Reseller Radar

While many channel players fundraise for health causes or local charity projects, infrastructure reseller Teneo is spreading its wings and teaming up with charity Plan UK to fund construction of a pre-school facility in Ghana.

Teneo said its employees were moved to get involved in the project after a company-wide junket to Kenya opened their eyes to the stark differences between the lives of children in Africa and the UK.

The firm has charged its staff with raising 10% of the project costs (£3,350) with the other 90% to be met from the company coffers.

Fundraising activites back home have already come up with just over £2,000 to be put towards the project costs.

The new school, which will eventually replace an existing derelict building in the town of Motigu, has to accommodate 166 children aged between three and six. It will include three classrooms, an office and storage area and toilet block, as well as a rainwater harvesting system.

The funding provided will also cover furniture and teaching materials, along with support for the school's management committee, with the Ghanaian government funding teachers' salaries in the long-term.

It's rare that MicroScope covers a contract win, as any PR with half a brain (and some of the ones with no brain whatsoever) well know.

But when it's our own IT at stake we're more inclined to take an interest.

Tyneside-based Cisco and Microsoft partner Onyx this week announced a major new business continuity deal with serviced office provider MWB, which owns office space in London's Marble Arch Tower, home to none other than your favourite channel magazine.

Under the terms of the deal, Onyx will deliver business continuity support to MWB's clients, including data protection services, recovery sites, annual testing and full IT and network provision.

Better take care Onyx, we're in your hands.

What with riots in London and Manchester, fall out from the News International phone hacking scandal and the ongoing worldwide economic crisis, not to mention Google's acquisition of Motorola and HP's sudden bloodbath, we'd almost forgotten it's meant to be the silly season.

So what, then, do Lady Gaga, Ashley Cole and Christine Bleakley have to do with IT security?

Well, a history of high-speed crashes, all-night partying and silly footwear has meant celebs don't have the best reputation behind the wheel.

For this reason, security firm PC Tools decided the obvious thing to do was ask the great British public which celebrity they would least like to have driving them around for a day.

The poll of 1,000 drivers revealed that sitting in the passenger seat next to burlesque pop minstrel Lady Gaga would have them pumping an imaginary brake pedal...

Second placed Ashley Cole, an infamously bad driver, was followed closely by a complete nobody from some reality show about Essex.

To keep Ashley company, Cheryl also made the top 10, as did Jeremy Clarkson and Nick Clegg as respondents thought that repeatedly punching him in the face would likely distract him from the road.

To make things even, the survey also found that Brits would enjoy being chauffeured by Prince William, Sir Trevor McDonald, Jenson Button and David Cameron, however implausible that might be.

So here's the link, people. According to the survey results, poor concentration and arrogance lead to recklessness on the roads, and poor concentration and arrogance ALSO leads people to believe they won't fall victim to security breaches or cybercriminals.

Phew, so we got there in the end. 'Nuff said, reckons Reseller Radar.

PC Tools and Onechocolate Communications. MicroScope salutes you!

Photo courtesy: BananaStock

Summer's here, and like everyone else, we're wondering what to do to amuse our MPs.

They're off work for weeks on end and they're either hanging around the house, getting under your feet, or running wild in the streets, necking cider in the park and smoking with that awful Murdoch boy.

How can you keep them busy?

Fortunately, the Forum of Private Business (FPB) has come up with a bright idea, and last week announced a host of MPs have signed up to its Business Buddy scheme.

Business Buddy will see 102 MPs, among them business secretary Vince Cable; shadow Olympic minister Tessa Jowell; Green Party leader Caroline Lucas; and Cabinet Office minister Oliver Letwin, joining an SMB for a few weeks to get a taste of life at the coalface of British business.

The scheme will match up MPs with firms in their constituencies and give the little tearaways the opportunity to learn about some of the issues and challenges facing each firm, as well as finding out how legislation that they voted for actually affects those on the ground.

The FPB devised the scheme after a survey of its members to mark the launch of its Get Britain Trading campaign found that 74 per cent wanted their MPs to focus their work on small businesses in their constituency.

It is hoped it will go some way to breaking down some of the barriers between business owners and their elected representatives, as well as building potentially valuable lines of contact in the future.

Reseller Radar hears Vince Cable is currently making himself useful at a furniture manufacturer in Twickenham, while Caroline Lucas is predictably enjoying a stint at a vegetable wholesaler and Labour's Andy Burnham has been sent to Leigh to work at a chemical company.

Now, if only someone could get David Cameron a placement in the channel...

Photo courtesy: BananaStock/Thinkstock

As China continues to advance its global economic power, we've all become familiar with the Chinese capacity to deliver uncannily accurate knock-off products, particularly when it comes to desirable consumer items such as designer handbags or iPods.

But now it seems that some people in China have taken things a step further; a blogger living in the south-western city of Kunming has uncovered what appears to be nothing less than an entire, fake, Apple Store.

The clues to the dubious provenance of the Kunming Apple store are fairly obvious from the photos that the blogger managed to take - apparently by telling mall security she worked for Apple - the branding and fonts are all slightly off, and Apple never has signs saying 'Apple Store', preferring instead to let its logo do the talking.

That and Apple currently has just four stores in China, and none of them in relatively obscure Kunming.

The sheer cheek of whoever set up this little enterprise, selling what may or may not be fake Apple kit - it's impossible to tell from the pictures - is quite staggering.

But then again, you sort of have to admire the enterprise involved in setting up an entire fake channel for Apple, without its knowledge. In a way, Apple should be sort of flattered.

So what is Apple to do? Does it go for the jugular and get the Chinese authorities to crack down?

It almost certainly will.

But I'd like to suggest another course of action may be open to Steve Jobs here. Apple still maintains a channel of Premium Resellers, companies that effectively deck their premises out like an Apple Store and provide all the official services you'd expect from Apple itself.

The demand for Apple products in China is staggering and Apple cannot possibly hope to service that demand as quickly as it would like, so setting up an authorised reseller channel to address the market more effectively would seem like a sensible course of action.

Cloud servcies provider Intercept IT has teamed up with its customer, online lingerie store figleaves.com, for a campaign aimed at getting more women into the IT industry.

Five employees from Intercept are appearing in a new social media campaign, dubbed 'Be Bold', posing in some of figleaves.com's latest designer styles in a campaign featuring real women to help drive attention to the need for increased diversity in the industry.

We've long known that there aren't many women working in the IT industry; last year's UKRC report Women and Men in Science, Engineering and Technology estimated the figure to be a frankly pitiful 12.3 per cent.

Intercept is in fact quite unusual among IT firms; an above average 19 per cent of its total workforce and a very laudable 60 per cent of its management team are women.

The bottom line is we must applaud any initiative that tries to redress this outrageous imbalance, and according to Intercept everyone involved had a great day out at the photoshoot, and took away some fierce styling tips from figleaves, as Gok Wan would probably say.

The 'Be Bold' campaign was clearly not conceived with prurience in mind, and Intercept's boardroom is evidently not stuffed with page three reading dinosaurs, but even so I'm left questioning if this campaign, however well-intentioned, sends the right message to prospective employees.

Are there not more original ideas out there?

Photo courtesy: Jupiterimages

Security services provider Integralis is hoping swanky new London premises at 30 St Mary Axe - also known as the Gherkin - will up its standing among potential clients after cutting the ribbon on its new City pad in the RIBA Stirling prize-winning skyscraper today.

The distinctive 591 foot, 40 floor tower, will now be home to Integralis' sales and consulting teams as well as saving visiting employees from having to trek out to Reading.

"Moving our offices to the Gherkin positions us to further develop or client base and continue our excellent relationships with existing customers," said sales and marketing director Neal Lillywhite.

"The Gherkin is a great location for us; within a stone's throw of many of our clients, it offers us the ideal combination of location, scale and security that we are looking for," he added.

A number of resellers have signed up as Dell KACE Certified partners in the UK to expand their formal relationship with the Texan tech titan's systems management business.

The names include Kelway, Lanway, Sofcat, SBL, CCS Media and Ricoh, who join Upgrade Options which was the first UK partner to achieve the accreditation last month.

The current climate played to system management services - from PC deployments to ongoing management and retirement - noted John Johnson, vendor and alliances director at Kelway.

"With many companies on restricted IT budgets due to the current economic situation, opportunities in systems management are growing as organisations look at how they can manage and support their IT resources," he said.

In the three years since Dell launched the Partner Direct channel programme, resellers now account for 25% of its international sales and 24% in the UK.

MicroScope understands that the hunt is on for a successor to Azlan boss Ian French, after sources claimed the distribution veteran is returning to his consultancy business, Siceo.

French pitched up at Azlan, the enterprise infrastructure unit of C2000 at the start of last year, and during his tenure as business development director, pulled in a number of industry big hitters from rivals and vendors including HP and Tanderg.

He attended Cisco's worldwide partner event in New Orleans this week and talk has rapidly spread that he is to hang up his Azlan boots.

"The employment of French was always set up on an interim consultancy basis rather than driving day-to-day execution, so there is no shock horror in his departure," said a source close to the situation.

The distributor has already initiated a search for French's replacement, according to insiders.

Dell was quizzed about its acquisition strategy on a conference call with analysts last night but nobody mentioned the white elephant in the room; the feverish industry talk that it is looking to buy AMD.

In the recent acquisition spree, Dell dipped into its cash reserves to buy SecureWorks, Boomi and InSite, and the strategy will remain unchanged, said boss Michael Dell last night

"I think it will be very similar to what you've seen us do in the recent history here, where we're looking for relatively smaller sized ingredient acquisitions where we can leverage them with our substantial customer access and distribution," he said.

No one asked him about taking over AMD, perhaps because they knew he wouldn't entertain the question - perhaps they couldn't get it past the call moderator - or because it is far fetched.

The world's second largest chip maker parted with CEO Dirk Meyer at the start of the year to seek a leader that can deliver significant long term growth and market leadership, which could make AMD vulnerable.

The New York Stock Exchange is clearly smiling on a potential deal with Dell as AMD's share price rallied 5% on Tuesday, though they slid back by 0.35% today with the valuation of the company currently standing $5.8bn.

Reports suggest AMD would represent a valuable target for Dell as it could base the next waves of technology on the newly acquired IP, but there are a bunch of PC rivals that may not be so cheery about any deal.

Dell buying AMD would be the most ironic of moves, lest we forget the court battle AMD brought against Intel and its monopolistic behaviour, in which it used rebates to coerce Dell to exclusively integrate Intel inside.

Will it happen? I don't think so, but then again who predicted Intel buying McAfee or HP taking on 3Com?

The word on the street is that Dell is locked in negotiations with Midwich to expand distribution of its printer products beyond Micro P.

The one time direct selling purist is expanding its network of wholesalers in the storage space with Magirus inking a deal in France to supply EqualLogic storage, a partnership sources fully expect to extend to the UK.

However, Diss-based Midwich - which has carved a niche as a peripheral and AV specialist - is heavily touted to take on Dell branded printers which are rebadged Lexmark, Samsung and Fuji-Xerox kit.

Channel insiders reckon Micro P - which was handed exclusive rights to Dell's peripheral franchise in September 2008 - had not delivered on the growth expectations, but to be fair it was banging on reseller doors with a me-too product, so had its work cut out.

Midwich is a major distributor for Samsung, Lexmark, Brother and Oki, so may also find it equally challenging, but at least there may be two players pushing Dell rather than one.

Alex Ward, commercial director at Midwich, said it did not take lightly decisions to expand its vendor portfolio but confirmed exploratory conversations were taking place with Dell.

Dell refused to comment.

Ahead of joining HP as vice president of sales, Steve Murphy has moved to assure reseller partners that they feature heavily in his plans.

A popular figure internally and among channel partners, Murphy joins HP in April and given his track record should be more of a hit with his new Preferred Partners, some of whom did not see eye to eye with predecessor Martin Hess.

"The whole history of HP is channel friendly and supportive of partners, that will not change," Murphy told MicroScope.

The direct sales will fall under his remit, but aside from the enterprise and public sector desktop space, and some incidents in the server market last year, partners have not voiced massive concerns about channel conflict.

"Customers want to speak to HP but need the support of the channel, the channel definitely has a big play with them and channel partners can rest easy," he said.

Michael Dell, founder of the eponymously named firm, reckons HP paid too much for 3Par and he was right to bow out of the bidding war when it reached $2.35bn.

The Texan PC baron said in a report that Dell demonstrated "good discipline and didn't take an emotional decision", before it went on to splash $960m on Compellent Technologies.

Some partners are scratching their heads at the strategy of both Dell and HP; they argue there is not a million miles between the portfolios of Compellent or EqualLogic; and HP has yet to fill a gap in its enterprise storage range, with EVA judged to be two years out of date.

Are HP and Dell are buying market share rather than buying strategically?

HP argues that the 3Par acquisition propelled it back into the storage game, and plays to partners that are getting into the hosting arena as it provides the ability to have multiple customers on a shared platform.

Partners point out that NetApp already counts multi-tenancy in its armoury, but also provides de-duplication and SAN to SAN technologies, which HP does not.

Popular HP figure Kevin Matthews, UK and Ireland channel manager for enterprise servers, storage and networking, told Reseller Radar that with 3Par on board, it was back in the game.

"We've now got an architecture that was designed and delivered this century."

Resellers are going through training modules to get certified to sell 3Par and Matthews said it had learned from the mistakes made with Lefthand Networks, when it took longer to integrate the vendor into its partner programme.

"If you compare 3Par to Lefthand, we've moved quicker to integrate the products portfolio into the channel compensation scheme so partners can take advantage of the commercial rebates that we are offering," he said.

Sadly, Dell has yet to integrate Compellent into its Partner Direct programme; the deal was only sealed on 13 December.

In fact partners say that Dell hasn't even begun to announce plans in that direction.

So perhaps Michael had better get his own glass house in order before he starts throwing stones at HP's business nous. 

Resellers will be interested in the reports emerging this morning that Lenovo is considering buying a controlling stake in NEC's PC business....if they live in Japan.

The channel and end-users have a lnog memory and though Lenovo's star is shining brighter than it has since it bought IBM's PC division, NEC pulled out of the client market in Europe a couple of years ago.

According to the reports, Lenovo is eyeing up NEC's technology for development - which admittedly may have relevance for the European channels - and boost its share in the Japanese PC market.

Last year, Lenovo revealed it was no the lookout for acquisitions after losing out to Acer on deals to acquire Packard Bell, which also included the Gateway and eMachines brands which formed part of Acer's multi-brand strategy.

I thought Lenovo would have aimed a bit higher.