MicroScope articles from April 2007

MicroScope archives from April 2007

13 Back Pages.(Interview)
April 2, 2007... What is the best advice you have received and from whom? The best advice I've ever had was from my father. He believed that you should work hard and do the best that you can do at whatever you are doing, to achieve the results and the...

Geek Squad starts pilot in south-east.(01 News)(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... Company specialising in home repairs for PCs arrives from the US The Geek Squad has crossed the Atlantic but it will not be coming to a town near many resellers for the next couple of months outside of London, Surrey or Essex. The...

Disk drives fail more often than you realise.(01 News)
April 2, 2007... We all know that disk drives are spinning marvels with multiple millions of hours between rare failures. Trust the MTTF (mean time to failure) and AFR (annual failure rate) numbers. Fibre channel and SCSI drives are more robust than cheap...

10 Features.
April 2, 2007... Unified Threat Management (UTM) products could soon enter the realms of mass adoption, but as the threats evolve how is this relatively immature product segment changing? Like a good cheese, technology that is moving from a buzz word or...

The windows re-install blues.(05 Editorial)
April 2, 2007... Byline: Phil Wainewright Opinion A failed hard disk can be dealt with by repair specialists, but the real heartache begins when it comes to re-installing windows When the hard disk on my laptop failed last week, the one consolation was...

Agenda.(13 Back Pages)
April 2, 2007... April 17 April Tech Event Mercedes Benz World Weybridge, Surrey Web: www.tech-event.co.uk 24-26 April Infosecurity Europe 2007 Grand Hall, Olympia London Web: www.infosec.co.uk Contact: Sam...

13 Back Pages.(Sony sales in United Kingdom)(YouTube announces winners )(Should London seperate from UK? )
April 2, 2007... Please visit On the phone to someone at Channel Expo last week we asked how the show was going. "It's a bit quiet," came the reply before his pitch of voice rose "someone's coming" only to drop again as they walked past the stand. Deadly...

15 Columns.
April 2, 2007... The IT security industry has evolved at a frenetic pace for well over a decade, in order to keep up with continual changes in the threat landscape. The growing sophistication of the techniques deployed by cyber criminals has meant vendors have...

01 News.
April 2, 2007... 14 February 2007 marked a year since the day of the official UK changeover to chip and PIN. In practice, this meant that the majority of retailers stopped accepting card payments without verification by PIN. Chip and PIN was an enormous...

Outstanding performance.(09 Tech Traders)(personal computer market)
April 2, 2007... The PC market performed exceptionally well in January, especially when taking into account the size of the market in December, writes Tracy Goodfellow. Year on year, the market grew by 28.5 per cent in terms of volume. Interestingly,...

Vote for an ACE.(01 News)
April 2, 2007... Time is almost up to get your votes in to help decide who will be picking up the MicroScope Awards for Channel Excellence next month. Online voting ends this Thursday (5 April) so there is no time to lose in making your views count. As well as...

01 News.
April 2, 2007... Once the envy of rivals in the volume PC market, Dell's operating expenses have ballooned in the last two years and analysts have raised the spectre of redundancies as it re-engineers the organisation. Since January 2005, Dell's op-ex has...

01 News.
April 2, 2007... Lower than expected demand for the basic version of Vista saw Microsoft OEM distributors recalibrate stock levels and return disks to the vendor that replicates them before the deadline passed last week. The software giant's distributors...

03 Networking.
April 2, 2007... Voice-over-IP (VoIP) is delivering benefits for business but the message from the VoIP for Business show in London was that bandwidth continues to be an issue. Howard Jonas, general manager of Vetspeed, a waste management business, told...

03 Networking.
April 2, 2007... Motorola is seeking to increase margins on handsets and build on the Razr brand after margins fell in its quest for market share. The vendor's slice of the global handset market rose from 14 per cent in 2003 to 22 per cent last year, second...

04 Hardware.
April 2, 2007... Hewlett-Packard is trying to drum up wider support for its entry-level Integrity servers, but resellers have warned that the increasing performance of the vendor's mainstream ProLiant servers could dampen acceptance. Nevertheless, HP...

04 Hardware.
April 2, 2007... DTX gives channel small form factor Local PC makers have finally been given the tools to compete with tier one systems giants for a larger slice of the small form factor market after AMD launched the DTX platform at CeBIT recently. To...

07 Security.(SonicWall adds tiers)
April 2, 2007... Security vendor SonicWall has added new tiers to its US channel to support resellers selling high volumes, with the EMEA region likely to mirror the move if it proves to be successful. The changes reflect the maturity of the security...

07 Security.(Spam message size increases 77 per cent)(Report condemns UK website security)(Sophos warns of spam camapign involving spyware Trojan horse)(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... Report condemns UK website security According to the NTA's Annual Web Application Security Report 2007, 90 per cent of UK organisations' websites contain one or more vulnerability that may enable external users to gain unauthorised system...

Alcatel signs Westcon for data.(01 News)
April 2, 2007... The networking vendor Alcatel-Lucent has surprised the channel by signing Westcon as a value-added distributor with the agreement kicking off in France immediately and the UK planned to follow quickly with data products only. This is less...

Ingram Micro has Premier Partner tag withdrawn.(01 News)
April 2, 2007... The level of support and resources that Ingram Micro dedicated to Integra has been criticised by the IT dealer consortia which has withdrawn the distributor's Premier Partner status. The long running deal between the two organisations will...

02 Software.
April 2, 2007... Flat screen monitors are springing up everywhere at the moment and the question is not why have you got one but rather why you haven't when they are so beneficial, not just for the user but the overall office environment. One of the...

02 Software.
April 2, 2007... Big is beautiful in the world of PC gaming as the fastest processor or the largest amount of memory is a pre-requisite to attaining a level of realism that gamers demand from next generation systems. So it was no surprise that Rock's Xtreme...

13 Back Pages.
April 2, 2007... Online businesses face a battle to maintain the confidence of Internet shoppers after a survey by a government and industry online safety campaign revealed large numbers had fallen victim to fraud on the Web. The survey of UK Internet...

Microsoft under fire over distributor cull.(01 News)
April 2, 2007... League table devised to weed out one of three broadline distributors The self-set deadline for Microsoft to decide which broadline distributor to drop is nearing but resellers are already questioning the reasoning, stating their support...

Access rejig sees staff cuts.(01 News)(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... Up to one third of UK sales and marketing staff that worked for Access could be made redundant under integration plans proposed by new parent Avnet Partner Solutions (APS). The acquisition of Sun distributor Access came late last year (see...

Briefs.(01 News)(Computacenter's deal with BT)(Royal Bank of Scotland warns about Phishing attack)(Computerlinks's deal with RSA)(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... Computacenter inks deal Computacenter has secured a contract with BT to provide fulfilment, support and services for the communication giant's 112,000 global desktops. Part of the reason for the contract being awarded to the large reseller...

02 Software.
April 2, 2007... Despite a number of announcements around security, management, SUSE Linux Enterprise and the beta version of Open Enterprise Server 2, much of the focus on Novell's Brainshare 2007 conference centred around the vendor's controversial technology...

02 Software.
April 2, 2007... Channel players selling Software as a Service (SaaS) need to be aware of the increasing competition from software giants like Microsoft and SAP that has been in response to the growth in popularity of the approach, supported by improvements in...

Tenders.(13 Back Pages)
April 2, 2007... 61964, Tender Invitation UK-York: financial system A replacement financial management system. 62143, Tender Invitation IRL-Dublin: Oracle Provision of Oracle versions upgrade project. 41478, Tender Invitation ...

13 Back Pages.
April 9, 2007... What is your most elusive goal? Going to the cashpoint and pressing 'display balance' and actually having one million pounds in my personal bank account. What is the best book you've ever read? Timeline by Michael Crichton. I'm a...

10 Features.
April 9, 2007... MicroScope has got together with experts from the security industry to put together the following listof emerging security threats, and the technology to combat them. A is for application security Application security is an emerging...

07 Security.
April 9, 2007... Trend Micro has claimed it is offering channel partners "a clear differentiator" with the Web reputation technology built into its forthcoming OfficeScan product which is currently in beta. The security specialist has already included the...

13 Back Pages.
April 9, 2007... iCopy and share Steve Jobs, the Apple CEO, was caught on camera tripping on his way into a meeting with EMI last week as the man behind iTunes struck a deal with the people behind Robbie Williams to take DRM off songs. He stood on his feet...

15 Columns.
April 9, 2007... The IP whispers in the early 90s quickly grew into an exciting buzz and even now everyone is talking about IP but very few people are talking over IP. With the rising racket surrounding VoIP, I can't help but draw parallels between the...

03 Networking.
April 9, 2007... Easynet, the broadband and hosting company owned by BSkyB, has scrapped its traditional reseller programme and replaced it with one based on specialist skills and performance. Until now, its resellers were divided into silver, gold and...

01 News.
April 9, 2007... I've spent the last two years closely following the rise of so called "web2.0" and through my role at 3i, have seen many companies associated with this label. While there continues to be lots of hype around web2.0, some fundamental changes...

01 News.
April 9, 2007... The UK government's "ill-considered" implementation of the WEEE Directive threatens small computer retailers, resellers and suppliers because it puts them at a disadvantage against larger rivals. Trade body the Independent Trade Association...

01 News.
April 9, 2007... Greenpeace accuses Apple on green record Apple has been slammed by Greenpeace for having one of the worst policies on eliminating toxic substances and recycling. Top of the green lobby groups list for good behaviour was Lenovo. Apple hit...

Marketing agency flawed.(01 News)
April 9, 2007... HP partners must double agency spending despite concerns over service levels Hewlett-Packard's resellers will be expected to spend about 40 per cent of their marketing development funds (MDF) through an independent agency from next...

Sales director accused of insider trading.(01 News)
April 9, 2007... The sales director at London-based reseller Transputec has been accused by the US Securities and Exchange Commission of insider trading on energy provider TXU, which was sold last month. On 2 March, the commission made a filing alleging...

03 Networking.
April 9, 2007... Mobile phone companies Sony Ericsson and Sagem Communication have signed licensing and original developer manufacturer agreements, which means Sagem will make entry-level phones branded Sony Ericsson. The move will help Sony Ericsson...

03 Networking.
April 9, 2007... Macquarie to acquire National Grid Wireless Australia's Macquarie Bank, has bought National Grid Wireless - the mobile phone and broadcast mast business of energy company National Grid. Macquarie is paying [pounds sterling]2.5bn ($4.9bn) in...

Brenkel leaves UK channel with warning.(01 News)
April 9, 2007... HP challenges the channel to invest and develop customer relations The head of Hewlett-Packard's EMEA channel, who is set to take up a new role within the company, has challenged resellers to think long term and invest in staff and...

Supplier buys network firm to expand on service sales.(01 News)(Computacenter PLC acquires Allnet Communications Services Inc.)(Brief article)
April 9, 2007... by Billy MacInnes microscope@rbi.co.uke_SFlb Computacenter has snapped up Cable & Wireless' network integration division Allnet for an undisclosed sum. Following the deal, Computacenter will also become a preferred supplier of LAN...

01 News.
April 9, 2007... Shares in Expansys.com, the online mobile phone retailer planning to float on AIM this month, were "very helpfully oversubscribed" last week, according to its broker Cenkos Securities. The company raised [pounds sterling]10m issuing 17.2m...

01 News.
April 9, 2007... The stock of Vista-based PCs is building in the channel with distributors and resellers waiting with bated breath for vendor promotions and incentives to kick off sales. As revealed by MicroScope last week, OEM distributors returned OEM...

05 Editorial.(Editorial)
April 9, 2007... Cisco's policy of requiring partners to supply serial numbers as part of its Shared Support scheme came into effect at the start of the month. Shared Support has been contentious for two years as partners complained about the investments...

01 News.
April 9, 2007... Intel will build WiMAX, the wireless cities standard, into laptop computers from 2008 as part of its push to increase mobility. "Intel is on track for Centrino Mobile Technology Integration," said Chris Beardsmore, WiMAX development manager...

01 News.
April 9, 2007... Hardware reseller of the year Equanet European Electronique Insight Logicalis PC World Business Transputec Computers Software reseller of the year Anglia Business Solutions Bytes PC-Ware ...

02 Software.
April 9, 2007... Arc Technology has added virtualisation to its portfolio by striking a distribution deal with SWSoft and pledging to sign between 20 and 30 resellers for the vendor's Virtuozzo product in the next six months. Over the past 18 months, Arc...

Watford meeting suggests hope.(01 News)(Watford Electronics)
April 9, 2007... The administrators of now defunct Watford Electronics have called a creditors meeting a week from today and revealed that unsecured suppliers have a good chance of receiving a dividend. It was a fatal start to the year for the system...

Paint shields signals from hackers.(07 Security)
April 9, 2007... The company responsible for marketing a special paint that acts as an electromagnetic barrier for wireless networks has revealed plans to sell the product in the UK. EM-SEC Technologies claims that its EM-SEC Coating System can protect...

08 Storage.
April 9, 2007... UK businesses are failing to share capacity across their organisations because a culture of throwing more storage and server resource at IT problems has led to ad hoc purchasing and a lack of central control. In addition, the increasing...

Chassis takes mobility into a new dimension.(09 Tech Traders)
April 9, 2007... The days when a computer case was just meant to sit in a corner and gather dust have long gone but we are still at the early stages of chassis mobility. When LAN parties first started, there was an expectation that people would cart around...

09 Tech Traders.
April 9, 2007... The hope that Microsoft has is that a great deal of corporates are considering making the move to Vista, which will not only help the vendor but the rest of the industry sell upgrades. One of the inevitable fears that some companies will...

09 Tech Traders.
April 9, 2007... One of the ways that the gaming market has influenced the wider computer industry is not only to push the performance levels but introduce the idea of customisation. Gamers are the ones that demand overclocking flexibility, chassis design...

09 Tech Traders.
April 9, 2007... Flash drives have grown in capacity and popularity over the last couple of years until they reached the current stage where it is hard to imagine life without them. Some corporates have reacted to the devices by introducing shut down...

The choice around the channel relationship.(01 News)(data security and management)(Brief article)
April 16, 2007... Consolidation is taking place across the industry but nowhere more so than in the networking space. Vendors have come together, distributors have been picked off and the answer for most in the move towards voice and data convergence has been to...

12 Soap.
April 16, 2007... www.weirdworld this week watches with interest the Chinese government's approach to reducing the time young people spend gaming and wonders if buying a slice of the moon is a good idea Game over There are a couple of things that upset...

Five Minute Interview.(13 Back Pages)(Andy Vickers)(Interview)(Brief article)
April 16, 2007... Andy Vickers, managing director and country director of Canon Business Solutions, Canon UK & Ireland, takes the hot seat this week as MicroScope directs some probing questions at him What is the best book you've ever read? The...

Infosec preview.(10 Features)
April 16, 2007... Infosecurity Europe is upon us again, as always showcasing a diverse range of new and innovative products and services and addressing today's strategic and technical issues in an unrivalled education programme. To prepare our readers we have...

Agenda.(13 Back Pages)(Calendar)
April 16, 2007... April 17 April Tech Event Mercedes Benz World Weybridge, Surrey Web: www.tech-event.co.uk 24-26 April Infosecurity Europe 2007 Grand Hall, Olympia London Web: www.infosec.co.uk Contact: Sam...

Inside OutThe art of threat detection.(15 Columns)
April 16, 2007... Dominic Storey Warns that plug-and-play products may not necessarily be the most effective approach to security 'Plug and play' is a term regularly bandied about in relation to security. But exactly how achievable is it in reality? And how...

11 Letters.
April 16, 2007... The case for a forum There is a lot of buzz around social media and many businesses are looking into ways they can identify, engage and communicate with their online audience. Blogs have become very fashionable over the past couple of...

Small businesses forgotten.(15 Columns)
April 16, 2007... Outside In Drug crime, car crime, violent crime and crime involving children generate plenty of airtime and column inches. The seriousness of these crimes must not be forgotten, but when was the last time there was significant media...

IBM appraises servers.(01 News)
April 16, 2007... Server builders are urged to buy in brands instead of doing self-assembly work Avnet and IBM are targeting system builders across Europe to ditch their server assembly business in favour of branded systems from Big Blue, then focus on...

Management tumbles as Steljes CEO wields his axe.(01 News)(Steljes Hire)
April 16, 2007... The majority of senior management at Steljes have been axed as the AV distributor reverts to a flat organisational structure to get closer to resellers and turn around its decline in fortunes. Among the seven casualties (see box) was Julian...

Server sales due to fall.(04 Hardware)
April 16, 2007... The growing adoption of virtualisation and multi-core processors could disrupt the server market, resulting in fewer units being shipped in Western Europe from 2007 to 2011 according to IDC. The analyst's latest quarterly server forecast...

04 Hardware.
April 16, 2007... Fierce price battle with Intel hits chip maker AMD An aggressive price war is taking its toll on AMD as the company updated its first quarter outlook due to lower average unit prices and reduced volumes in the channel. On the same day...

Security breaches raise awareness of data safety.(07 Security)
April 16, 2007... If you based your perception of computer security on the headlines, you'd be under no illusions that the biggest threats in the first quarter came not from the gateway but from inside the organisation. Lost or stolen devices have generated...

07 Security.(spam relaying countries rankings)
April 16, 2007... The UK has missed the accolade of being part of the dirty dozen spam relaying countries with the US taking top place in Sophos rankings. The vendor revealed the overall volume of spam in the first three months of 2007 increased by just over...

Channel doubts capability of Vodafone UK operation.(01 News)
April 16, 2007... Uncertainty as mobile telecoms company plans to tranfer operational responsibility to the UK Channel management within Vodafone is to be passed from the global unit to the UK operation, leading to reseller concerns that the local team does...

Westcon lifts wraps off Crane buy.(01 News)(Westcon's acquisition of Crane)(Brief article)
April 16, 2007... The consolidation that has become a regular feature of the networking industry has taken another twist with Westcon's acquisition of Crane. A deal between the two distributors should be wrapped up in the next 30 days after Westcon parent...

Intel adds remote functionality to laptop chips.(01 News)
April 16, 2007... In a move that could change the approach taken by resellers offering desktop management services Intel is adding many of the features IT staff use to control desktop PCs remotely to its latest generation of laptop chips. This will make...

A taste for change.(01 News)
April 16, 2007... Jos Brenkel reflects on his five years as Hewlett-Packard EMEA channel head as he prepares to take up a new challenge at the vendor. Interview by Paul Kunert Much like Marmite, the head of Hewlett-Packard's EMEA channel, Jos Brenkel, has...

Inventory levels spark concern with resellers.(01 News)(Acer America Corp.)(Brief article)
April 16, 2007... As new Acer ranges are imminent, should holdings be so high? Distributors are concerned that Acer stock levels are running too high ahead of refreshes on the TravelMate and Aspire ranges next month, and have warned they will not accept...

Symantec completes its acquisition of Altiris.(01 News)
April 16, 2007... Symantec, the acquisitive security software company, has completed its purchase of US-based Altiris, first announced at the end of January. But channel partners will be hoping there won't be a repeat of the hiccups that took place when Symantec...

Green Grid energy consortium gathers 28 additional recruits.(01 News)
April 16, 2007... A consortium seeking to promote energy efficiency in data centres and business computing ecosystems has announced a host of new members, including Novell, Cisco, Juniper, Brocade and Rackspace Managed Hosting. The not-for-profit Green Grid...

01 News.
April 16, 2007... Computerlinks and Network Engines tie-up Computerlinks has signed a distribution agreement with Network Engines to sell Microsoft IAG appliances, which are aimed at financial institutions and government agencies that require high levels of...

The young hold the future's key.(02 Software)
April 16, 2007... Simon Quicke interviews Ian Smith, managing director of Oracle You would expect the UK managing director of Oracle to have his energies focused firmly on the market and, in particular, the activities of rivals SAP, IBM and Microsoft. ...

03 Networking.(Cisco Inc. launches scheme for promotion)(Brief article)
April 16, 2007... Cisco launches scheme to promote SMB comms sales Cisco has introduced a communications system designed for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), and launched a channel scheme to encourage its sale. The Cisco Smart Business...

03 Networking.
April 16, 2007... Council will start with fixed WiMAX but upgrade to mobile when it becomes available in 2008 Warwick is the first UK city with plans to adopt WiMAX Intel has outlined a clear roadmap for WiMAX, the wireless cities standard, with plans...

Taking one for the team.(01 News)
April 16, 2007... Byline: Steve Shipside Opinion If the iPod is strong enough to take a bullet perhaps all the faulty ones can be rounded up to create body armour for our troops PCs are for nerdy losers and Macs are soooo friendly, so laid back and...