Partner Peloton

More iPad

2011-03-17T18:54:00.000-07:00

Just can't get enough iPad. It is such an societal icon, David Letterman highlights it. Does anyone remember Apple between Steve's tours?

iPad 2.0 is Here, long live the iPad 3.0

2011-03-10T18:47:00.000-08:00

At this point you will have seen the iPad 2 announcement, unless you just got back from space. Apple is the world's best Buzz Machine, Wow. Seems like a nice incremental improvement over the original. Nothing to get me so worked up that I will upgrade, but nice stuff, now the iPad 3 will really be sweet. My rule is always skip over the next generation of upgrades. Though eBay and Craig's

Practical Use of Social Media

2011-02-21T20:01:00.000-08:00

Readers of this blog know that I am a proponent of social media in business. However candidly there is a great deal of activity and investment in social media that is wasted. You have seen them in action; fancy Facebook pages that are nothing more than a rehash of of the web site or tweets that tell you what the president had for lunch. Well recently I came across an article that answered the

Tell it like it is.

2010-12-20T13:20:00.000-08:00

This Blog hits home. With the prevalence of email, getting noticed is a huge challenge. Offering value by providing great content is the way to get noticed and a winning headline is a must. Read her article, it is concise, informative and actionable. It will also help keep your emarketing from ending up in the spam filter. http://achievement.im/8/how-to-write-headlines-7-

Got to see this Channel Guys

2010-06-24T16:24:00.000-07:00

This is a wonderful video that insults and entertains everyone in the channel food chain.

Are VARs like Record Stores, Obsolete?

2010-03-12T13:58:00.000-08:00

With all due respect to the great people at the 240,000 VARs in North America, what is the point of a VAR today? Vendors are aggressively courting end users, i.e. Apple Stores, online stores. Traditional direct marketing resellers (DMR) like CDW and Insight have always been "the boogie man" anyway to VARs and they are offering more value-add services while selling large volumes of goods at

Who Let the Dogs Out? Not Sure Anyone Did

2010-03-05T14:49:00.000-08:00

On the train back from San Francisco and much of the week at the RSA Show (biggest IT security show). One of the topics that I investigated was the health of channel as measured by investment by suppliers. Well the answer is mixed, I sound like an economist in Time Magazine. For every company increasing their investment in the channel there was another taking the wait and see approach.

Channel and the Economy, Who is Winning?

2010-03-01T22:11:00.000-08:00

As the great recession took hold, a number of firms reduced investment in the channel. Many did not dump partners all together, rather they reduced budgets in channel "overhead". Which translates to channel focused employees and programs. The prevalent notion was; "our relationship with the channel is fine, we don't need anything but direct quota types. They can drive sales and in their

The Channel, What Channel, Which Channel??????

2010-02-25T20:31:00.000-08:00

At one of the Linkedin groups, there was an interesting discussion about SaaS in the channel. As I read through the posts it hit me that "the channel" was being used as a catch all term. The old days of VARs, dealers, systems integrators, OEMs and DMRs are long over. Heck, It was dangerous to make global proclamations about "the Channel" in those days, now look out. SaaS and cloud computing

More Jobs?, iPad Debates and Google Answers the Call

2010-02-09T21:12:00.000-08:00

Musings, musings. Are there more jobs? Is the economy up or down? The second question no one knows but everyone has an opinion. However on the first question there is an interesting new source of information. Wavelength Market Analytics (http://www.wlanalytics.com/wordpress/) has produced The "Bay Area Tech Job Index". I will save you from a rehash of their magic formula, the site explains

SaaS Profits for the Channel, Why is it Always About Money?

2010-02-04T05:36:00.000-08:00

Once again, Mike Allers joins the discussion. He has been on the front lines in bringing SaaS to the channel both introducing SaaS to an established VAR channel as well as developing an existing SaaS channel. As many vendors struggle to work a SaaS offering into their portfolio, many are overlooking a key part to that strategy...how does the Channel Community stay profitable in that equation?

It's coming!! IPad

2010-02-01T17:18:00.000-08:00

Just because....we need yet another iPad review. Whether you like it or not Apple has created yet another device that doesn't easily fit established categories. The historical IT approach is to ignore it until the users create a stink or simply start using the device in great numbers. Remember the iPhone, lots of pundits said that it was not enterprise ready. Well there are 2 million units

Money, Money, Money

2010-01-06T17:49:00.000-08:00

With a view from the front lines, Mike Allers a channel veteran agreed to talk about compensation plans and the channel. Mike has been a force in the channel at SurfControl, Websense, Nokia, he has seen the good, the bad and the ugly in this business, without further delay here is Mike: One of the biggest issues I’ve seen in today’s Channel Organizations appears to be setting up a compensation

Gifts All Around

2009-12-28T18:04:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays all. In the spirit of giving the topic today is .... (Drum Roll) ...Free stuff!!! Okay, okay, there is a "horn a plenty" of free today. How about this? Useful free stuff for the partner ecosystem. I recently attended a conference that was truly packed with great info, interesting people and generally was worth the entry fee. On the last afternoon, 4 hours listening to a

Don't Let Complexity Scare You.

2009-11-10T15:38:00.000-08:00

"My product is too complex for the channel"! Have you heard that before? Sometimes is used as a catch all statement to justify a direct only sales approach to the board, other times it means that the product truly is hard to set up or sell. Do you buy the argument? If so you will miss out on sales, but don't worry the competition will handle it. "I think complexity is mostly sort of crummy

Not Just for Kids

2009-09-01T16:19:00.000-07:00

First things first, thanks to all of the comments and thoughts that people sent about the first Blog. A quick reminder that my focus in this Blog is partnering, and how to be more successful in this endeavor. A broad review of social media is not part of my aim. Now to business, what does one do with this new found knowledge about social media. The answer is lots of things, customer support

If the Pentagon is Studying Social Networking Shouldn’t You?

2009-08-24T15:30:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON, Aug 5, 2009 The Pentagon has launched a study of the use of social networking sites designed to help craft new policies on how the military should use services such as Facebook and Twitter. Officials said they needed to craft rules that would allow the military to take advantage of the speedy communications without exposing sensitive information or opening computer networks to