November 2010 Archives

Over the weekend the start of what will be thousands of leaked diplomatic cables started appearing on the web.

Quite a few governments didn't want the contents to become public, prime among them the US, so it was perhaps of little surprise that the site hosting the information Wikileaks was hit buy a distributed denial of service (DDOS) web attack.

A DDOS attack is designed to paralyze a web site and effectively take it off air and the reasons for someone wanting to do that in this case are clear.

However the attacks failed and the leaks, which will last for the next few days, continue to come. Ironically one of the leaks covers the Chinese attack on Google at the start of the year. In that case, apparently orchestrated when a Politburo member found unflattering things about himself on the web, it was successful and the search giant moved out of the country.

So in a strange way not only do these leaked diplomatic cables do the US and its allies great harm but in terms of demonstrating the effectiveness of hackers to take down the site those trying to do so clearly have a lot to learn from the Chinese. 

It's going to take sometime before us Brits get used to the idea of Black Friday becoming a retail term on this side of the pond but Amazon is doing its best with a week of deals that have already caused some black moods among shoppers.

Kicking off this morning with its first few 'lightning deals' which go live at a set time then stop the minute the allocated stock has been sold out, the attention grabbing deal was the new Take That album for £1. The item sold out within a couple of seconds, quicker than you could click 'add to basket' leaving some shoppers fuming.

The comments on the Amazon site included people calling it a joke and questioning how an item could sell out so quickly.

So already for some it's a black Monday. The deals run all week and no doubt by the end the retailer will have made a fair bit of money but it needs to be careful because if the deals are so limited they cause frustration and heartache then it will have failed to match the sense of joy that the Americans have around the day that is associated so strongly with Thanksgiving.

At one of the partner events I recently had the privilege to attend, the subject of rebates and the confusion surrounding them took centre stage.

As the executive from the vendor walked across the stage talking to an audience of resellers he was keen to stress that the key to getting round the confusion was communication.

He urged resellers to tell the vendor what wasn't working and to then follow up those issues and take advantage of the help and support it could offer.

One of the big challenges is around promotions. There are plenty running at this time of year to encourage fourth quarter spending and to tap into those that have their fiscal years running alongside the calendar.

But for those resellers bombarded with oodles of information from elsewhere its not that difficult to miss those promotions or fail to take them into account when putting together a wider order.

What the speech highlighted was that confusion and the need for simplification remain a key issue in the channel. Sometimes money through promotions and special bid processes is being left unclaimed by resellers.

The offer of help is one that will cost the vendor some budget but it should also help the reseller sell more kit and get increased margins. If there is one new year's resolution worth making for 2011 it is to continue to work hard on making things simple and keeping the lines of communication open.

Those of you who thought that Avatar was a good as cinema could get might need to rethink their ideas.

A movie is being planned around the story of the Rubik Cube. That great icon of the 80s, that you think of in the same breath as Sinclair's Spectrum and the Acorn BBC, apparently has enough to be said about it to make cinema gold dust.

Anyone who remembers Robin Williams getting trapped in the board game Jumanji will recall that previous efforts to make board games the stuff of movies have been mixed at best.

One potential plot could be of someone who spends the entire movie trying to solve the puzzle before finally deciding to peel the stickers off or throwing it against the wall.

We wait for the trailers with bated breath.

It's not everyday that resellers get the opportunity to share their views of the market but MicroScope has been contacted to rally the opinions of the channel great and good for the annual ITC Channel market survey.

This survey is being put together by Gorilla Corporation and once completed will provide a good picture of the current state of the channel and where it believes it is heading next year.

To take part and share your views click here to take part

It's interesting perhaps that it takes students, who at the moment are facing hikes in their fees, to show their anger on the streets.

Businesses hit by tough times, the prospect of VAT cuts and thousands of public sector workers potentially losing their jobs have maybe produced some outraged letters to the papers but no burning placards on the streets.

The students focused on Millbank Tower where there are not just Conservative party offices but plenty of PR agencies as well. Just the other week Oracle held a partner event in the tower. Imagine that potential diary clash.

But as one of the PRs looking down on the mob commented "I guess you are more active at that age." Perhaps that is why it's students not business people out on the streets.

One of the best things that could happen for Apple is the widespread adoption of the Bring Your Own Computer movement which is starting to have a real impact across customers.

One example given to me this week will stick in the mind for a long time. Talking to a vendor with a background in virtualisation my contact revealed that it had provided staff with the option to buy their own technology out of the corporate purse.

The result was that 40% chose an Apple device indicating that not far off half the company were not happy with the Windows and desktop PC environment that they had been working in for so long.

When asked what that spending on Apple actually meant it was a range of products including the iPad. Those with the tablet really are the best adverts for Apple being so enthusiastic about the product getting it out and showing it off.

The result is that for the first time for most staff there might be an opportunity soon to buy technology that not only works but looks good and is something they are happy to carry around.

That is all good news for Apple and perhaps its the unforeseen consequences of the bring your own attitude that will help the Mac vendor get its feet back into the corporate sector in a way it hasn't enjoyed for a long time.

If you want to distract one of your arch rivals from keeping their eye on the ball there is nothing like a court case to help do that.

So it came as little surprise to see that Oracle is looking to get former SAP CEO and the latest boss of HP Leo Apotheker embroiled in the court case that has been running for a fair old while between the two software vendors.

In a brief nutshell the arguments started after a division of SAP downloaded and used Oracle's code around three years ago. If memory serves me right there was an admission that wrong doing had indeed been done but this was as a result of a mistake and procedures and policy had been changed to ensure it never happened again.

But three years later and the legal wheels have turned to the point where a court date is now close and the chance to get Apotheker embroiled in the business in his previous role as SAP CEO.

Of course in many ways it is going to be very much like the moment the former BP chief Tony Hayward had to face US politicians about the oil spill in New Mexico. He argued, quite rightly, that as CEO he would not have visibility of the decisions and actions that led to that problem.

The same is probably going to be true of Apotheker who will point out that SAP is a pretty large outfit and he could not know what every individual programmer was up to. He was also trying to get the firm through a tough recession as well so his mind might well have been on other problems.

But of course in his current role as CEO of HP that is not really the point and just bogging down his diary and his mental energy in this case is something that presumably will bring a smile to the faces of those executives at Oracle working so hard to compete against Leo's current company.