Channel Insider Canada January 2012

ON LOCATION

Profit, performance, protection PAGE 8

FOCUS ON THE FUTURE 2012: Invasion of the consumer PAGE 22

DECEMBER - JANUARY 2012 www.channelinsider.ca

DRIVING THE CHANNEL THROUGH INFORMATION AND EDUCATION

COLLABORATION

publications agreement number 41382532. Canada post please return undeliverable address blocks to 24-4 Vata Court, aurora, oN, l4g 4b6

BUSINESSES RATE COLLABORATION SUPPORT

avoiding becoming the next “hacked headline” citrix’s new channel chief nevex launches program, starTech.com expands

cOnTenTs

11.12

FEATURED THIS ISSUE COLLABORATION SCORECARD: BUSINESS VIEWS ON TECHNOLOGY

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The IT department is not the only source of perspective on the success of projects aimed at supporting business users.

So how well does the tech department “do” collaboration?

When in doubt, ask management.

suPPlIer POV Having recently undergone a major executive shuffle, Cisco is now ready to show the channel that it’s ready to do business.

In The mIddle Collaboration technology is no longer simply about video, calendar and email; it is about line-of-business applications.

Tracker neTwOrks October special-bid volumes were down, but November bounced back – and the six-month rolling trend line has turned upward for the first time in many months.

TesT bed Can a host of features and hardware make up for an OS that simply isn’t designed for touch?

dIsTracTIOns Featuring news you can’t use – but should know. This edition: Canadian youngsters discount technology careers as too difficult, too limited

4 ccO VIew

10

6 channel news 8 On lOcaTIOn

16 20

Synnex emphasized the evolution of the VARdistributor relationship at its Varnex fall conference 2011.

12 sOluTIOn sPOTlIghT

A Vancouver insurance firm turns to Trend Micro and Acumen in order to avoid becoming the next “hacked headline.”

21 PrOgram uPdaTes

Mike Fouts understands partners. That’s the message from Citrix’s new channel chief for the Americas.

28 30

22 fOcus On The fuTure

Channel participants should prepare to help customers navigate an increasingly mobile, social, and consumeroriented technology landscape in 2012 and beyond.

26 fOcus On T/u/c

The Transportation, Utilities and Communications industry is arguably the economic sector that is most exposed to changes in technology.

december 2011 | 3 | channel insider canada

ccO VIew

hOw nOn-IT execs are reshaPIng Var OPPOrTunITy

A

by MiChael o’Neil, Chief CoNteNt offiCer, it iN CaNaDa sponsor for an IT application – as the s we point executive responsible for ensuring that IT out in this delivered a system that met the process issue’s research or informational requirements of your feature, it’s business or business unit.” For the most possible to divide IT part, they seem to have embraced the initiatives into two experience, as one-third of respondents categories: “back-office” who have provided business direction for projects, like infrastructure upgrades IT projects in the past two years believe that happen beyond the purview of an that they will be more active in the future, organization’s end users, and “front-office” and 60% will maintain current involvement projects, which affect the activities and/ levels, versus just 7% who will be less or business processes of staff outside the inclined to direct future projects as a IT department. Most IT managers – and to result of their experience. Add the “ripple be honest, most channel members – prefer effect” of the larger group influencing to work in the back office; the requirement peers to follow in their footsteps, and to “hand hold” non-technical users can it isn’t difficult to envision substantially make front-office projects frustrating, and greater business involvement in IT project the many variables associated with user management over the next few years. The adoption make it difficult to predict timekinds of executives who have engaged in to-benefit for a front-office application.

IT project direction are powerful (more However, these kinds of applications than 40% of business owners, EVPs/VPs, can offer the greatest benefit to an and directors surveyed, and an even 50% organization and the proliferation of techof C-level executives). If they believe that savvy non-IT executives means that line-ofthey should engage in IT project direction, business departments are likely to insist on they can and will – and their lead will be implementing new technology-dependent followed by the peers and “up and comers” systems, forcing IT and the channel to who are connected with them. become a “partner” of the business, or to These findings contain some mixed be left behind by their clients. messages for the channel. The engagement When there is a formal marriage of powerful executives with budget brokered between the line of business and authority in IT projects may well result the technology professionals responsible in new opportunities. However, a larger for deploying and supporting the project management team likely leads to application, we often find that the project longer decision timeframes, both before team includes a non-IT executive acting as a contract is awarded and during the “sponsor,” with responsibility for ensuring delivery phase. that the new system meets business needs.

However, the future isn’t beholden to the Channel Insider Canada’s research arm, IT comfortable niches of past experience, and Market Dynamics, recently commissioned business strategy shouldn’t be, either. Non300 interviews with non-IT business IT oversight isn’t a preference, it’s a market managers to discern the scope of this trend – and the channel will need to find activity in Canada. The results pose some ways to adapt to that trend. Here, at least, interesting questions for the channel, and some historical perspective is a comfort: its approach to customer management. through time, channel leaders have As a starting point, the involvement changed with market demands, and new of non-IT managers in IT project entrants have sprung up to replace those management is not unusual today, and who wouldn’t or couldn’t evolve. The ITMD is likely to become more common in the data suggests that we’ve hit another such future. Respondents representing nearly inflection point. Time to separate the 40% of the total Canadian commercial mammals from the fossils. population report that over the past two years, they have “acted as the business

december 2011 | 4 |

channel insider canada

Volume 1, Issue 4 EDITORIAL Michael O’Neil | Chief Content Officer michael.oneil@itincanada.ca Stefan Dubowski | Editor stefan.dubowski@itincanada.ca Christopher Rogers | Senior Staff Writer chris.rogers@itincanada.ca CONTRIBUTORS Jason Doel ART & PRODUCTION Elena Pankova | Senior Art Director elean.pankova@itincanada.ca David Potocki | Art Director davidp@precision-multimedia.com CHANNEL INSIDER CANADA SALES Patricia Bush | National Account Manager trisha.bush@itincanada.ca ONLINE Michael Howe | CTO michael.howe@itincanada.ca EVENTS Sandra Service | Events Manager sandra.service@itincanada.ca CIRCULATION Denys Cruz | Circulation Director circulation@itincanada.ca CORPORATE INQUIRIES John R. Jones | Publisher john.jones@itincanada.ca HOW TO CONTACT CHANNEL INSIDER CANADA Telephone: 905-727-4091 Editorial issues: Michael O’Neil, Chief Content Officer, IT in Canada network michael.oneil@itincanada.ca Business issues: John Jones, Chief Operating Officer, IT in Canada network john.jones@itincanada.ca SUBSCRIPTION INQUIRIES For help with subscriptions, please contact circulation@itincanada.ca To subscribe to Channel Insider Canada in print, as a digital magazine – or to receive our daily e-newsletter – please visit us at www.itincanada. ca/registration Channel Insider Canada is published 10 times per year and is found on the web at www.channelinsider.ca One year subscription rates: One year subscription rates: Canada, $50, US $60 (US) and foreign $90 (US). Single copies $5.00. Please add HST where applicable. Complimentary subscriptions available to qualified Canadian readers.

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channel news offers new MSP Technician Runbook 1 Nfree-ableto partners Remote monitoring and management automation software vendor N-able is offering its MSP Technician Runbook free to its partner to help them standardize internal processes, improve profitability and enhance IT service delivery. A press release from N-able said the Runbook serves as a basis to establish standard operating procedures for technicians and enables them to create shorter, easier paths to complete common tasks.

The first MSP Manager Runbook from N-able was released at its partner summit in October 2011; that edition offered guidance around the foundation of managed services business models.

“Surprisingly, most MSPs rely on the experience of their techs and don’t have a written, step-by-step set of processes for how to approach customer service or technical issues, which exposes a big vulnerability to their business when a technician decides to leave the company,” said Ryan Vallee, product manager, N-able Technologies. “We’ve taken those best practices, gleaned from thousands of partners, and captured them in one single digital document.”

The new book from N-able covers four major categories: assessments, on-boarding, optimization, and reporting.

2 Nevex launches channel program Toronto-based I/O technology company Nevex promises rich incentives and strong support in its new channel program, designed to bring the firm’s unique solution for the input-output bottleneck to a global market.

Launched in 2009, Nevex offers a product dubbed CacheWorks, providing granular I/O acceleration. CacheWorks offloads the I/O workload from primary storage devices to local high-performance media (flash-based solid-state drives in Windows servers, plus the servers’ onboard RAM), reserving storage system resources for actual storage functions, and increasing the speed of information access on the user’s end. Administrators can control which information receives the acceleration treatment, according to file type, application or data location.

“In total we can drive performance results that are above and beyond what it would look like if you loaded your entire application on a flash device,” said Andrew Flint, product manager.

Now the company is looking for partners to distribute its technology around the world. Focusing on North America first (and looking particularly to partners expert in databases, enterprise apps, virtualization, storage and server infrastructure), Nevex has devised a channel program providing competitive market information, sales support directly from the software maker, and special incentives.

The program affords a 35-point margin on $2,495 per physical server, which would see channel participants investing $1,625 for the product, said Nigel Miller, VP, business development.

december 2011 | 6 |

Andrew Flint, product manager, Nevex Although it’s targeting North America in the beginning, Nevex hopes to convince partners around the world to resell CacheWorks or bundle it into their products and services.

“After we announced the product in October, we got a lot of attention from both Europe and Asia,” Miller said. “So there is a worldwide focus and we’ll be getting into that.”

To view a CacheWorks demo visit http://www.nevex.com/demo/.

To connect with the company about the channel program email partners@nevex.com.

3 Brocade updates APN channel program Brocade has updated its Alliance Partner Network (APN) program to attract new partners and to better reward existing participants.

A new enablement funding mechanism for demand generation, marketing, technical and sales training is designed to bring new partners into the program. According to Barbara Spicek, VP, global channels, many enablement funds are based on revenue, which means new partners rarely have access to the funding. Brocade’s enablement fund specifically targets new partners, she said.

Brocade’s APN breaks partners down into three tiers: Elite, Premier and Select. Brocade has nearly 100 partners in total in Canada, but only approximately 12 fall into the “Elite, Premier or distributor” levels.

Partners that have attained Elite status in the VIP program now have access to a service provider specialization that incorporates the technical and sales training necessary to become trusted advisors in the service provider space. APN Elite resellers can also qualify for a revised cumulative discount structure that offers payout at a lower threshold.

channel insider canada

Brocade has updated its deal registration benefits as well. The program now provides higher discount levels for all IP product sales.

For new partners looking to start a relationship with Brocade, the vendor has introduced an Onboarding Portal with information for new partners. There are also updated guidelines for the MDF fund program allowing partners to apply these funds to demonstration equipment expenses.

Brocade said it would refocus inside sales efforts and telesales resources to lead generation for the channel.

4 StarTech.com increases size, workforce StarTech.com is growing. The London, Ont.-based manufacturer of hard-to-find parts has begun an expansion of its head office that will more than double the size from 12,000 square feet to over 29,000 square feet.

The company also operates a warehouse facility in London that it will be expanding by over 40%, increasing its size to approximately 23,000 square feet.

“Despite the poor economic climate, we’ve been fortunate to have enjoyed excellent growth over the past couple of years,” said Paul Seed, StarTech.com’s president and CEO. “We’ve been continually adding members to our team over the past two years and we’ve simply run out of space for our employees at our head office. This expansion will give us more room to breathe and provides room for further growth in the coming years.”

The expansion will provide room for 290 employees in the London office. StarTech.com plans to boost its London workforce by 25% over the next year. The company also expects to add employees at its international locations.

StarTech.com currently employs approximately 135 in London.

Worldwide the company boasts 175 employees, spread out across offices in the U.S., U.K., France and Spain.

The company expects construction to be complete by mid-2012.

ynnex details CloudSolv, RenewSolv platin Canada 5 Sforms Technology distribution company Synnex has been rolling out its “Solv” platforms in the U.S. for a little while now, but those platforms are starting to make their way north to Canada. The two platforms soon to be released in Canada (late Q1 2012) are RenewSolv and CloudSolv.

RenewSolv is designed to help VARs capitalize on renewals as a recurring revenue stream, organizing renewal programs from various technology manufacturers into a single, easy-to-manage system.

“What we’re trying to do is trying to create one platform, one single pane of glass for all their renewals,” said Rob Moyer, VP of cloud computing programs.

Paul Seed, CEO, StarTech.com Accessible via the web, the platform incorporates HP, Microsoft, Lenovo and Symantec, although it will include just HP and Microsoft to start in Canada.

Moyer said other vendors have expressed interest in joining the program. Synnex plans to incorporate vendors that aren’t already on its line card, to make the service as valuable as possible to partners.

CloudSolv is a cloud billing and provisioning tool for partners.

Moyer said it’s more difficult to transition CloudSolv for the Canadian market because of the different laws and regulations between the U.S. and Canada.

Moyer said Synnex took a software-focused approach to building the platform, and that will benefit partners. If a reseller is deploying four to five cloud services for a client, the partner will not have to do separate billing for each service.

Moyer described it as a “white label app store.” Partners can add their own logos and customize the storefront. They can also create multiple instances of a store – make one storefront for a large customer to use, and another storefront with their own services for in-house use, for example.

december 2011 | 7 | channel insider canada

ON LOCATION

Profit, performance and protection

Synnex foresees the beginning of the end of the pick, pack and ship era of distribution at its Varnex fall conference 2011.

by Christopher Rogers

S

ynnex emphasized the growing importance of the channel in these challenging economic times at its Varnex fall conference, held in Las Vegas in November.

Themes included the evolution of the VAR-distributor relationship, improving collaboration within the channel, and a stronger Varnex connection in Canada.

Varnex priorities and Canadian presence

That collaboration was also emphasized by Bob Stegner, SVP marketing for North America at Synnex. He said it is especially important for the Canadian partners here at Varnex.

He described Synnex as an international organization, not a U.S.-focused distributor – and that international orientation is reflected in Varnex.

It has been one year since Synnex brought its peer group The evolving value of distribution Varnex to Canada. The Canadian contingent consisted of Kevin Murai, president and CEO of Synnex, discussed the approximately 16 resellers last year. This year, the group has evolving value of distribution with partners. Whereas doubled to 32 members. distribution used to be about credit and “pick, pack and ship,” Stegner said the Varnex council, which governs the it now includes logistics services and enhanced financial tools. organization, was starting to hold Synnex to task. “They Murai said solutions are the name of the game, including have strong expectations on what we do as a group,” he said. business platform tools and software-driven vertical systems Stegner said priorities include member profit, performance and such as Synnex’s CloudSolv for cloud computing, and protection.

RenewSolv for renewals.

On profit, Stegner said the goal is to increase the margin by “We will continue to make those investments,” Murai said, reducing targeted expenses and improving operating efficiency. though he reminded the partners that Synnex will never On performance, the focus forget its core business. will be on driving revenue That is, resellers still value growth by improving sales traditional distribution effectiveness and adding highservices. priority solutions.

Switching gears, and On protection, the focus talking about the success of is on shifts in the market Synnex as an organization, demand and business models.

Murai said that solid Stegner said Synnex and its growth and profitability, Mitchell Martin, president, Synnex Canada partners need to set specific strategy and good measurable objectives. investments, plus the right Specifically, he said he wanted people and executives all to get Varnex members, as contribute to the company’s a whole, $100 million in incremental margin in the next 18 growth. In addition, Murai said the value of partnership cannot months. be underestimated.

Varnex is governed by members and Mike Brogan, president “I trust in the value of all the relationships we have with all at Erb’s Technology Solutions in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is the of you, on both the vendors and reseller side.” current advisory council president.

He said Varnex is a powerful force in the small and midsized “The council is very balanced,” Brogan said, highlighting business space, but that SMB is a broad market in terms of that the group includes partners with vertical focus, SMB and verticals and solutions that are offered. At the same time, many enterprise focus. of the partners that participate in Varnex are SMBs themselves, and inevitably, these small partners will encounter customer requests that outstrip the service provider’s portfolio. This is Canadian council making strides after first year in Varnex where Murai hopes that partners will take advantage of the Nick Jupp, VP of Dymaxion, a Halifax-based computer reseller, collaboration that Varnex provides. sits on the Canadian advisory council of Varnex.

“By collaborating with one another, you can deliver a full Because of his experience on councils in other organizations, suite of solutions,” he said. “This collaboration can also Jupp was asked to join the Varnex Canadian advisory council, incorporate vendors.” but he said the organization is really just getting started. It

“Ultimately, we see 70 or 80 members in Canada. We may get there sooner, but at this point I’d say by end of year next year.”

december 2011 | 8 |

channel insider canada

has met before, but Jupp said this conference marked the first full business meeting that included supporting vendors. Other supporting members from the more established U.S. advisory council were also on-hand to offer advice around getting started, but Jupp said he doesn’t expect to model the Canadian advisory council after its American counterpart.

“It’s a little more sophisticated down here, there’s a larger volume and a larger size,” he said. “I think the key thing that we’re going to focus on is working with the vendors.”

Jupp described the vendor’s role in the community as challenging, because resellers in attendance at events such as Varnex do not want to hear the ordinary conversation or the same conversation they could have with the vendors at the office. Partners need to hear about topics that can enhance their competitive ability, increase their business acumen, and give them knowledge.

“In the past, we’ve had vendors who have brought in someone from their financial division, and talk about money management, credit…but it’s been very useful,” Jupp explained. “And these are the kinds of conversations that we’ll be having with the vendors to help them understand and provide the kind of content that will be useful.”

The Canadian Varnex contingent spent the better part of the conference in its own breakout session discussing shaping the Varnex program in Canada. An advisory council president’s name has been put forward, Jupp said. He didn’t disclose the name.

Once the initial structure of the program has been hashed out, he hopes that Canadian partners will be able to take better advantage of the programs and sessions that the Varnex conference offers. Jupp said that although there are nuances and differences between American and Canadian solutions and businesses there is much that the two groups can learn from each other.

One-on-one with Mitchell Martin, president of Synnex Canada With the Canadian advisory council making strides during the conference, Mitchell Martin, president of Synnex Canada, discussed how over the last several months more resources have been put in place to expand and grow the SMB-focused community in this country.

“Ultimately, we see 70 or 80 members in Canada. We may get there sooner, but at this point I’d say by end of year next year,” Martin said.

In terms of expanding the community, Martin said the focus is on building collective scale. He said the reseller market in the SMB space tends to be very fragmented but Synnex wants the biggest players.

“At the same time we want players who are very focused on selling solutions, resellers who want to sell solutions and want to improve their ability to sell solutions,” Martin said.

The final criterion is geographic coverage. Synnex wants to give its vendor partners solid geographic coverage through Varnex.

Martin said Synnex has selected around 100 targets to join the community and hopes to have approximately 70 of them signed up by the end of 2012.

Synnex is also launching two Solv solutions into Canada in 2012: CloudSolv and RenewSolv.

Much of the focus this year at Varnex centred on Synnex’s technology solutions approach, the “Solv” platforms. Martin said Synnex’s managed print solution, the PrintSolv program, has seen good success in Canada.

“Our PrintSolv program, that is gaining a lot of traction of late. We’ve got many dedicated people in place; we’ve got special programs in place with key vendors. At this point we’re seeing a lot of activity in that area.”

The power of three The vendor focus was quite evident at Varnex. The community does not back away Varnex supports partners of all sizes, says Synnex from it president Kevin Murai. either. It’s very much looking for vendor input – and it’s looking to provide vendors with advice as well.

This is what Martin described as the power of three – vendors, the distributor, and partners working together.

“The power of three is definitely absolutely necessary in terms of success,” he said. “We need the vendors to be very engaged in the process, helping us develop solutions and providing marketing support, vendor support, and margin incentives for those that are willing to step up and sell solutions. The vendor is definitely a vital ingredient; we’re a three legged stool and everybody has to do a better job of driving these emerging solutions into the end-user marketplace.”

Vendors look to Synnex and Varnex for better penetration of the small and medium business segment in Canada, an aspect of the economic landscape that could prove lucrative for the channel, vendors and the distributor, Martin said. That’s why the SMB market is “a good strong focus area for us and extremely important,” he said.

On the partner side, Martin said it is important for partners to invest resources in engaging with the SMB solutions that Synnex and the vendors are promoting.

“We strongly believe that it will pay off for them, but they need to increase their value proposition…and their profitability is dependent. It’s very difficult for a VAR to make money selling devices or components. They need to get into solution selling and services.”

december 2011 | 9 | channel insider canada

Supplier POV

Cisco Canada channel chief: Partners should be confident The network-technology company is back in growth mode, especially in this country.

by Christopher Rogers

H

aving recently undergone a major executive shuffle – under the guise of reducing the company’s complexity – Cisco is now ready to show the channel that it’s ready to do business. With first-quarter earnings showing strong numbers in Canada, partners seemed to hear that message.

Channel Insider Canada recently spoke with the VP of Cisco’s Canadian partner organization, Michael Ansley, about the company’s recent moves, announcements and his plans for the future. Ansley is new to his role as channel boss after taking over for Donna Whitman in August 2011, when she moved to lead the global Partner Led Named organization under Andrew Sage (a former Cisco Canada executive).

Taking over Ansley’s previous roles at Cisco were instrumental in preparing him for his current position. In his role as managing director, solutions (architectures and verticals), he was responsible for Cisco’s architectures (such as networks, collaboration, and data centre/ virtualization) that are fundamental to how the company executes. The hope was that Ansley would bring that expertise to the channel – marry his technical background with channelenablement capabilities.

Prior to moving to Canada and before the architectural solutions were in place, Ansley spent time in Europe managing Cisco’s advanced technologies. He said that role helped him understand the complexities of the technology. It also emphasized R&D. “The breadth of technology at Cisco is tremendous and one of the values that we bring our customers and our partners is our R&D,” he said. “We spend over $5 billion a year on R&D. We give our customers new technologies on a regular basis.”

Air Pockets With good reaction to its first-quarter earnings in November, Cisco is turning the page on a tumultuous 2011. Canada in particular was called out during the earnings announcement with 36% year-over-year growth.

Ansley said Cisco is “clicking on all cylinders, and our partners are the beneficiaries of the success of our technologies in the marketplace, and it’s their hard work that’s helping us get the 36% growth.”

He explained that the combination of advanced technologies and partner sales capabilities is a winning formula.

Last year when Cisco announced disappointing revenue numbers, CEO John Chambers acknowledged what he called “air pockets” in the company’s strategy.

One such example was a large public sector business that accounted for 22% of Cisco’s business. As governments around the world were watching their budgets, so did the business suffer. But december 2011 | 10 |

in the latest earnings announcement Cisco reported its public sector business had grown 10% year-overyear. Ansley said it shows how well Cisco has executed in the space.

Ansley also touched on taking the complexity out of Cisco’s business.

“I think we’ve executed well, but there was also a recognition internally that we were too complex and we took our complexity to R&D gives Cisco an edge, our partners and we took our says Michael Ansley, Cisco complexity to our customers.”

Canada’s partner VP. Many of the executive shuffles at Cisco were meant to rid the company of that complexity, but he admitted that it’s a long-term issue.

“I think we’re early in the process of becoming easier to do business with and that was one of the things that Mr. Chambers called out a year ago, so I think there should be confidence with our partners in our results and we’re very thankful for their efforts in helping us achieve that.”

But as with any process, Ansley urged patience. “I think [partners] should be confident that they see us taking action in the areas where we said that we recognize that we need to make improvements. And, I would say be patient with us because we’re early in the process of making those improvements but I think they can feel it in the company. I know we can feel it in the company in terms of being sincere that we’re easier to do business with.”

Partner Led Cisco is also working to enable its partners by investing in them.

For 2012, the company announced a US$75 million investment specifically for partners in areas such as marketing resources, partner relationship management systems and access to Cisco engineers.

Ansley said the Partner Led organization is one of the primary opportunities to execute better in Canada.

“The idea of Partner Led is that we want to enable the partners, we want to fund the partners, we want to create the profitability mechanisms for the partners actually to create preference with the customer without Cisco actively involved in that process,” he said.

Taking that a step further, he said Cisco has always had great enterprise-class technology but found it difficult to market to midmarket customers, suggesting a poor combination of price and performance, but today the story is very different.

With a broad spectrum of technologies specifically aimed at meeting the requirements of the mid-market, Cisco is looking to partners to drive customer adoption. channel insider canada

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08.12.11 13:06

Solution Spotlight

Securing a high-stakes virtual environment Acumen Technologies turned to Trend Micro and PCI standards to protect its client Omni.

by Christopher Rogers

I

n a year that saw both a number of high profile security breaches (RSA, Playstation Network) and increased emphasis on cloud storage and solutions many companies were sent scrambling simply to ensure they would not be the next “hacked headline.” Canadian companies are particularly sensitive to these concerns because they have the same cloud storage requirements as U.S.-based companies but prefer their data to remain on Canadian soil, ensuring they are free from U.S. laws and regulations such as the frequently cited Patriot Act. The Omni Companies (Omni) are a Vancouver-based insurance and extended warranty company with a number of high-profile financial services customers that needed to ensure the security of their data. Omni had created a software-as-a-service (SaaS) product that allowed customers such as vehicle dealerships anywhere in Canada to quote and sell Omni products using the Internet.

The challenge was to deliver the service in a secure way that was comparable to the PCI-compliance standard.

Omni’s IT managed service provider and Trend Micro partner, Acumen Technologies, was brought in to lead the project. Jeff Jackson, partner and principal consultant at Acumen, said the primary goal was to move the SaaS product to a secure data centre.

Firewall audit Before that, Acumen audited Omni’s digital points of entry including firewalls at both the east and west coast offices.

Acumen even looked at Microsoft and VMware licensing. Jackson said that if the project was going to include setting new standards and policies, Acumen felt that the company should be compliant in areas such as licensing as well.

It was a lack of regulations that drove the project forward, in part, Jackson said. There were few regulations at the time around the security of the data and the compliance environment.

In light of the publicity surrounding the increasing number of breaches the prevailing thought set the onus on IT to regulate itself. Jackson said it drove a search for standards and the creditcard industry PCI standard was chosen as a guide and reference.

Jackson said the choice was appropriate because credit card transactions are part of the Omni SaaS product. This led Acumen to Trend Micro’s Deep Security solution and Enterprise Security for Endpoints.

Having the applications in a physically secure data centre was not enough according to Jackson. Making sure the data was secure included hardening the solution with firewalls.

“As far as within the virtualized environment, we were very careful to architect a solution with multiple levels of redundancy,” Jackson explained. Even accounting for the possibility of a breach, Jackson stressed the importance of a scalable solution and products such as agent-less antivirus, so it could be implemented in the virtualized infrastructure. Trend’s solution also enabled

december 2011 | 12 |

scalability through virtual patching, a process where software is updated without pushing the update to each and every endpoint.

Guest devices are enabled through the service, ensuring they are secure. Jackson said Acumen recently added a host to the cluster of servers running the Omni solution and there was little work involved because the solution was built with scalability in mind.

Encrypted cloud data As the solution continues to evolve and eventually scale out into the cloud, potential security risks arise such as whether the data is in the U.S. or Canada. Jackson said the Trend solution could be used in that case to encrypt any of the data stored in the cloud.

This would allow the development environment of the solution to be expanded to the cloud with fewer risks.

Trend’s solutions use the cloud to deliver updates and the latest threat information to the software. Ian Gordon, director of marketing for Trend Micro Canada, said the Trend Micro Smart Protection Network provides information on threats whether they are web-based, file-based or even email-based, by leveraging five separate data centres throughout the world. The network is engaged when users open emails or visit websites and relevant threat information is delivered back.

In Canada, Jackson said the underwriters in the insurance industry regularly audit the organizations to make sure data is secure.

“We have to be able to show that the data is secure and Trend allows us to do that pretty effortlessly,” he said.

Getting down to a granular level, he said that Acumen is even able to talk to the underwriters about disaster recovery.

“They want to know that their data is secure. We’re working hard to make sure that even though there’s more and more news and publicity around breaches that we can answer those questions effectively.” channel insider canada

Research feature Collaboration scorecard: business views on TECHNOLOGY How well does THE TECH DEPARTMENT “do” collaboration? When in doubt, ask management…

by Michael O’Neil

T

Figure 1. Collabora/ve system status

here are many ways Figure 1 to categorize IT initiatives. One that Collaborative system status is often used is to 100% distinguish between “projects 14% that are contained within 90% We use collabora/ve systems, and 24% 26% 32% they contribute significantly to the IT department” and 7% 80% success “projects that directly support 12% 12% 70% business users.” Each category We use collabora/ve systems, but 15% has its own advantages they do not contribute 14% 60% significantly to our success and constraints. IT-specific 21% 21% 50% projects are usually intended We have a defined need for 23% to deliver incrementally collabora/ve systems, and are 40% 29% working on rolling them out better business performance, 22% 30% rather than radically new We might have a use for 46% capabilities, but because the collabora/ve systems, but this is 28% 20% not a priority IT department has (relatively) 20% 21% 10% complete control over We don't have a defined need for 8% 5% initiatives contained within collabora/ve systems 0% the data centre (such as a 1-­‐99 100-­‐499 500+ Weighted server upgrade, or migration total to a more advanced storage N=346 Canadian non-­‐IT business managers, drawn from the Leger Business Panel Source: IT Market Dynamics, the research arm of IT in Canada, December 2011 architecture) IT management can evaluate payback from use, the effectiveness of IT support for as they are to state that collaboration these kinds of projects with a high degree collaboration, and the 2012 budget technology has no impact on success. of clarity. Projects that are tightly tied outlook for these systems. Here’s what we When we drill down into the data, we see to effective end-user adoption, such as found… that perspectives on collaborative systems collaboration systems, have a much wider vary by company size: small businesses range of possible outcomes; however, are much more likely than mid-sized or Collaborative systems are when they are successful, these kinds of large enterprises to find that they have important business assets, initiatives can deliver tremendous new no need for this type of technology, especially in large organizations benefit. while mid-sized organizations are most Of course, the IT department is not the only source – nor even the most important source – of perspective on the success of projects aimed at supporting business users. When it comes to these kinds of systems, the best source of insight is the line-of-business manager, who sees firsthand whether an IT solution delivers real business benefit. Business management has a unique and important take on questions like, “Do we need this kind of system? Is it helping us to do business better? And is the IT department effective in delivering support to my staff?”

In approaching our 2011 research on collaborative systems, IT Market Dynamics decided to hone in on the business management perspective on collaboration technology – its role in the organization, the specific products that business units

“Which of the following statements best describes the fit for collaborative systems linking employees and processes inside and outside your organization?”

The survey question we asked was designed to both determine how prevalent collaborative system use is in Canada, and also to gauge the extent to which collaboration technologies contribute to business success. Looking at Figure 1, we see that just over one third of Canadian organizations have deployed collaborative systems. Within this group of current collaboration system users, our business management respondents are twice as likely to see these systems as delivering significant benefit to the organization

likely to report that collaboration is not a priority. Large organizations generally do see a need for collaborative systems, and tend to report the highest success levels associated with systems that they’ve installed.

How does this differ from IT’s perspective?

Although all of our 4Q11 survey respondents are non-IT managers, this question was also used on a 3Q10 survey of 642 IT in Canada subscribers. In Figure 2, we’ve lined up responses from each group. Given the timing gap, the comparison isn’t perfect, but it is very interesting nonetheless.

When we view the two groups side by side, we see some fascinating

december 2011 | 13 | channel insider canada

Continued on page 14...

Research feature Continued from page 13...

Figure 2. Comparison of IT and business perspec/ves

discrepancies between Figure 2 business and IT decision makers. In the small Comparison of IT and business perspectives business (1-99 employee) space, the key difference is in the perceived 1-­‐99 -­‐ IT respondents need for collaborative Have collabora/ve systems systems: just 21% of Much more likely to report deployed, and they do IT respondents believe no defined 1-­‐99 -­‐ business respondents that these kinds of tools need contribute significantly to have no relevance to success their organizations, as 100-­‐499 -­‐ IT respondents Have collabora/ve systems compared with 45% Much less likely to deployed, but they do not of business managers. report no contribu2on – but 100-­‐499 -­‐ business contribute significantly to ITMD believes that also less likely to respondents success this might actually report success reflect a divergence in No defined need for how various tools are 500+ -­‐ IT respondents collabora/ve systems perceived, rather than 50% as likely to respond Comparison of business to disagreement over posi/vely to these op/ons – much more likely to IT responses the basic technologies 500+ -­‐ business respondents report “not a priority” or themselves; non-IT “s2ll working on rollout” managers may well 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% view systems like N=346 Canadian non-­‐IT business managers, drawn from the Leger Business Panel, and 642 IT in Canada subscribers conferencing and CRM Source: IT Market Dynamics, the research arm of IT in Canada, December 2011 as business rather than technology tools, while IT managers would see UC, internal collaboration tools, them as systems requiring IT support.

• Supply chain systems that connect your and community/social media lead The mid-sized and large enterprise inventory and payment systems with adoption rankings responses also contain intriguing your suppliers and/or business partners “Which (if any) of the following differences. In the mid market, business • Internal collaboration products – types of collaborative systems are respondents are much less likely (15%, as workflow solutions, or portals like in use within your organization – compared with 41% of IT respondents) to SharePoint being tested by your organization report that collaborative systems “do not • Customer relationship management, or – or not currently in use?” contribute significantly to our success” – CRM, systems but they are also less likely (26% vs. 37%) • Community or social media applications to report that these systems do provide – like wikis, or Facebook or LinkedIn In a world with unlimited budgets, IT business benefit. Large enterprise business – Applications that enable your management would probably elect to respondents are far more likely than their organization to connect with the deploy a full portfolio of collaboration IT colleagues to report that collaboration broader community for business products (and with good reason – is not a priority, or that they are still in purposes respondents reporting that these systems the process of “working to roll these • Unified communications systems “contribute significantly to success” systems out.” including email, instant messaging, use an average of 50% more of these Looking across all three e-size videoconferencing, and related products than those who do not realize categories, we see that IT is more likely capabilities significant benefit from their investment to report that collaborative systems are As Figure 3 demonstrates, “unified in collaboration tools). However, all installed, and more likely to designate communications systems” was the option organizations need to live within these systems as a success or failure. What mentioned most often by our business budgets – and this creates a need to make we take away from this is the need for IT management respondents. This is a choices between different options. Which to educate business management on what curious finding, as UC is generally thought collaborative technologies have the most collaboration is (and entails) – and to take to have failed to achieve mass-market appeal within the Canadian market? the time to understand the fit between status – and was the least frequently Our survey covered six different options: existing deployments and business needs mentioned technology of five (CRM was • Advanced, interactive websites that before declaring collaboration victory or your customers can use to configure and defeat. order products Continued on page 18... december 2011 | 14 |

channel insider canada

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08.12.11 17:07

IN THE MIDDLE From left to right: Mary Ann Yule, general manager, CDW Canada; Dan Forbes, vice president, Westcon Canada; Heather Schaan, director of marketing and business development, Microserve; Greg Tobin, general manager, D&H Canada; Paul Gragtmans, principal, ET Group; Paul Doo, chairman, Telemerge

More than video:

the evolving reality of collaboration solutions

Collaboration is moving from a fixed corporate technology servicedelivery approach to a more fluid model.

by Christopher Rogers

P

erhaps more than any other hot solution area in IT, collaboration has been affected by the popular trends in both the technology and the consumer space. Cloud implementations, SaaS offerings and the BYOD vogue are all changing how users collaborate. Having a well thought-out collaboration solution is now an essential qualifier for business success.

As this month’s In the Middle respondents demonstrate, the pitch for collaboration and unified communications (UC) solutions has moved well beyond the travel reduction/cost saving story. The technology is no longer simply about video, calendar and email; it is about line-of-business applications, increased productivity and improved communications. The tangible benefits for users still start with cost savings but are now moving more noticeably towards improved decision making and achievement of competitive advantage.

Q: Which of these best describes your customers’ approach to collaboration in 2011, and what (if any) changes are you expecting to see in 2012? Discrete and important investment area, critical component of most new applications, ‘nice to have’ bolt-on to existing systems, or not really a priority at this time.

Mary Ann Yule, CDW Canada: More and more, customers are viewing advanced collaboration applications as a critical component of their business models and their future IT planning.

Consequently, collaboration is definitely a component of their investment plans. In 2012, we expect this trend to escalate as more of our customers find ways to turn a high level of collaboration into a real competitive advantage.

Heather Schaan, Microserve: I expect to see organizations become savvier regarding their investments in collaboration as we have more experiences to learn from in terms of what pays off, as well as increased integration between collaboration systems, adoption of cloud-based components, and use of social-media platforms.

december 2011 | 16 |

Dan Forbes, Westcon Canada: While I would say most view collaboration as a nice-to-have or bolt-on to existing systems, this is changing as we enter 2012. During the coming year, we’ll see it become more a priority as traditional providers of unified communications and converged networks enable services on the IP infrastructures they previously sold and installed.

Paul Gragtmans, ET Group: Our customers are coming to the realization that collaboration is a critical part of the future success of their organization. We are at an inflection point for change.

How does your company deal with the exponential changes happening all around them? Innovation in many different ways; innovation through collaboration.

Q: Cloud-based systems, ranging from hosted SharePoint and VoIP to online productivity suites, have the potential to expand collaboration initiatives. Are you seeing your customers connecting cloud and collaboration – and if so, can you give us a practical example of how you’ve seen cloud used to support collaboration?

Mary Ann Yule: Cloud-based versions of popular collaboration applications seem to be gaining a lot of traction, but how companies leverage the opportunities will be key to the direction of cloud-based collaboration. For example, companies need to develop a defined collaboration strategy, and share it with employees to gain their buy-in and adoption. They also need to share more basic information to enable smoother collaboration ensuring calendars are kept current and team calendars are enabled, or taking advantage of document versioning that collaboration software offers. A big productivity benefit of collaboration is the ability of co-workers to always be on the same page.

Paul Doo, Telemerge: In the video collaboration space, we are definitely experiencing interest with clients [looking] to integrate our network services and help-desk services by way of “hybrid cloud” solutions – [using this] as an efficient “bolt on” way to add value and functionality to the core enterprise network. We see channel insider canada

IN THE MIDDLE

significant growth in this area as a “low lift” for the enterprise. We don’t see significant change in 2012, though clients are watching for a solid development of seamless UC in the cloud.

Paul Gragtmans: We are not seeing any models that are 100% cloud, given that meeting rooms make up a portion of a collaborative ecosystem and they represent a physical aspect, with end-point technology that enables the collaboration, in those meeting rooms. However, there are a number of ways to move significant pieces of the collaborative ecosystem to the cloud, e.g. virtual meeting rooms, web conferencing, outsourced infrastructure and managed services.

Heather Schaan: A cloud-based system often represents faster time to deploy, lower cost of entry, and reduces strain on operational resources. I’ve seen several examples of organizations successfully get up, run with and benefit from SaaS-based systems relating to collaboration that were not supported by their internal IT shops, much faster and less expensively than they could have with an in-house implementation.

Q: Another interesting connection is the link between mobility and collaboration. Do your customers consider cellular/mobile phones to be integral to their corporate communications systems, or are mobile or cell phones viewed more as individual devices that are not integrated into their corporate communications systems?

Greg Tobin, D&H Canada: We’re seeing that the corporateconnected smartphones (ex. Android, BlackBerry, iPhone) have become an extension of the corporate notebook in the networking structure and an indispensable part of collaborative technology.

Other devices are vying now to establish a place in that hierarchy between the smartphone and the network-attached laptop, including the tablet, which is encroaching in this space.

Dan Forbes: Cellular integration and fixed mobile convergence is truly “The Next Big Thing,” and we consider it to be the next wave of unified communications. We believe it is highly relevant to all our partners, and should be a prime area of growing investment for many in the short-term.

Mary Ann Yule: Mobility is key to effective collaboration in many ways, and there is an inevitable shift away from a fixed, locationcentric work environment to a dispersed mobile world.

But the devices themselves are just one part of it. The big winners will be the companies that leverage those devices most effectively to implement a truly collaborative work environment across a wide range of devices, operating systems, architectures and mobile devices. New collaboration applications are making this simpler. We are seeing more solutions that enable full unified

communications from any workspace, with a consistent experience across devices including PCs, tablets and smartphones.

Certainly, there will be challenges that come with a shift to a more mobile world, such as how to maximize the productivity and accessibility of remote workers while ensuring data security, and how to deal with the many, many devices available to employees.

But there are collaboration solutions that help do this, and many more are on the horizon.

Heather Schaan: We’re now seeing more of task integration, unified voice mail, mobile devices set up to run off corporate wireless networks, and perhaps most significantly, mobile versions of line-of-business applications designed specifically to run on smartphones.

Q: No matter how great collaboration technology is, it’s only really effective if its use is aligned with business process and organizational structure. Do you find customers are using collaborative technologies to help reshape corporate workflow and/or the way they organize their workforce, and can you talk about how these changes might impact their approach in the future?

Paul Gragtmans: Collaboration is 75% change management and business processes challenge and 25% technology challenge.

If you can successfully accelerate collaboration in your organization, you will move from enhancing communication, to speeding problem solving, accelerating innovation, and finally, to transforming what you do and how you do it.

Paul Doo: Conversations we have within the C-suite now go beyond the traditional ROI around travel expense reduction. The mood is now about what technology delivers on the corporate UC strategy. For example, we are invited from the video perspective to work with the client to develop the video collaboration roadmap two to five years out. The end user is now driving the enterprise to deliver fast, efficient, well supported, collaborative technology.

Dan Forbes: Corporate communication behaviour is directly related to the manner in which we behave as customers – it just moves at a slower pace. Our personal experiences have been reshaped by consumer-based collaborative technology, and we are beginning to see those changes manifest themselves in corporate culture. If an organization is catering to the technology comfort level of their current workforce/suppliers/customers, they’re going to have to overcome a considerable gap in the shift in any one of those areas. We’re in an era where the user defines the manner in which they connect – and what they need to access. This is a 180-degree shift from the regimented approach used in corporate IT – with appropriate policy where necessary, of course.

december 2011 | 17 | channel insider canada

Research feature Continued from page 14...

Figure 3. Current use of collabora/on technologies Current use of collaboration technologies

not included on the Figure 3 2010 survey) considered in the 3Q10 survey of IT respondents.

It seems clear 80% that the business 70% definition of “unified 60% communications” 50% spans a much 40% wider variety of 30% configurations than 20% the IT definition of UC. 10% Another interesting 0% observation gained from Figure 3 concerns community/ social media. In all other categories, there is a regular progression – large enterprises are the most frequent users of each technology, followed by midsized organizations and then small businesses, with the weighted average for Canadian public and private-sector organizations generally falling in line with the midmarket results. With community/social media, however, we see substantial adoption reported by small business. If, as many suspect, community/social media expands beyond its current strength in the consumer market to become a primary mode of communications for commercial enterprises, small businesses will be positioned to capitalize on its cost and reach advantages.

Collaboration: where we are, and where we are going in 2012

“Overall, how well do you think information technology supports your organization’s ability to collaborate?”

As is discussed at the top of this article, business management is the best-positioned source for evaluating the business benefit of user-focused

1-­‐99

100-­‐499

500+

Weighted total

N=346 Canadian non-­‐IT business managers, drawn from the Leger Business Panel Source: IT Market Dynamics, the research arm of IT in Canada, December 2011

technologies. It’s equally true that business management provides the most objective evaluation of the efficacy of IT in delivering support to the organization – after all, they see first-hand the productivity benefits of technology within their own workforces, and within their competitors’. To get an understanding of how effectively IT has delivered collaboration support to Canadian business, we asked respondents to select one of four statements to describe IT’s contribution to effective collaboration: “our IT department has done an excellent job of sourcing and deploying appropriate products to ensure smooth collaboration inside and outside our organization;” “our IT department is effective in its support” but our collaboration tools are inadequate; “the products we use may be adequate,” but they are not used effectively, or “we have under-invested in both products and IT resources, and do not have adequate collaboration support within our organization.”

As Figure 4 demonstrates, the most common business perspective is that

december 2011 | 18 |

IT has been excellent at both sourcing products and delivering service to support collaboration – but there is no real consensus evident in the data.

Nearly half of respondents believe that either the technology or IT support for collaboration has been wanting, and another 19% believe that their organizations are deficient in both areas.

The definition of “excellent” likely varies by company and/or context, but with 45% of respondents finding IT support lacking, and 39% (counting the “underinvested in both products and IT resources” group in both camps) believing that their organizations’ products are inadequate, it is clear that there is tremendous room for IT improvement in helping Canadian businesses to collaborate more effectively.

Where do we go from here?

Figure 5 provides a peek into what we might expect to see in the Canadian collaboration market in 2012. In the graphic, we have shown “not planning to invest” as a negative number, and summed the three other options provided

channel insider canada

to our respondents – increasing collaboration spending, decreasing spending, or investing at the same rate in 2012 as in 2011 – to 100%.

Our weighted total column shows that while collaboration spending will be unchanged for roughly half of respondent organizations, the other half is three times more likely to foresee increases than decreases in spending.

ITMD is still in the process of collecting the data needed to forecast Canadian IT spending trends for 2012, but our preliminary take is that spending on collaboration will grow at 5%-6% in the new year.

Where will the money go, and will it prove to be well spent? The data in Figure 4 indicates that there is ample justification to invest in both new assets and staff resources. We expect that most IT managers will look to nudge the needle forward in both categories, and to use both new technology options and increased staff support to better tie collaboration infrastructure with the business users who do – or do not yet – benefit from collaborative systems.

Figure 4. IT support for collabora/on

Figure 4

iT SuPPoRT FoR CollABoRATioN IT has been excellent in both product sourcing and support 36%

We have under-­‐ invested in both products and IT resources 19%

The products we use may be adequate, but IT does not provide effec/ve support 26%

Our IT department is effec/ve in support, but our collabora/on products are lacking 20%

Figure 5. Collabora/on budget outlook for 2012 CollABoRATioN BudgeT ouTlooK FoR 2012 N=346 Canadian non-­‐IT business managers, drawn from the Leger Business Panel Source: IT Market Dynamics, the research arm of IT in Canada, December 2011

Figure 5

100% 80%

29%

38%

38%

35%

54%

52%

53%

7%

10%

12%

-­‐21%

-­‐16%

60% 40%

54%

20% 0% -­‐20%

17%

-­‐32%

Increasing spending on collabora/ve systems Inves/ng in collabora/ve systems at about the same rate Reducing spending on collabora/ve systems

-­‐53%

(Not planning to invest in collabora/ve systems)

-­‐40% -­‐60%

1-­‐99

100-­‐499

500+

Weighted total

N=346 Canadian non-­‐IT business managers, drawn from the Leger Business Panel Source: IT Market Dynamics, the research arm of IT in Canada, December 2011

ITMD’s collaboration research is delivered in two reports – one based on a survey of business users, and another integrating this perspective with a survey of IT decision makers. Both reports are available to members of IT in Canada’s IT Insight Exchange program and subscribers to the All Points Connected research program at no charge. Non-clients can order the reports and/or custom analyses of the data from IT Market Dynamics. Please contact Stephen Symonds at stephen.symonds@ itincanada.ca for more information.

Tracker Networks Special bid pricing: November 2011 volumes

November numbers see a return to form, revealing that the summer slowdown was temporary.

by Jason Doel

B

id volumes dropped Vendor Bid Volume by Month in October and then started climbing again in November, following the pattern that is typically seen in the first two months of a new quarter.

The drop in October was not as pronounced as start of the previous quarter (July 2011) and the gains in November were larger than the gains in the second month of last quarter (August 2011). This is in line with our seasonal expectations, as business activity (and bid activity) generally picks up in the fall.

October volumes were modestly Six month rolling trendline lower than the six-month rolling average, but November volumes were significantly higher. As Vendor Bid Volume by Month a result, the six-month rolling trend line has turned upward again for the first time in many months. This suggests that the slowdowns we were noticing over the summer were temporary and/ or based on seasonal (summer) slowdowns in business activity.

We have included charts for a 12-month trendline. These show that the 12-month trend is positive. The year-over-year monthly comparison also shows almost 9% growth in November volumes over a year ago. There were more vendors active this November in special pricing (5%), Twelve month rolling trendline but the higher volume growth shows that volume per vendor increased overall Volume of Special Pricing Agreements in the Canadian Channel as well from one year Volume of Special Pricing Agreements in the Canadian Channel ago.

Volume of unique special pricing agreements processed by the channel in Sept 2011 The largest percentage Volumes across entire Canadian channel (tracking data from over 70 IT vendors); excludes vendors that sell direct. growth on a year-overYear over Year year basis came from Nov Change Change over Oct Sept Aug 6 month Description 2011 over Oct Nov-­‐14 2011 2011 2011 average software vendors (18%).

Total unique special bids & price updates 7,944 12% 8.6% 7,082 7,458 6,898 7,293 This is in keeping with Number of vendors active in special pricing 44 -6% 5% 47 48 48 47 our observations that Hardware vendors 7,271 13% 7.8% 6,452 6,739 6,270 6,674 Software vendors 673 7% 18% 630 719 628 618 software vendors are starting to increase their This table provides a statistical summary of the volume of special pricing agreements tracked by Tracker Networks for IT distributors use of special pricing and resellers in the Canadian channel. Tracker networks protects the confidentiality of all individual parties and does not sell or license pricing data. programs. december 2011 | 20 |

channel insider canada

Program Updates

The importance of relationships Citrix’s new channel chief for the Americas region, Mike Fouts, talks priorities, alignment and products

by Christopher Rogers

M

ike Fouts understands partners. That’s the message from Citrix’s new channel chief for the Americas region, which includes Canada, the U.S., Latin and South America. It’s with good reason too. Prior to joining Citrix 11 years ago, Fouts worked for a Citrix gold partner.

And the years since he’s joined up with the virtualization giant have been spent running channel recruiting and development, and more recently, heading up the field sales team for the mid-Atlantic United States. Fouts directed a team that sold to customers every day.

“I sold with partners and sold alongside them,” he said.

This gives him a good understanding of the challenges partners face on a daily basis. Sometimes the challenge is just selling the products in the first place, but Fouts said there are also specific challenges partners encounter when selling into SMB versus larger customers – or beyond sales – building their business and keeping it profitable. Fouts believes his prior experience has been great preparation for his new role.

“I very acutely realize the importance of the relationships and [the impact they] have in collaboration I have with my sales team and my partners,” he said.

Fouts is also responsible for the field marketing team for the Americas region. This group works with channel partners as well as Citrix’s sales team. As the budget falls under Fouts’ guise, he sees the potential to firmly align both the marketing and channel messages no matter how the budget is divided so marketing collateral is the same.

The ability to get the message out to channel partners can be just as important as having them aligned. Fouts said although he still primarily uses the phone or email as a way of getting in touch with individual partners, he is starting to embrace blogging and social media. In fact, one of the first messages the Citrix community received from Fouts in his new role was a blog post detailing his priorities.

“I was actually pleasantly surprised at the response we got from the blog,” he said, remarking that there was a lot of feedback.

Enabling partners Virtualization comes with its own set of nuances when selling, and the technical side requires very specific training. For these reasons Fouts was very clear about the way to enable Citrix partners, stating that if Citrix wants partners to invest in its technologies, it’s important to equip them with the necessary resources to be successful.

Fouts focuses on three enablement categories: technical, sales and marketing.

On the technical side, Citrix recently announced the Citrix Academy, a six-week technical training program offered to partners. Fouts said partners could get discounted rates on the

training as well as put MDF and co-op dollars towards the program.

The training program encompasses all of Citrix’s products and services, and leverages best practices from technical support, services, and development.

Fouts said the training will not only leave partners better equipped to make the sale but also support it afterwards.

On the sales side Citrix is hosting workshops in all Americas regions that focus on different parts Mike Fouts says he’s embracing of the process such as social media to connect with selling strategies for specific partners. products. Fouts said these workshops will be made available to partners next year at no cost.

On the marketing side Fouts is trying something different.

“For the first time ever we’re doing some marketing workshops out in the regions,” he said. “Those will focus on demand generation activities, how to market and take the [marketing] collateral we have, repackage it and then market it out your customer base as a partner.”

Another priority for Fouts is aligning the channel partners with Citrix’s own sales team. There are a number of benefits – such as increased loyalty and decreased conflict – but Fouts said the most important benefit is increased productivity. Collaboration in the field is essential for partners and sales teams selling the same products every day. Aligning the message can be a powerful tool to increase product sales.

Products The products that Fouts is excited about for 2012 include the XenApp and XenDesktop solutions. He said most customers are asking for a hybrid style environment using both products to virtualize desktop environments and applications.

Getting at the delivery method for the solutions, cloud is at the forefront. Fouts described a Citrix cloud environment as consisting of a combination of virtualization from XenDesktop and XenApp and the Citrix NetScaler products for the cloud service. Partners, he said, can enable a customer with the cloud offerings whether they choose to host it or offer it as a managed service.

december 2011 | 21 | channel insider canada

Focus on the future

2012 and beyond: technology trends with staying power Channel participants should prepare to help customers navigate an increasingly mobile, social, and consumer-oriented technology landscape.

by Stefan Dubowski

W

ith 2012 upon us, this is the perfect time to consider the trends that will impact technology service providers and their customers in the new year.

We canvassed representatives across a range of IT subsectors (personal technology, communications, peripherals, security and software). The consensus suggests that more and more end users will insist on using their own personal devices (computers, tablets and mobile handsets) in the enterprise, while businesses wrestle with increased IT management issues associated with that very trend. At the same time, organizations will look to technology service providers to help them reduce the cost of operating printers, and they’ll want help to both benefit from and contain issues related to social media.

Social attacks will increase, says Chris Astacio from Websense.

Personal Technology In the personal technology realm, the “consumerization” of enterprise IT is expected to continue. IT managers that haven’t done so already will likely need to adjust their practices to support employees who insist on bringing their own devices to the workplace to use as their primary business tools.

The consumer trend is already informing PC manufacturers and their future directions. Peter Hortensius, president of Lenovo’s global product group, said consumerization directed his company to develop business products that exhibit consumer features. The company’s ThinkPad X1 laptop is a “crossover PC,” he said, with Dolby Home Theatre audio and a modern design.

Along the same lines, tablet computers – devices initially designed for the consumer market, but which quickly made their way into boardrooms – will continue to mature, with manufacturers deepening their understanding of the tablet’s capabilities and shortcomings.

“The tablet will not replace the laptop,” Hortensius said. “The laptop will always be the first choice for customers who need both content creation and consumption. The tablet is a great tool for consuming content and as a secondary device.”

The channel will have a new class of computer to offer customers as well: Ultrabooks – lightweight, powerful and particularly small laptops akin to netbooks but without the drawbacks (such as low-powered processors).

“Ultrabooks will become serious options for companies in 2012 as price points will fall well below $1,000, making them better able to fit into business IT budgets, and more business-focused Ultrabooks will be on the market,” Hortensius said. december 2011 | 22 |

Communications The consumerization of enterprise IT doesn’t mean a thing if it isn’t tempered with a corresponding business approach to technology, according to John Roese, head of R&D, North America at network equipment provider Huawei.

The former Nortel Networks CTO explained that consumerfocused applications from companies such as Google and Facebook may well play roles in businesses, but they are not designed as business-class tools. Instead, organizations will need to marry aspects of the consumer realm with the control usually associated with business-specific software.

At the same time, the ICT sector – normally fixated on business settings – will continue its progress towards thinking beyond the corporate box, with technologies that bring consumer technologies into the enterprise. Imagine a work-from-home employee using the web-connected TV in his rec room as a link into the company’s cloud infrastructure, Roese said.

No surprise, Roese said it takes a certain class of technology vendor to provide that level of integration – and Huawei just happens to be positioning itself as that sort of company: a vendor with a wide-ranging product portfolio that touches on numerous aspects of the connectivity spectrum – everything from network endpoints to enterprise networks and carrier networks.

But Huawei isn’t the only vendor that has used the broadstroke approach. For a number of years, Cisco Systems has been acquiring and developing consumer technologies. However, earlier this year the firm announced that it would restructure its consumer business.

Continued on page 24... channel insider canada

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Focus on the future Continued from page 22...

Roese said it’s well known that a certain Huawei competitor has struggled with its consumer products – but that doesn’t mean the integrated approach is the wrong way to go. Timing has a lot do with it.

“They were right, but they were off by a few years,” he said.

“We think they’ll come back to this space.”

Peripherals Managed print services are poised to become more important among small businesses in the coming years, said Todd Bercovitch, business development manager, imaging and printing, HP Canada.

While large businesses are beginning to understand the benefits of outsourcing their print requirements to a service provider, small businesses are at the very start of that learning curve, presenting a potentially lucrative line of business for the channel.

“The awareness is becoming greater and greater,” Bercovitch said. “Partners looking for new ways to build profit into their business are looking into managed print services in a much deeper way.”

But the SMB opportunity could be tricky. On one hand, there are many more small businesses than enterprise-sized organizations across the country. But developing a marketing plan and sales system that, at the same time, addresses each SMB’s individual requirements and ensures that channel partners engaged in this business don’t break the bank on lead development, is a difficult balance.

Bercovitch said tools such as Synnex’s PrintSolv system connecting resellers with businesses looking to offload printer management could become even more important as the channel chases the small-business market.

There’s no doubt that a managed-print service sell requires more time and effort than a one-time equipment sale, but the payoff is worth the effort, judging by Bercovitch’s assessment of the market.

“Although the selling cycle is longer, the annuity stream of securing those supplies and ensuring they’re going to that VAR as opposed to another VAR or a retailer is very lucrative over the long run.”

Security Count on the web’s underworld to step up the sophistication of its attacks on businesses, said Chris Astacio, manager, security research at IT security company Websense. For instance, forget email-based infiltrations. Social media will increasingly be the attacker’s choice vector.

Since so many people use social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, attackers have a wealth of targets to choose from, Astacio said. And since social media is based on trusted relationships between friends and colleagues, a chosen victim may be more likely to open the door to an attacker masquerading as one of the target’s social media correspondents.

It’s the first step in a ruse designed to enable the attacker to dig into the target’s own computer system, where lucrative confidential information about the victim’s workplace may reside, Astacio said.

In the same vein, Websense predicts the rise of websites where Internet ne’er do-wells will be able to trade stolen social media credentials, in the same way they trade stolen credit card and december 2011 | 24 |

social insurance numbers today, he said.

Social media isn’t the easiest way for an attacker to make money – so rest assured, the information garnered through such subterfuge will have to fetch a high price.

“It isn’t exactly the low-hanging fruit,” Astacio said.

“It does require more work, such as reconnaissance beyond a simple Google search. But they will be looking for a bigger payout, Consumer and enterprise IT must merge, says because they’ll be John Roese, Huawei. selling proprietary information stolen from your company.”

Software Ask Rich Reynolds what he sees for the future, and he’ll point to increased IT management complexity and mobility, due in part to the consumerization of enterprise technology.

The general manager of Microsoft’s commercial Windows business unit, Reynolds pointed out that consumerization will pressure IT departments into new ways of working. Companies will be increasingly interested in implementing back-end software designed to support sophisticated management consoles and secure systems that enable companies to ensure that any confidential business information stored on the user’s broughtfrom-home device can be effectively wiped from the machine should the employee decide to leave the company or if his mobile phone or tablet PC is lost or stolen.

Mobility plays a role in the software that businesses employ as well. Reynolds quoted Forrester Research: 66% of workers are mobile today. That calls for new interactive technologies, particularly in the communication and collaboration realm.

Reynolds provided an example from his own work life: “I was on a flight from Seattle to Dallas, and I had to work on a presentation. I hadn’t downloaded the PowerPoint, but luckily it was Alaska Airlines. They have in-flight Wi-Fi...I could get to the corporate network and download the PowerPoint in a secure way.

“The interesting thing is, I had to collaborate with someone on it. So I connected with them on Lync,” Microsoft’s unified communications software. And during the collaboration session, he said, Reynolds’ correspondent learned that Reynolds was actually working from a plane – and Reynolds learned that his colleague was on the other side of the planet, in India.

“It’s a great example of mobility and the new work styles that people are using to get their work done.”

channel insider canada

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T/u/c In canada: The Tech PersPecTIVe

TransPOrTaTIOn, uTIlITIes, and cOmmunIcaTIOns Is a “hOT” IcT secTOr. here’s why… by it Market DYNaMiCs, the researCh DiVisioN of it iN CaNaDa

Figure 1

How IT affects the T/U/C business hoW iT iMPACTS The T/u/C BuSiNeSS eNviRoNMeNT environment

Industry

Transporta9on

U9li9es

Communica9ons

Cost reduc4on

New products/services

New compe44ve forces

¥ GPS (less down9me) ¥ Route op9miza9on ¥ Tracking systems (reduc9ons in loss)

¥ For-­‐fee tracking op9ons ¥ Increased rou9ng/ delivery op9ons

¥ De-­‐materializa9on (shipment via PDF, etc., rather than in physical form)

¥ Advanced meter capabili9es (reduces 9me needed for read) ¥ BeNer control over distribu9on

¥ Time-­‐of-­‐use billing ¥ Integra9on of alterna9ve sources (renewables)

¥ Ability of new entrants to connect to customers over smarter grid ¥ Increased availability of off-­‐grid sources ¥ Online video (and other data) drives need for investment ¥ Low/no cost op9ons for telephony, video…

¥ Mobile services ¥ Move to IP networks ¥ Cloud services ¥ Improved traffic density/diversity (more ¥ Bundled services services and traffic over the network) Source: IT Market Dynamics, 2011

U/C in the Canadian IT context

t/u/C is arguably the economic sector that is most exposed to changes in technology. from the network demands of social media and video on communications, to the introduction of gps and evermore-sophisticated load tracking and route optimization systems in transportation, to smart grid deployments in utilities, t/u/C is a haven for new technologies – and for suppliers who can help clients build it-enabled competitive advantage. in his seminal “forces governing Competition in industry” (harvard business review, Mar.-apr.

1979), Michael porter stated that industries are shaped by four forces: the bargaining power of suppliers and customers, potential new entrants, and the ability to substitute alternative goods/ services for current options. figure 1 takes a brief snapshot of ways in which it affects the cost structure, product offerings, and competitive environments of t/u/C companies.

Clearly, it is critical to the forces that affect revenue, cost and competitive positioning in this sector.

Figure 2

Figure 3

transportation, utilities Transporta9on/ u9li9es/ and communications communica9ons is unique amongst the Smaller industries 26% 11% nine sectors tracked

by it Market Dynamics – smaller than the “big four” sectors of business services, financial services, government and manufacturing (each of which account for a minimum of 15% “Big four” of Canadian it industries spending) but much 63% larger than wholesale/

retail, health care, Source: IT Market Dynamics Canadian Technology education and primary Market Demand Forecast – 2011 resources (which represent an average of 6% each). in 2011, t/u/C is also a source of growth in the Canadian it industry. itMD projects overall it spending growth of 5.3% for t/u/C, as compared with 4.5% for the “big four” sectors, and 3.8% for other industries.

although there are many small IT spend by e-­‐size companies included within 100% t/u/C – in the December 90% 35% 2010 version of the business 80% 45% register, statistics Canada 70% counts more than 50,000 60% small transportation business 24% 50% entities alone – it spending 24% 40% in this sector is dominated by +14% 3.0% 30% 2.6% large organizations. enterprises 41% 20% +25% 31% of 500 or more employees are 4.5% 10% 3.6% responsible for 45% of t/u/C 0% it expenditures, as compared Other T/U/C Other T/U/C with an average of 35% in other industries industries sectors.

Expenditure category large enterprises tend to (as a % of GDP) allocate a relatively high Small Mid-­‐sized proportion of their it budgets Large Opera9ons to operations (vs. new product Source: IT Market Dynamics Canadian Technology acquisitions). as a result, it Market Demand Forecast – 2011 isn’t surprising to see that as a market sector, t/u/C allocates a relatively high proportion of it budgets to staff, services, and other operational items. here, we see that it operations alone account for over 4% of sectoral gDp – a rate that is 25% higher than the average for other industries.

T/u/C iN The CANAdiAN iT CoNTeXT

T/u/C iT By The T/U/C IT NuMBeRS by the numbers

december 2011 | 26 |

channel insider canada

es in IT spending by t category, 2011 Figure 4

gRoWTh RATeS iN iT SPeNdiNg By PRoduCT CATegoRy, 2011 one of the reasons for keen interest in t/u/C as an it vertical has been its healthy growth rate. in 2011, itMD’s forecast had t/u/C growing at 5.3%, as compared to an overall rate of 4.4%. this growth rate is echoed across many product categories. in our 2011 forecast, itMD pegged t/u/C spending increases at 25% or more higher than the market average in five categories. to some extent, this is driven by internal requirements; however, a comparison of these product categories to the trends noted in figure 1 helps to illuminate other sources of demand: for example, networking in utilities (to support smart grid in utilities), storage and server capacity (to support new cloud offerings by communications firms), and client devices (reflecting the trend towards mobility evident in transportation and other sectors).

Client devices Sodware Servers Networking Storage Hardcopy devices Other hardware 0.0%

T/U/C

2.0%

4.0%

6.0%

8.0%

Market average, 2011

Source: IT Market Dynamics Canadian Technology Market Demand Forecast – 2011

Figure 5

Use of informa9on sources uSe oF iNFoRMATioN SouRCeS

Weighted use index

Sources used to inves4gate new IT products or suppliers 50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 -­‐

T/U/C

All industries

so – you have read the graphics, and decided to increase your focus on t/u/C. the next question is, how? unfortunately, data gathered in a 4Q10-1Q11 survey of 1,038 respondents, including 92 from t/u/C, indicates that this it community is difficult to reach. in figure 5, we show a weighted index reflecting responses to the question, “which of the following sources do you use to investigate new it products or suppliers?” as the gap between the red (all respondents) and blue (t/u/C) lines indicates, t/u/C it decision makers are less likely to use virtually all media sources than their counterparts in other sectors. Marketers targeting this population will need to be even more diligent than usual in combining different outreach tactics, to make sure that their message reaches the eyes and ears of it management in the t/u/C community.

Source: IT Market Dynamics, 2011

december 2011 | 27 |

channel insider canada

TEST BED

Fujitsu Stylistic Q550 slate

Can a host of features and hardware make up for an OS that simply isn’t designed for touch?

by Christopher Rogers Pros: • Lots of connectivity options • Many security options for enterprise deployment • Quick swap batteries with utility Cons: • Touch input is inaccurate • Display is lacking • No holder for stylus Price: $849 Availability: Available now Machine as tested: CPU: Intel Atom Z670 (1.5 GHz, 512 KB cache, 800 MHz) RAM: 2 GB DDR2

Q550 front display, side ports and back views.

Storage: 62 SSD Display: 10.1” 1280x768 What the manufacturer says: “Your professional companion.”

W

ith the glut of Androidbased devices available and the popularity of the iPad there is almost no talk about the relative success of Windows 7-based tablets in the market. HP, which only sold its webOS-based TouchPad device for a little over a month, has announced it will continue to update its Windows 7-based HP Slate 2 tablet PC. Many Win7 devices are available at retail, some even through Microsoft’s new retail stores, including Fujitsu’s latest tablet offering: The Stylistic Q550 Slate.

Although Windows-based tablets have generally found a place in niche vertical applications, the popularity of the tablet style device itself has pushed manufacturers that usually focus on enterprise into the consumer space – companies such as Motion and Fujitsu for example. This is where the Q550 slips. The device seems to be constantly struggling

to find an audience. It desperately wants to be everything to everyone but never really achieves its goal.

The Q550’s specs are actually quite impressive at first glance. The screen is a brightly lit 10.1-inch WXGA LED that supports multi-touch gestures. It looks great when either viewing the Windows 7 desktop or browsing the web. It’s also well suited for web video. However, despite the relatively high resolution, the screen size itself limits the usefulness of Windows 7 features such as snap that lets users easily resize their applications. Users will probably prefer to use productivity applications such as Office in full-screen.

The Q550 supports touch via hand or a stylus that is included with the device. While it is possible to do certain functions using fingers, the stylus is the best way to navigate around Windows 7.

Using fingers to navigate is not accurate enough on the Q550. It simply becomes too difficult to switch between open tabs or programs. Even clicking on the right link in a browser becomes tricky without the stylus, let alone trying to make inputs through the Windows software keyboard.

december 2011 | 28 |

There is a touch calibration utility that is supposed to make the device more accurate with hand-based inputs but it did not improve our experience with the device. Windows 7 was, after all, designed to be used with a mouse and keyboard combination.

Luckily the stylus is a good one and even has a secondary button for contextsensitive menus. Using the stylus with the Q550 produces accurate results and rarely did we find ourselves having to repeat inputs. Users can still leverage touch-like controls in applications such as Internet Explorer using the stylus: dragging up or down in the open browser window scrolls the page up and down. If users prefer to use the traditional scroll bars, those are available also. The gestures are a bit laggy as it stands, but functional.

Input “Functional” is also the best way to describe the text input on the Q550. In some places, it shines, in others, it makes the experience more difficult than it needs to be. This highlights the main difference between Windows 7-based tablets and

channel insider canada

those running iOS, Android or a mobilefirst OS — inputs.

The Q550 (and Windows 7) has two ways of inputting text: handwriting recognition using the stylus and a software keyboard. Whereas software keyboards on mobile platforms such as iOS and Android are the primary text input method, using handwriting recognition was, in our time with the Q550, the easiest way to input text. That’s not to say it was the most desirable. A good software keyboard would be welcome.

But, the software keyboard in Windows 7 is small and doesn’t seem to have been designed for human fingers. It simply tries to replicate a desktop keyboard on the screen. The keyboard can be resized, but when docked to the bottom or top of the screen, even the full-size keyboard is too small and inaccurate. In short, users should not expect to be making inputs with their thumbs.

Thankfully, the handwriting recognition on the Q550 is fantastic. Rarely did the device stumble when deciphering our inputs and when it did, easy-to-learn gestures to backspace, delete, separate and join words helped fix errors. When writing, the input panel will automatically start a new line as users approach the edge of the screen. The recognition is fast and inputs are made by clicking an “insert” button. It’s almost typewriterlike in function and works well for short compositions such as email. Users will want to connect to a Bluetooth keyboard for any long writing or text input they need to do such as composing long documents.

Performance It’s a shame the input and touch actually slows down productivity on the Q550 because it is actually quite a capable device.

An Intel Atom Z670 processor and 2 GB of RAM power the device. Intel purposebuilt the Z670, code named “Oak Trail,” for tablet devices, and its combination of processing ability and battery life is good.

At 1.5GHz it does well enough with HD video (leveraging Intel’s Graphics Media Accelerator 600) while not sucking the Q550’s batteries dry.

We ran both HD YouTube and Netflix videos streamed over the integrated Wi-Fi connection and the Q550 kept up well with both.

For extended video sessions or long days on the road the Q550 supports multiple swappable batteries (though users will have to purchase these batteries separately) and a great utility that streamlines the process, putting the devices into a hibernate mode so that users don’t lose any data while switching out the battery; no need to connect the Q550 to a power source.

Software Fujitsu seems to have realized that even opening a program using Windows can be tricky with the device, so the manufacturer has shipped the Q550 with a program that acts as a kind of replacement for the Windows desktop.

Users can add application icons to a quick-launch area, add a number of premade widgets to a desktop space and even quickly access photos or documents.

Opening up anything in this program opens up the document in the Windows environment, minimizing the Fujitsu software. It’s a nice attempt to do something different but users may simply want to place their favourite applications and shortcuts to frequently used folders on the Windows 7 desktop.

The Fujitsu interface is the easiest way to access the device’s front and rear facing webcams. These webcams did an adequate job while we tested the device.

There are instances where the Q550 truly shines and editing in Microsoft Office is one of them. Using the pen input tools and editors in Word allow users to mark up documents and send them to other users while preserving the formatting. It is a great alternative to “track changes” and comments, which can clutter a document and be difficult to follow.

Accessories The Q550 has a number of accessories that can be attached to the device in one way or another. The stylus comes with the device and extra batteries have been discussed. There is also a Fujitsu branded cover that allows the Q550 to stand in a

landscape orientation. The cover holds the stylus and also has openings for all the Q550’s many inputs. It adds some bulk to the device but it will certainly keep the Q550 from getting scratched or banged around.

Another accessory is an easel-style dock for the Q550. The dock features four USB 2.0 ports and a spot to plug-in the power cord. The dock stands using a leg that can be folded in and locked for easy portability.

The most baffling thing about these accessories is they are not compatible.

Users will have to remove the cover from the device to fit it on the dock. This doesn’t make much sense to us and it makes the dock almost unnecessary.

Security features The Q550’s 62 GB SSD is fully encrypted but Fujitsu was not happy to stop at that. The Q550 has a built-in fingerprint scanner, a smart-card reader, and since it runs Windows 7, it will easily integrate into any existing corporate security infrastructure without tweaking.

The security features get at the heart of where the Q550 should be marketed: enterprise users. With all the security and the focus on business-productivity applications, it should be an easy fit.

Final thoughts Although the Q550 is quick enough for most tasks users will want to do, the input methods make it tedious to even use a web browser.

The tablet has the proper form-factor weighing in at less than two pounds but the cover adds some extra bulk and weight.

It ends that the Q550 is a device full of contradictions. Whereas it has enough battery life to keep it going throughout the day, and enough processing power to get tasks done quickly, it’s likely to take users twice as long to do them because of the input methods. It’s truly not the device itself, but the platform, which is designed for mouse and keyboard. This holds back an otherwise very capable device.

december 2011 | 29 | channel insider canada

Sustaina

dIsTracTIOns

dIsTracTIOns, december 2011:

feaTurIng news yOu can’T use – buT shOuld knOw. ThIs edITIOn: The kIds need helP

by ChaNNel iNsiDer staff

C

omputer maker Lenovo is raising a red flag concerning Canadian youngsters and their attitudes towards careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

In a global survey, the company found that just 55% of Canadian students feel that it’s very important for the country to lead the world in science-related fields. This is the lowest percentage of students with that opinion among the countries surveyed.

Asked what makes them hesitant about pursuing STEM careers, 28% of Canadian students cited lack of confidence in their ability to do well, 22% said it involves too much work and schooling, and 19% said there aren’t many STEM career choices. While the results may be cause for concern, programs such as Lenovo’s partnership with YouTube Space lab might help, the company says. The partnership challenges 14- to 18-year-old students to design a scientific experiment that can be performed in space. Incentives such as astronaut training and technology prizes encourage participation.

emc gives digital boost to london library The C.B. “Bud” Johnston Library is one of the recipients of storage-technology firm EMC’s Heritage Trust Project grant, which sees the London, Ont. library receiving US$10,000 to help digitize the largest collection of Canadian businesses’ annual reports, making the material more accessible to researchers. Each year since 2007 EMC has granted funds to recognize organizations and individuals that protect and preserve valuable cultural information around the world. “This is the fourth year of the EMC Heritage Trust Project and the fourth time we have had at least one Canadian organization receiving a grant,” said Michael Sharun, managing director of EMC Canada. The other 2011 recipients are the Organizacion Comunitaria Funcional Lourdes 38 Memorial House in Chile, General Historic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile, the Tongji University Library in China, the Boole Library, University College, Cork, Ireland, the public association Kyrgyz Kitep

december 2011 | 30 |

Borboru in Kyrgyzstan, the Aegis Trust in Rwanda, and the Crimean Tatar Library in Ukraine.

To answer email, twist phone to the left Samsung reportedly announced plans to introduce mobile phones with flexible displays in 2012. Media outlets in November said that during a recent financial conference call the company’s executives disclosed intentions to begin offering flexible-screen phones early in the year, and other devices such as flexible-screen tablets later on. Samsung isn’t the only hardware maker investigating flexible screens. Sony has been demonstrating the technology since CES 2009, and Nokia is investing in flexible-screen technology as well. Nokia representatives have said that the technology paves the way for a new user experience – bend your smartphone a certain way to take a picture, for instance.

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