SMB Nation Blog

I always enjoy having the opportunity to engage in a one-to-one conversation with members of our community--VARs, MSPs and vendors alike. This week, my discussion was with Chris Frey, Lenovo’s VP North American Channels. During our 30-minute chat, Frey and I talked about everything from the top verticals Lenovo is targeting, the predictions related to the PC market, the company’s K-12 initiative and also the swirling rumors regarding the company’s takeover of BlackBerry, (which Frey said he could not discuss).

The PR group representing NetEnrich officially confirmed to us this morning that Chris Cramer has joined the company from I.T. Works, a NetEnrich MSP partner, taking on the role of Partner Manager. Cramer, who started his new position on Monday, will be working with Justin Crotty, NetEnrich’s senior VP and GM, to spearhead the company’s efforts to build upon, and further enable, the success of its existing MSP partner base.

In what seems to be a commonality of late in the IT world, another CEO has stepped down from his post. This time it’s Ben Verwaayen, CEO of French-based telecom Alcatel-Lucent. The company confirmed today, per an announcement on MarketWatch, that Verwaayen will step down from his positions as CEO and board member; the telco reported declines in the last year and profit for the fourth quarter of last year.

Anturis earlier this week announced at the Parallells Summit the beta release of IT infrastructure monitoring and troubleshooting solution, free for a limited time. Co-founded by Parallels Founder and Chairman of the Board Serguei Beloussov, Anturis’ IT infrastructure monitoring solution is available now. Anturis was also on hand to demo the product at the Parallels Summit in Las Vegas this week.

Tripp Lite has expanded its line of DisplayPort products with the introduction of the B121-000 DisplayPort Signal Extender. Designed to extend DisplayPort signals beyond the typical 16-foot limitation, the B121-000 supports video resolutions of up to 1920 x 1080 (60Hz) and distances of up to 150 feet.

The explosion of smartphone and tablet adoption will impact printing, scanning, document management, and print volumes in surprising ways over the next five years. According to a new IDC survey of 800 unique respondents, smartphone and tablet users – whom the survey found to be younger, more likely male, have higher incomes, and increasingly hectic travel schedules – are surprisingly more likely than non-users to drive print. Smartphone and tablet users are more likely than non-users to print 16 of 20 business applications from their PCs.

By Jay McBain, Co-Founder, ChannelEyes

I was thinking this morning about the evolution of mobile technology.  What if we compared it to the evolution of the PC?  

Is it safe to say that we are now in about 1985?

I think so, and here is my case...

IBM last week announced at its Connect 2013 event a new software and cloud-based service to help business leaders, such as chief marketing officers and chief human resource officers, advance their organization's transformation with the adoption of social business technology. The new offerings are designed to help business leaders integrate IBM's social networking and analytics technologies into their business processes to empower the 21st Century workforce and transform client experiences.

This morning, Dell finally made the announcement that the tech community has been waiting for with baited breath…they have signed an agreement to be acquired via partnership by Founder Michael Dell and global investment firm Silver Lake for $24.4 billion.

By Ken Thoreson, Acumen Management Group, Ltd.

Recently we surveyed a variety of partners who are focused on developing a cloud practice. The results essentially confirmed what I've found with my consulting clients: Most partners are simply struggling to find their way and are partly cloudy on the approach to leading their sales teams. There has been a lot of marketing noise about the cloud: its impact on the market, what segments to attack and its impact on the partner business model. Very little has been done to deliver to partners specific tactical tools to drive this transforming business.

D&H Distributing announces it is revitalizing its offerings for system builders. The distributor is adding new tools, promotions, products and training vehicles to help independent resellers profit from custom computer designs in a variety of formats.  This includes a special February Systems Integrator Focus Month promotion, in which integrators can win a series of American Express Gift cards.  D&H customers that purchase $5,000 worth of merchandise this month from among 20 participating Focus Month manufacturers, such as ASUS, APC, Samsung and Western Digital, will be eligible to win one of 16 Amex gift cards worth between $100 and $500. 

Here we go again! As I do each week, I am really enjoying bringing our readers a quick round-up of the blog coverage I didn’t manage to get to during the week prior.

A reminder that voting has been extended to Feb. 22 for the 3rd Annual SMB Nation 150 Awards; go to www.SMB150.com, to vote for all of your industry favorites…

Also note that this year’s Spring Conference will be held May 3-5, 2013, at the Microsoft Redmond Campus. For more information, and to register, go to: http://spring.smbnation.com/.

Our friends at Techaisle are releasing a new study tomorrow, which they gave us a sneak peek at today. The report discusses the analyst firm’s research on global SMB mobile workforce forecast, which shows that by 2016 there will be slightly over 298 million SMB employees who will be mobile workers. One-fourth will be from the mid-market segment. Nearly 150 million SMB employees will be telecommuting and over 120 million will travel on business. The number of cloud users will likely jump from less than 140 million in 2012 to over 200 million in 2016.

We recently had the opportunity to chat with Peter Sandiford, CEO, Level Platforms, regarding the many accomplishments the company has achieved in the last year, as well as Sandiford’s outlook for 2013. With the year now in full swing, Sandiford offered how far LPI has come in the last year, and where the company is headed in the next year.

Tablets are taking over the IT world it seems, both on the consumer and B2B sides, and IDC has the data to prove it. According to the research firm, worldwide tablet shipments outpaced predictions reaching a record total of 52.5 million units worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2012 (4Q12), according to preliminary data from the firm’s Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker.

By Pedro Hernandez, SmallBusiness.Computing.com

Forewarned is forearmed, particularly for small business owners who want to keep up with a shifting technology landscape. And similar to how innovations like smartphones, tablets and cloud computing reshaped small business IT last year, 2013 has the makings of another tumultuous year in technology.

“BlackBerry has lost its momentum over the last 10 quarters - today it turned things around…” Strategy Analytics.

Strong customer demand for innovative technology solutions such as cloud computing, big data and mobility are countered by concerns about economic uncertainties, pricing pressures and substitution effects in the IT Industry Outlook 2013 released this week by CompTIA.

snom technology AG is currently debuting a new line-up of SIP Lync-qualified business phones highlighting its new, 7xx series – at ITEXPO East 2013 in Miami this week. According to the company, snom’s standards-based portfolio of IP desktop phones represents the industry’s largest and most comprehensive offering of endpoints fully interoperable with Microsoft Lync.

Desktone, Inc. said today that its virtual desktop platform is now interoperable with the Cisco Integrated Services Router Generation 2(ISR G2) and UCS-E series server, delivering simple, cost-effective Windows desktops and applications as a cloud service to help SMBs, branch and remote offices meet demand for mobility aDend remote workforce support. As a registered developer in the Desktop Virtualization category of the Cisco Developer Network, Desktone has completed interoperability verification testing required by Cisco.

If there ever was a diverse headline in my editorial career, I would say today’s is up there in terms of hitting the sweet spot. You have to be living in a man cave (note Harrybbb's technologically advanced man cave at right) without any modern technology to know that the BlackBerry 10 smartphone was released simultaneously around the world today. In addition, the former company known as RIM (Research in Motion) officially renamed and rebranded itself simply as BlackBerry.

Datto said late yesterday that it will provide backup, disaster recovery and business continuity solutions to more than 50 TeamLogic IT locations across the country. TeamLogic IT is a nationwide network of businesses that provide comprehensive computer-based services for managing information technology.

AppSense today released MobileNow, which according to the company is the only 100% SaaS- based mobile device, application and data management solution designed for Enterprise and Mid-Market organizations that bridges application/data access, corporate compliance and strong security to personal devices in work environments. MobileNow provides a full set of product features that move beyond simple mobile device management capabilities to provide IT with the strongest, deepest policy controls possible across mobile devices, applications and data.

In gearing up for its annual partner conference in Las Vegas next week, Parallels today announced Parallels Management, a plug-in for Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) that lets enterprises extend System Center capabilities to efficiently and cost-effectively manage the growing number of Macs on their network.

It’s big times for RIM and BlackBerry this week. Firstly, the company has a “little bit of a launch” occurring tomorrow in New York City and several other cities and countries throughout the world. The company is simultaneously launching the new BlackBerry 10 device with which a host of apps for the workplace developed by enterprises and enterprise developers will be available.