Sara Driscoll

Oracle is bringing its Competency Center training strategy to the United States, following roll out across Europe earlier this year. The vendor, which has admitted recently that shipments through the channel are down, said VARs were finding it challenging to locate all the Oracle training available, and the Competency Center brings its educational and training […]

The software-as-a-service model is likely to be tough terrain for solution providers to navigate, according to Gartner. At the market research companys IT ChannelVision event in Palm Springs, Calif., Oct. 20-24, Ben Pring, research vice president of IT services, said, “The underlying principals of what is going on in the software market are not favorable […]

Crystal balls aside, a serious business question was posed at the kick off panel debate at Gartner Channel Vision 2007 in Palm Springs yesterday: What will the channel look like in 2010? The panel of experts including executives from Oracle, Microsoft, Ingram and a range of solution providers lead by Gartner research director Tiffani Bova, […]

Buying new technology is fraught with risk, and resellers need to ensure they have firsthand experience with the wares they are purveying so their customers are satisfied. When you think about it, buying a laptop should be as simple as buying a beer: You decide on the product you want, you find a place that […]

SAP intends to acquire business rules management vendor Yasu Technologies, as it continues its acquisition stampede. The deal, announced Oct. 17 at the SAP TechEd conference in Munich, was coupled with news that the vendor is attempting to get closer to the open-source community and also push further into the enterprise SOA (service-orientated architecture) market. […]

Business Objects VARs could lose deals or be swallowed up by larger SAP VARs, channel sources said following the merger of the two software vendors. After the announcement Oct. 8 of SAPs $6.78 billion acquisition of Business Objects, the two vendors said they would combine their channels to leverage the cross-selling opportunity. “We intend to […]

McAfee intends to integrate SafeBoot Technologys channel following its acquisition of the mobile security vendor. The $350 million transaction, announced Oct. 9, will give McAfee a stronger foothold in the data encryption market, McAfee President and CEO Dave DeWalt said in a statement. “With the acquisition of SafeBoot, McAfee becomes a leader in the fast-growing […]

ShoreTel is planning for aggressive growth in Europe, with hopes of mirroring its U.S. strategy in the region. The IP PBX provider is looking to more than triple growth in Europe, according to Mark Swendsen, managing director EMEA. “We want to be the equivalent size in the UK and Europe that we are in the […]

Warnings of integration challenges and technology conflicts have already begun, as analysts warn SAPs $6.78 billion acquisition of Business Objects will be hard to swallow. The deal, announced early Oct. 8, will combine SAPs business analytics with Business Objects BI (business intelligence) technology. It is SAPs largest to date. Judith Hurwitz, CEO at Hurwitz Associates, […]

IT executives are not ready to adopt a green technology strategy for their storage environments. This is according to a survey of 324 IT executives commissioned by storage software vendor BridgeHead Software. The report revealed that only 35 percent of respondents said their storage technology choices take into consideration environmental friendliness. However, a whopping 88 […]