Larry Walsh Posts

The good people of the Channel-Lands are growing tired of the calendar packed with vendor and industry channel events. The last thing many VARs want to do is climb on another plane to go to Las Vegas or Orlando for another confab. And that’s partly why Comdex returned this week as a virtual trade show. It’s one of the many big things happening in the Channel-Lands this week.Comdex Returns Virtually; RetroDex Debuts LiveBack from the dead, virtually, this week was Comdex. Everything Channel reviv ...

Last night at an event at the Seattle Music Experience, I met a couple of seasoned IT professionals – one a former head of security for a major (albeit defunct) bank. When I say they are “seasoned”, I mean their experience is matched by the number of gray hairs on their head. They had worked for major corporations, held numerous technical and professional certifications, and both are out of work and back in school.Continual education is one of underpinnings of the technology industry. Vendors re ...

Cloud computing is the much overhyped term reflecting businesses migrating their consumption of applications and IT infrastructure to services remotely delivered over the Internet. There’s no question that “the cloud” is transforming the way businesses use and pay for IT, as well as how vendors develop and sell technology. But where does the channel fit into that equation?A new survey by IBM and MicroScope of solution providers in the British Isles asks that very question: What impact will the c ...

Just when you thought the good times were back again, Cisco comes out with an earnings report and forecast that don’t exactly instill confidence in the tech world. That’s just one of the big stories in the Channel-Lands this week, and thankfully not all the headlines are grim.Cisco Earnings Shake Tech ConfidenceCisco Systems has long stood as bellweather of the tech market’s health, so it came as no surprise when Wall Street analysts were spooked by the networking company’s soft quarterly earnin ...

Finally, Microsoft has something to celebrate: Windows 7. More than 240 million licenses have sold since its release a year ago. It’s an amazing accomplishment considering the beleaguered Windows Vista only sold 300 million copies over its lifetime and most of those became shelfware collecting dust.But is Windows 7 the last hurrah for Microsoft and the desktop operating system? Outgoing Microsoft chief architect Ray Ozzie seems to think so. In a farewell memo sent to Microsoft employees that som ...

One of the big stories coming out of last week’s Interop show in New York was the number of vendors offering IPv6 enabled and compatible devices. The word on the street: IPv6 is not just coming to market, but an imperative for adoption.For solution providers who have suffered through the steady decline in networking gear margin erosion and commoditization, IPv6 may be a godsend. Nearly the entire IT infrastructure is standardized on IPv4 – the standard that reconciles numeric IP addresses with o ...

Once upon a time in the quiet, Windows-dominated Channel-Lands, we would hear a whisper about Apple and its consumer-oriented products. Oh, sure, they were fine for musicians and graphic artists, but hardly suitable for corporate power users. That’s changing, as evidence in this past week’s channel news, which saw a teeter-totter between the rivals in Silicon Valley and the great Pacific Northwest.Apple Hardly FallingHow successful is Apple in its strategy to take over the world? It’s not just r ...

Good news, market research firm Gartner is forecasting global IT spending to top $2.5 trillion in the coming year, up roughly 3 percent over 2010. By 2014, spending on IT goods and services will rise to $2.8 trillion – well above the previous pre-recession high set in 2008.So that’s the good news. But Gartner goes further to state that enterprises will shift their spending in new directions. According to a presentation given by Gartner senior vice president Peter Sondergaard, businesses are redi ...

Channel-Lands started last week with the Microsoft’s release of Windows Phone 7, because the world needs another mobile operating system. But that was just the beginning of a busy week, which saw the McAfee partner conference, FalconStor’s new CEO promising changes and rumors of Oracle contemplating a mega-acquisition. Windows Phone 7 Launched, FinallyMicrosoft’s much-anticipated launch of Windows Phone 7 finally came this past week. Microsoft has much riding on the successor to Windows Mobile 6 ...

Microsoft’s Scott Charney says we should treat malware-infected PCs in the same manner as 19th century public health officials treated victims of typhoid, tuberculosis and cholera: quarantine. Yes, the head of Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing believes malware infections are so pervasive and destructive that isolation is the only means for protecting the greater good. Perhaps, but I have a better idea: recall.First, let’s review Charney’s idea – quarantine.“Governments, industry and consumers sh ...