Katt Plows Through Blizzard of Rumors

While snowbound for a day in the northeast, thanks to the Blizzard of 03, the Kitty looked back with fondness on the low-tech world that existed during the Blizzard of 78. Thats when being snowbound meant a couple of bottles of Mateus, vinyl album vibes and being stranded with a very significant other—not VPN lines, instant messaging and working from home. “Ah, thank you, technology,” mused the meteorological Mouser.

After Microsoft announced last week that it had signed up more than 850 resellers and 100 ISV partners to sell and/or develop solutions on top of its new Microsoft CRM suite, El Gato heard that thunderclouds started forming in the reseller channel over the move. According to a Tabby tattler, partners with CRM expertise complained that theyre getting little more than tutorials on how to sell and support CRM applications, which is a no-brainer in their circles. The tattler also claimed that Microsoft is keeping them in the dark about ship dates, delays and details for long-term product forecasts. For information, partners are turning to tech news sources.

Another storm may be brewing in the executive suite in Redmond and headed for Microsofts Business Solutions Group. A tipster claimed the bigwigs may be applying high pressure on the group to sign up more big-name partners.

Bad vibes reported last week between Microsofts solutions and platform groups over CRM feature overlaps in each others products may be escalating. Now Spence hears that the SQL Server team, being part of the platform group, is lukewarm to cooperating with the solutions group.

A Katt crony claimed to have spotted an AMD 64 subdirectory on PCs used to demo Microsoft beta technology at a Microsoft Technet Conference in Charlotte, N.C., recently. When queried, the crony claimed the Redmondites quietly conceded that drivers for AMDs forthcoming x86-64 chips are definitely on Bill G.s radar screen. Another tattler claimed that high-level Microsoft techies are enthusiastic over the smooth upgrade path that AMD may offer IT buyers who are jittery about committing to Intels all-new IA-64 architecture.

It seems Connectixs Virtual PC for Windows team may relocate to Microsofts Redmond campus, with its Mac OS development team remaining in the Bay area. “If I were a Microsoft developer working on Mac OS products, Id have to wonder why my team sits on a major earthquake fault while the Windows team is safely ensconced in Redmond,” laughed the Lynx.