can't really talk now I'll speak to you tomorrow."

The sound of the pips as the phone goes dead.

The action then turns to the customer's office which is full of cheering staff, bunting and a large TV showing the England match.

Customer A: "Who was that on the phone?"

Customer B: "It was our account manager at our reseller. Poor sod isn't allowed to watch the game."



Do you think that the customer thinks better of the reseller? Now what would you do if you wanted to be a 'better boss'. It's pretty simple isn't it.

What was lacking in the emergency budget delivered by the Chancellor George Osborne was any real talk of the necessity of maintaining an investment in ensuring Britain remained at the forefront of web and creative developments.

Previous budgets have mentioned Digital Britain and the need to make Britain a world beater alongside the emerging economies of China, India and Brazil but this time around there was an almost complete absence of mention of the emerging industries that are seen by some as vital to ensuring the UK remains competitive in the future.

The video games industry did get a mention as the Chancellor George Osborne said that the tax credits that were being set aside for that industry were being canned.

The main focus of any technology mention was the scrapping of the landline tax, which had been floated as an idea by the last Labour government as the way of paying for super fast broadband. Now with that scrapped there will be some money that has come as a result of the digital switchover not costing as much but the emphasis will be on private companies to fill the gap.

Bearing in mind we are in a recession, private companies are looking for a return which rural broadband might not give them. It is a solution that will not provide the service that the UK needs and one that takes what has been a public issue and takes it off the government radar.

From a channel perspective of course the budget offered lots on taxes and benefits but for the country as a technology point of view it was a budget lacking a great deal of substance.

That old phrase 'get big, get niche or get out' always comes out at moments like these with the news that another specialist distributor has been snapped up by a larger rival.

The acquisition of Sphinx, known for security and networking amongst other things, by Arrow ECS, will fall into the category of being seen as a 'get big' move.

But that would be far too simple because what has changed dramatically since that old channel phrase was first coined is that the way IT works together rather than in silos and the way it is being sold have made it increasingly difficult for those that like to approach the market with just one feather in their cap.

For Arrow ECS it gives them access to more skills, vendors and a bigger message to take to Europe. But for the rest of the channel it provides yet more evidence that what has started to emerge as the main feature of the market in the last few years shows no sign of slowing down.

The negatives are another credit line going down for some resellers and the question of choice might be raised by some. But on a positive side it gives Arrow ECS thew chance to provide partners it works with a much greater range.

This isn't going to be the last acquisition in distribution this year but it is just another in a lengthening line of examples of the way the one-stop-shop is becoming the dominant model in distribution.

There is still a space for the specialists and for those left in the space that was occupied by Sphinx there will be an opportunity to exploit some uncertainty but as another specialist is swallowed up the ranks of the independents loses one of its number you do start to inevitably wonder who might be next?

The World Cup has started in earnest and it has provided a welcome distraction from the talk of cuts and emergency budgets.

As the teams do their best on the various fields of play in South Africa there will be some in government hoping that England keep the distraction going for as long as possible.

Unemployment figures are heading ever closer to the three million mark and the news in the budget tomorrow is unlikely to be very encouraging. Already the leaking and media manipulation has started preparing us all for cuts in local services and hikes in taxes.

Small business groups have been busy calling on the government to defend their sector by reducing the tax burden and ensuring that the fragile recovery is not dented.

They will have to wait and see like the rest of us quite what will happen.

Of course, if the England football team can get over the hiccup that was the performance against the USA and build on a victory against Algeria tonight then large segments of the country might continue to forget its woes for a while longer.

Go on and win the entire thing and most of us might even forget there has been a recession.

That is surely the scenario that the politicians must be hoping might emerge in the next few weeks.

But it could go the other way.

If the World Cup antics end in defeat and the team has to come home to a dreary and disappointed welcome at Heathrow then the last 18 months of pain will feel even fresher than ever.

It is a difficult time for Cameron and co because events are largely out of their hands. If things go right then it is going to be a great summer, one to really remember. If they go wrong then winter is coming early.

Having spent the morning in Birmingham at the MicroScope and Kaysea How to Succeed in Managed Services seminar it's safe to say after having done two of them this week that I can make a summary on current trends.

Firstly, there is a real appetite among resellers to find out more about managed services and how they can make it work for them and their customer base. Two packed rooms, one in London on Tuesday and another this morning at The Belfry are evidence of that.

Secondly, the customers are also looking for help in this area. A survey from Esteem revealed that firms that had cut IT staff in the recession were not recruiting to replace them and as a result were looking to managed services providers to step into the breach.

Thirdly, the economics of the recession, with the move towards flexible pay-as-you-go models are not looking like lifting anytime soon. If anything they are becoming more embedded in the market as the major vendors start to embrace that approach and it becomes the payment method of choice.

So armed with a few observations and a smattering of facts picked up here and there it seems safe to say that managed services it here to stay and the channel recognises that and is making moves to embrace opportunities, like the ones given by MicroScope and Kaysea this week, to learn more about it.

There must be money in those there gaming hills. It was with a great deal of envy and a fair amount of incredulity that we read about the Activision party at the E3 show in Los Angeles.

The gaming company used some of the biggest names in pop music to promote its Guitar Hero game. When was the last time you went to a vendor's launch event and watched Eminem, Rihanna, Soundgarden and Jane's Addiction? Yep same here.

Don't get me wrong after the jealousy dies down there is something to be said for a bit of over the top spending. It reminds people that the world of computing is glamorous, exciting and A listed. For far too long it has been about belt tightening and doing things on the cheap.

When I started in channel journalism almost 15 years ago there were trips galore, goodie bags and occasionally stars were rolled out at functions. Fellow hacks used to return from big vendor conferences talking of Elton John or Billy Joel opening proceedings with a few ditties. Sadly now a busker from the tube might even be seen as pushing the boat out.

So it is with a glass of tap water raised that we pay tribute to the games industry for reminding us all that fun still exists out there and the stars can still come out.

Managed services explained in just a couple of hours was the aim of the MicroScope and Kaysea seminar this morning and it delivered what it said on the tin.

A room packed full of resellers in the Sofitel St James, in London were given a guided tour of how it works by Matt Tomon, founder and CEO at Green Fields Technology, (speaking at the front of the pic) before being talked through the Kaysea tools that resellers can use to underpin their own managed services offerings.

Hearing from Matt directly about how his business works was interesting because here was a successful company that a couple of years ago accepted that it had to rip up its sales strategy and start again.

With no outside investment, Matt has managed to transform his business into a £4m turnover operation, supporting an impressive 200+ customers across 25 cities in UK and Ireland with just 35 staff across 2 offices.

Having the guts to do that came from a confidence that the managed services approach was one that would really deliver.

Those that missed the chance to hear Matt today can still register for the event at The Belfry hotel in Birmingham this Thursday. If you come along it will be great to see you.

To confirm your place or for further information, please contact Darren Page on 0845 257 9990 or Darren.Page@rbi.co.uk.

That phrase 'lies, damned lies and statistics' is an apt one to describe the arguments that have erupted over the health of the UK economy.

Former Chancellor Alistair Darling has been waiting all weekend for the arrival of the latest projections from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) hoping they would show things are not as bad as the current government makes out.

You might think that projected growth figures are best left to politicians to argue over but the consequences of whoever wins the debate will hit the channel where it hurts in the form of taxes. A rise in VAT is one prospect that seems to be gathering momentum and the OBR numbers will support that increase if the current government decides to introduce it.

The main highlight from the OBR analysis is the expectation that the economy would grow at a rate of 2.6% in 2011 rather than Darling's earlier forecast of 3.25%. Despite that the number was slightly better than the 2.5% most people in the know had braced themselves for.

The numbers will no doubt be quoted in next week's emergency budget with George Osborne the current chancellor able to wax lyrical about how the previous government got it wrong.

But for those of us who don't get paid to read reports and hang around corridors in Westminster arguing about these things are only really worried about one thing which is how the government will navigate through the dangerous waters of a double dip recession and encourage growth to return. Do that and you can spend all the time you want talking about numbers.

With the World Cup starting later today the bets are stacking up over who will win the competition. Will it be the bosses or the workers?

The bosses want staff to work as normal but the staff want to enjoy the World Cup. The result is the prospect of 'sickies' if no flexibility is shown.

But of course there is a way round this problem and technology has a major part to play. These days there are not just laptops and broadband connections but ways of allowing staff to both work remotely, multi-task and deliver what the boss requires.

Paul Clark, director for the UK and Ireland, at Plantronics (pictured) sums up the state of play: " According to the Financial Times and a survey conducted by the CBI, Business groups have been warned to brace themselves for a rise in absenteeism during the world cup."

"Last year the British economy lost 27 million working days as a result of bogus "sickies", costing £2.5 billion. With the World Cup set to start [today], and given how passionate fans in the UK are about 'the beautiful game', I expect this number will increase significantly," he says.

The crunch will come of course with the England Slovenia game which takes place during work hours but as the tournament progresses if England are still in the competition then other clashes with work time are more likely.

Enlightened bosses will use the technology, show they can give a bit back to staff after taking quite happily during the recent tough times and make it a tournament that brings the workforce together. Those who stick to their guns pretending it's not happening might have emptier offices over the next few weeks and random but widespread outbreaks of flu among the workforce.

As an iPhone owner and an O2 customer it always seemed inevitable that sooner rather than later the question of unlimited data use would be one that was tackled by the phone company.

The focus on texts and minutes might have been sensible when the customers were text happy teenagers but the explosion of smart phones with all the lovely web content that they can provide has overshadowed texting by some considerable margin.

But the decision by O2 to scrap unlimited data use has still come as a disappointment because ultimately it means the biggest benefits of being connected are now going to be the most expensive. It is all very well putting up some graphic revealing how many emails and movies you can watch for you 500MB but for most of us it makes using a smart phone in the UK feel exactly like it does when you go abroad, a constant panic about how much data you have used.

I'm not saying that O2 cannot charge because of course it can but the limits it has set do seem to fail to acknowledge where the market is going. With streaming video round the corner and more and more being shared online this puts an artificial cap on the whole thing.

When my contract runs out of course I will be looking for the best data deal but anyone who tells me to be happy with 500MB clearly fails to understand where things are going.

Having taken a day's leave to accompany my youngest son on a school trip today to the Natural History Museum can I just say to anyone in the channel who has family working in the teaching profession give them a big pat on the back.

Like most people I like to imagine that my job is demanding and serious but it is nothing compared to the responsibility of looking after children. Not just looking after their safety but looking after their minds. I have never fielded so many questions in such a short space of time. They soak it up like sponges and what you say really goes in.

Those that carry out that responsibility every day deserve praise and a special mention.

The World Cup could provide an opportunity for more than just audio visual and networking resellers with security concerns about the football competition now coming to the fore.

A warning from LANDesk mentions that deadly combination of words 'security meltdown' to describe what could happen from this Friday as staff start engaging with every social media site they see if it's got a football connection.

Think I exaggerate then look at the numbers: according to LANDesk almost half (48%) of all downloads in the workplace are non-work related potential security threats.

So what do you do?

Option one, surely the most audacious, is to tell staff that the World Cup has been canceled due to a combination of structural problems at the stadiums and some of the teams suffering too many injuries. Security risks might be reduced but so will the loathing for the managing director.

Option two, which is no doubt a design agency approach, is to encourage staff to dress uyp and spend the next few weeks watching games while they try to squeeze some work in. Security risks are high and productivity is likely to be low.

Or option three, the one most will go for, which is to tighten up policies surrounding the way employees interact with the web.

LANDesk has already seen evidence of this with the majority of UK organisations introducing strict policies limiting the use of social media (73%) and internet downloads (89%).

That might well keep things secure but don't throw babies out with the bath water and remember it's summer, its football, it's meant to be fun and goodness knows the last 18 months have been bad enough without a World Cup ban to contend with.

As LANDesk shows there is room for concern but set out the policies and show some flexibility should be the strategy managers choose not a shut up shop and defend the goal at all costs.

There is something almost pop-starish about Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple. For a while, when his health was really suffering, there was a spate of articles about how the company might survive without him and as he strode across the stage at the developers conference no doubt there will be thoughts like that again.

Jobs is so integral to the success of Apple and gives the company a personality that would be difficult to replace. When he tells you that the iPhone 4 is going to be fantastic you find yourself wanting to believe it. If you feel like that you are not alone as the iPad has sold 2m units in just two months and this is for a product that comes at a premium in a tough market.

But people just feel that they have to own the latest Apple product and generally once they have purchased a product the users act as evangelists and demonstrators without further prompting from the vendor and the numbers of people who fall into that category are growing.

But for it to continue Apple not only needs to continue developing quality products that ooze designer values but it needs Jobs at the head and out there on stage selling the vision.

He is good, of that there is no doubt, and you can hear the whoops as he talks about the latest release being "the biggest leap since the launch of the iPhone". But as some of the big personalities have proved in the past when they go so does the spotlight on the company.

Sun was never quite the same after Scott McNealy stepped out of the spotlight and would Oracle be the company it was without the personality that is Larry Ellison?

Those of us in the media like to have some big personalities around but vendor boardrooms are clearly drawn into it as well with Jobs acting as an example of how well it can work. Hopefully he can keep showing how it works for sometime to come.

Those regular reader(s) of this blog might recall a story last month when the then Liverpool manager was mistaken for a reseller by two of distribution's finest.

Well given what has happened to Rafa Benitez the words penned back on 11 May now seem prophetic: "Should Rafa leave Liverpool as is widely expected he might well take some comfort from knowing a career in the channel is an option as he clearly has the look of a reseller nailed already."

As this picture taken after Aastra business manager Allan Merten and his colleague Tony Cowen saw Rafa at Watford Gap services shows, the former Liverpool manager looks good when flanked by someone from the channel.

In the pic, taken by Tony, Rafa is on the left and Allan is on the right.

"We were on our way to Luton to see a customer and had stopped at the services to pick up a Wi-Fi signal to check our e-mails. Tony doesn't know that much about football and when I spotted Rafa and pointed him out to Tony, he responded: Who is he, is he a reseller?" said Merten.

So all we can ask of Rafa at what must be a difficult time working out which banks to put his pay-off millions into, is that before he takes the plunge back into management just cast your mind back to that magic moment at Watford Gap. That could be yours, Rafa, day in and day out if you join the channel.

Yes, maybe you better get your agent to call Inter.

It is often quite hard to be able to put your hand on research that demonstrates the value of the channel from an independent third party but when something does come along it can be a great source of encouragement.

Take the latest AMR Research Supply Chain Top 25 for 2010 list as an example. The companies on this list have excelled at managing their supply chain from manufacturing right down to the customer experience.

At the top of the tree sits Apple, followed in third place by Cisco and then the top ten is populated by a series of other household IT names Dell (5th), Samsung Electronics (7th), IBM (8th) and Research in Motion (9th).

Kevin O'Marah, group vice president at AMR Research, said that anyone wanting to learn from the best about the way to build a solid supply chain had to start working back from customer through reseller and back to the vendor.

"In designing your own supply chain strategy, take a cue from the leaders: Work outside-in, starting with your customers and working your way back and around your network of trading partners to design a profitable response," he said.

He is of course bang on the money and those companies that just expect value to be added by those reluctantly pushing pallets onto the back of trucks have a great deal to learn.

Sadly the research didn't come with large letters saying "the channel is great" but it has to be said with a high degree of confidence that surely without resellers a lot more of those tech firms would struggle to make the list.

The media loves to label things as firsts or 'the most important since' and the treatment of the World Cup will be no different.

Back in the days of the web's infancy the Olympics from Atlanta were dubbed the first internet games and that claim was rolled out again when they arrived in Sydney. By the time it got to China the role of the web in providing news, results and ticket ordering was well established.

Likewise the last world cup was all over the web with Zidane's head butt getting discussed on news sites, blogs and shown in photos and occasionally here and there video.

But if you want to find a label to dub this world cup then it will be the first 'streamed' sporting event. The technology is there and so is a user familiarity with streaming making it possible to sit at work or home and watch the live action.

This of course has more ramifications beyond just helping the media come up with a first to describe the competition and has a real impact for resellers.

There are already warnings being sounded by those who keep an eye on the infrastructure to warn that thin gs will fall over if put under too much strain from users. Then there are the fears that firms that lock down the web and ban streaming will suffer sickies being made by their staff. The Federation of Small Business has become the latest to talk for openness between employers and staff over the World Cup to avoid absences.

But from a MicroScope perspective we can safely say that this world cup might have a channel angle. For once it's more than just about selling audio visual systems to the clubs and pubs segment and there seems to be a real opportunity for infrastructure specialists. With that in mind roll on the start of the tournament.

There was an interesting phrase that stuck in the mind after my meeting with Micro Focus yesterday morning. Talking about its research which showed that the 'more with less' mentality was going to stick around for a while the vendor's CTO Stuart McGill talked about a double-dip recession.

He didn't mean economically but was referring to the mental impact from the new government's decision to start tackling the deficit with cuts in the public sector.

He has a very valid point. Although we might wake up most mornings to find a politician on Today talking about the dangers of relying on one sector of the economy for so long as it claims Labour did with the public sector, that reliance cannot and should not be turned off overnight.

Everyone wants to do more with less but the current obsession with the idea that cost savings equate to waste are damaging. It implies that in most organisations there are bloated departments just ripe for the axe. That people work inefficiently and better working practices could save time and head count is also a fairly insulting idea when you think about it.

But if you view cost cutting in terms of trying to reduce spending made with little thought then IT has a key role to play and so do resellers. Whether there is a double-dip in any sense the channel needs to get through to those that are unable to think about their infrastructure constructively for themselves and help them spend wisely and make the budgets they do have left count.

If you wanted a demonstration of how not to share an event it was the way the England squad was announced today by the FA.

I write 'announced' but at the time of writing it has still not be officially released. In an age where there are so many ways of revealing the details you have to wonder why the FA built up the expectations of a midday announcement then allow things to drip out on the wires.

It looks sloppy and is a timely lesson for any vendors looking to launch a major piece of news. Manage expectations, flick the switch that releases that news in one go and don't allow some of the major pieces of the jigsaw to leak.

Those who believe the FA is run by men in suits out of touch with reality will have been handed another major piece of ammunition.