Channel Insider Canada, November 2011

INDUSTRY ISSUES

Cloud, big data, and the impact on the channel PAGE 12

FOCUS ON COLLABORATION Making more than the sum of collaboration technology parts PAGE 22

NOVEMBER 2011 www.channelinsider.ca

D R I V I N G T H E C H A N N E L T H R O U G H I N F O R M AT I O N A N D E D U CAT I O N

TARGETED

Publications agreement number 41382532. Canada Post please return undeliverable address blocks to 24-4 Vata Court, Aurora, ON, L4G 4B6

MARKETING TRENDS

McAfee’s new channel approach “Stay hungry, stay foolish” Channel News: Ingram Micro expands cloud portfolio, HP dumps Elite for Specialist, Hostway launches channel program

CONTENTS

11.11

FEATURED THIS ISSUE CUSTOMER CONNECTIONS

Aligning marketing activity with business development

TRIBUTE Creativity and drive propelled Steve Jobs to the top of the technology game. His persistent striving for excellence is an inspiration for the industry.

PROGRAM UPDATES McAfee applies a three-pillar approach to its channel program.

Lacking its own services division, Lenovo says it’s the partner’s partner.

TRACKER NETWORKS The 12-month trend line for special-bid volumes may be positive, but a slowdown in the last six months raises the spectre of decreased business activity.

CASE FILE How outsourcing IT to cloud-based virtualization let an office manager relax over the summer

TEST BED Apple’s latest mobile operating system presents more than 200 new features for users. But iOS 5 is still far from perfect.

13 18

4 CCO VIEW 6 CHANNEL NEWS 8 ON LOCATION

Community and strong connections take centre stage at Ingram Micro’s Venture Tech Network Fall Invitational in Las Vegas.

19

12 INDUSTRY ISSUES

20

22 FOCUS ON COLLABORATION

21

25 FOCUS ON HEALTH CARE

28

30 DISTRACTIONS

Customers are struggling with the intersection of cloud computing and “big data” according to EMC – and technology service providers could profit by offering solutions.

Channel participants agree that customers using more than one kind of collaboration technology benefit the most. Now, as for those flies in the ointment...

Many VARs see health care as a major opportunity. We review the market segments, economics, and product spending trends.

Featuring news you can’t use – but should know. This edition: Time to brush up on your instant messaging skills.

november 2011 | 3 | channel insider canada

CCO VIEW

THE NEW NORMAL LOW(-ISH), SINGLE-DIGIT GROWTH RATES FOR TECHNOLOGY ARE HERE TO STAY – BUT THE INDUSTRY IS FINDING CAUSE FOR OPTIMISM ANYWAY.

I

by MICHAEL O’NEIL, CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER, IT IN CANADA had a conversation with a senior Canadian IT executive recently, and he asked what our research arm, IT Market Dynamics, was seeing for industry growth in 2011 and 2012. I told him that we’re just now in the data collection phase for our 2012 forecast, but that we feel confident that our projection for 2011 – 4.4% overall, a touch higher for new product acquisitions – has proved solid, and that forced to guess, I’d peg 2012 at or below that figure.

In times past, this would be viewed as grim news in an industry where high single-digit or low double-digit growth rates were the norm. Clearly, those who hoped for a rapid post-recession return to a high-growth environment were disappointed; and, as we pointed out in our forecast issue in the spring, IT is now such a large part of the overall economy that it cannot grow beyond – or even independently from – the underlying economy.

Looking across the channel, though, we see that companies are seeing the glass as half-full of promise, not half-empty. Large channel players are purchasing each other (Softchoice/Unis Lumin, Herjavec/Zentra).

Just as interestingly, companies that are not in the channel space themselves, such as PWC and Wyse, have been buying companies that are in or adjacent to the Canadian channel space (JRS Partners and Trellia, respectively) to expand their capabilities. Clearly, several different senior management teams have determined that now is the time to invest.

While “exits” have an alluring ring for many owner/operators in the channel, what if “operations” is your more likely focus for 2012? Here, too, we’re seeing

some change. As our feature research story demonstrates, marketing – long the weak link in the channel’s go-to-market chain – is gaining recognition as a critical capability. However, there is still work to be done: channel members are not taking advantage of three key opportunities, vendor marketing funds, media exposure, and interactive online communications options.

Each of these areas carries with it its own explanations. We know from the research reported in our main feature that a majority of VARs use less than 25% of vendor marketing funds – for the most part, because they accrue too little credit from their individual suppliers, or because they don’t understand how to use the programs that they have been offered.

Drilling down to the use of marketing investments, we find that VARs don’t understand the impact that interactive media like blogs and forums have on their customers – and while they do understand the impact of print and online articles, they don’t prioritize media outreach in their marketing mix. Across these different issues, the “net net” is clear: a lack of success in each area results in a mismatch between the energy expended and return on investment on marketing activities.

The research shows that an average of 2.4% of channel revenues is currently allocated to marketing. Taking advantage of vendor funds, media exposure, and interactive online options won’t increase your direct outlay much, if at all – but it will improve your payback and growth posture. As we’ve seen already, 2012 promises sufficient opportunity to warrant investment. Make the most of the resources you allocate by making informed decisions about marketing and funding options!

november 2011 | 4 |

channel insider canada

Volume 1, Issue 3 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 Robert Janelle 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.

When notifying of an address change, please include address label to ensure continuity of service. All rights reserved. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced either in part or in whole without the permission of copyright owner. The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publishers.

REPRINT INFORMATION High quality reprints of articles or additional copies of the magazine are available through IT in Canada.

Please contact us by phone at 905-727-3875 x336 Canadian Publication Mail Agreement # 41382532 All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced without written consent; inquiries should be addressed to circulation@itincanada.ca

SCAN TO A LARGER UNIVERSE WITH JUST ONE TOUCH. With a large 8.4Ë? stylish touch-screen, faster processor and high quality scanning up to 30 pages-per-minute*, the imageFORMULA ScanFront 300/300P network scanners are full-featured, easy to use devices for capturing, converting, and sharing documents. Users can choose from a host of destinations and simplify the distribution of business information across a network. The ScanFront 300P offers added security with the fingerprint reader to verify registered users.

The imageFORMULA ScanFront 300/300P was designed to meet ENERGY STAR qualifications for energy efficiency and comply with the RoHS and WEEE directives for reduction of hazardous substances and waste products. Contact your Authorized Canon Distributor to see it today or visit www.canon.ca/contactus/ for more information. *(Letter, Black & White, 200 dpi) Canon is a registered trademark of Canon Inc. imageFORMULA is a trademark of Canon Inc. Š 2011 Canon Canada Inc.

CHANNEL NEWS Ingram Micro brings Kaseya, Trend Micro, 1 Symantec to cloud portfolio At VTN 2011 Ingram Micro announced a handful of new additions to its cloud portfolio including offerings from Kaseya, Trend Micro and Symantec.

Kaseya, a provider of automated IT systems management software mostly leveraged by MSPs, will offer its Kaseya IT Center remote management and monitoring (RMM) product to Ingram Micro partners in the U.S. At press time, no timetable had been set for a Canadian offering.

The Ingram Micro Cloud will also offer Symantec’s Backup Exec.cloud, to assists solution providers in protecting customers’ critical data by automatically streaming it to Symantec’s secure, off-site data centres.

Trend Micro’s solution via Ingram Micro Cloud will be Deep Security – a physical, virtual and cloud server security platform.

The platform has multiple agent-less and agent-based defences to prevent breaches.

Renee Bergeron, VP managed services and cloud computing at Ingram Micro, said the company is moving in the right direction with its cloud investments.

“We’re seeing positive gains within our partner community and continue to lead the market as the IT industry’s top cloud services aggregator and single source distribution partner.”

RIM gives developers preview of BBX, new 2 tools for BlackBerry BlackBerry developer Research in Motion (RIM) showed off its new operating system for smartphones and tablets, BBX. A release from RIM said BBX will combine the “best of the QNX platform to connect people, devices, content and services.”

Perhaps the most meat for developers came in the form of new developer tool updates including WebWorks for BlackBerry and the Native SDK for the BlackBerry PlayBook, plus a developer beta of PlayBook OS 2.0 with support for running Android applications.

A release from RIM also said that BBX will include BBX-OS, and that it would support BlackBerry cloud services and development environments for both HTML5 and native developers. BBX will also support applications developed using any of the tools currently available to developers.

RIM showcased its BlackBerry Cascades UI framework for the first time, which should enable advanced graphics and capabilities such as integration between apps, always-on push services and BBM.

3

New Canadian leader for Trend Micro

Jim Short, a veteran of the technology space, is the new vicepresident and general manager Canada for Trend Micro.

Prior to joining Trend, Short had sales leadership positions at CA, Telus, Entrust and Exocom.

“I am excited to join Trend Micro, a company that consistently delivers innovative technologies and services that protect users against threats on new and emerging platforms and devices,” Short said. november 2011 | 6 |

Trend Micro’s new GM Jim Short combines sales savvy with security experience.

“Jim Short brings a winning combination of security knowledge and sales savvy to Trend Micro. His energy and experience will contribute to delivery of top-ranked client, server, and cloud-based security to our customers and partners,” said Wael Mohamed, executive vice-president corporate strategy and global field operations at Trend Micro.

The Canadian leadership team at Trend now consists of Short, Jim Over, head of sales operations, Ian Gordon, chief of marketing and channels, and Tom Moss, leading technology services.

4 HP PartnerOne dumps Elite for Specialist HP’s PartnerOne program will drop one Elite designation and switch the rest to Specialist designations. The company is also introducing new specialties.

What used to be called HP Elite status is now Specialist.

HP is making the change in response to customer feedback that indicated the term Specialist is more appropriate to help customers identify the right partner.

In the managed print arena, HP is separating out partners into two designations – Managed Print Specialist and Managed Print Advanced Specialist. HP said it is providing some additional discounts to partners from the supply perspective, as well. channel insider canada

HP is introducing the Document Solutions Specialist designation. The company has been running this in pilot with a few partners specializing in managed print and related workflow technologies.

On the Personal Systems Group side, HP is introducing a Client Side Virtualization Specialist designation. This helps partners who did not meet the revenue requirements on the server virtualization designation to participate at the Specialist level in PartnerOne’s virtualization Specialist designation.

On the networking side, HP will offer two networking specialist designations: advanced and professional. The Advanced Networking Specialist will require a revenue commitment of $500,000, the same as the previous Elite designation for networking. The Professional Networking Specialist designation will require a revenue commitment of $100,000. Both designations will provide partners with “aggressive back-end rebates.”

HP is also introducing a ServiceOne specialization, enabling partners to resell HP services and earn rebates, participate in MDF and participate in various delivery opportunities. The designation is an evolution of the Service Sales Elite designation.

5 Acer’s first Ultrabook hits Canadian shelves The first Ultrabook from Acer, the S3-951, is now available for Canadian customers. The device conforms to the standards set out

by Intel, which boil down to thin, light and powerful. Intel also wanted mainstream pricing to be kept to under $1,000. The S3 will cost early adopters $899.

Intel detailed certain parameters for manufacturers looking to use the Ultrabook name. The devices should weigh less than 3.1 pounds and have a maximum thickness of 0.8 inches.

Acer’s entry will weigh in at 2.98 pounds and reach a maximum thickness of 0.68 inches.

The first phase of Ultrabooks coming to market this fall requires at minimum 1.6 GHz Intel Sandy Bridge processors, flash-based SSDs and Intel’s HD 3000 graphics sub-system.

Acer’s S3 will be equipped with a 13.3-inch LED HD display. Acer said the display uses an “open cell design” that integrates the display’s covers with its glass panel, reducing the screen’s bezel thickness by approximately 10% over traditional displays.

As Ultrabooks don’t carry optical drives the inputs for the S3 include a card reader and headphone connector along the sides, two USB 2.0 ports and an HDMI port on the back.

Acer said in a release that the S3 will resume from sleep in as little as two seconds. This is partly due to a 20 GB SSD that holds the computer’s operating system. When the device is left inactive for eight hours it will enter a deep sleep mode; the wait for the device to resume from deep sleep is six seconds. The deep sleep mode can be configured to user preferences.

Although Acer said that through these measures the battery can last 50 days, actual computing time is closer to six hours. One of Intel’s Ultrabook requirements was five to eight hours computing time.

The S3 comes with 4GB of RAM and also a 320GB HDD (in addition to the 20GB SSD carrying the OS).

Ultrabooks like Acer’s S Series are lighter and thinner than laptops.

6 Hostway launches channel program Cloud and managed hosting service provider Hostway is positioning its new channel program to meet the needs of small and mid-size technology resellers such as interactive agencies, web and e-commerce developers, SEO/SEM providers, SaaS and independent software vendors, and VARs. The program is broken into four tiers (Registered, Silver, Gold and Platinum). The divisions align with specific revenueattainment goals: Platinum ($15,000), Gold ($10,000 to $14,999), Silver ($5,000 to $9,999) and Registered ($0 to $4,999).

Commissions are based on the tiers as well, and partners can also expect reseller as well as setup fee discounts of up to 100% depending on the tier.

All partners will get access to a partner-specific support line and a dedicated channel account manager, while Gold and Platinum partners will also get access to MDF programs, and co-branding and other marketing assistance.

“The cloud hosting and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) industries are poised for unprecedented growth over the next several years,” said Dave McCrossen, vice-president of sales at Hostway. “Hosting companies will not create or support this growth alone – technology developers, aggregators, resellers and influencers will drive growth. As a result, we have deployed a channel program that addresses the needs and concerns of these new participants in the hosting industry so that they can instantly share in the rewards of the marketplace growth.”

Along with the new channel program Hostway has also launched a partner portal, where partners can access the marketing and sales collateral materials, marketing resources, opportunity registration and real-time commission tracking. The portal is offered through a partnership with Treehouse Interactive.

Chicago-based Hostway has 11 data centres around the world including Vancouver.

november 2011 | 7 | channel insider canada

ON LOCATION

VTN FALL INVITATIONAL 2011 THERE WAS A RECORD NUMBER OF POTENTIAL NEW MEMBERS ON HAND FOR THE INGRAM MICRO VENTURE TECH NETWORK’S FALL INVITATIONAL IN LAS VEGAS. EVEN SO, THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNITY AND STRONG CONNECTIONS BETWEEN MEMBERS TOOK CENTRE STAGE.

by CHRISTOPHER ROGERS

I

ngram Micro’s Venture Tech Network (VTN) is an he said Ingram Micro is working hard to drive value back to invitation-only group consisting of the distributor’s top member businesses. partners. The members are divided by regional chapters The program is still in the first phases of rollout, but there with Canadian partners falling into either the Wild are already a number of advantages on the sales, credit and West, Maple Leaf or Fleur De Lis chapters. The invitational training sides, including internal credit analysts assigned to encourages collaboration not only on a regional or supermember businesses, assigned services development managers regional basis, but between all members. and priority from Ingram Micro’s training centre. There is a Part of what made the VTN 2011 Fall Invitational different personal touch to many of the benefits including small but from past events was the number of new members in thoughtful perks such as dedicated extensions at the Ingram attendance. Over 40 Micro solutions centre. VTN potential new VTN members also get enhanced members, many part of a customer service. “try and buy” initiative, VTN will be offering were getting their first new enhanced features for taste of the community. members that want to take New members might have advantage. There are three VTN co-president Rob Bracey on VTN expansion noticed right away the new levels of membership. conversations at VTN are on Each level brings deeper and the nature of member relationships a different level than many discounts on features such conferences. It is a businessas technical tracks and VTN to-business, executiveprograms. Members who level discussion; the standard talk of technical minutia or key choose to upgrade can also bring more attendees to the hardware/software differentiators that dominate most industry events, such as their sales team members who would benefit events is mostly absent. from a VTN experience. For members who are happy with John Fago, senior director of channel marketing at Ingram their current membership benefits, nothing changes. These Micro, kicked off the first sessions with opening remarks that options are for members who would like to see more of their highlighted the theme of marriage. It was a theme meant organization involved. to remind old and new members about the sense of purpose behind VTN. The peer-group has been active for over 10 years, VTN’s future and although it continues to expand and grow into new areas Fago laid the groundwork for where VTN is heading, choosing the same principles apply. Regional VTN chapters, for example, to first focus on segmentation. VTN has always relied on a are still a member’s go-to resource for VTN related inquiries. geographical division of members with local/regional chapters Many of the initiatives allow VTN to keep an intimate feeling acting as the home base for members. More recently, VTN has while expanding membership. experimented with super-regional events in Canada and the Fago said VTN has a blend of history, experience and U.S. with varying levels of success. Fago said by experimenting leadership. Partners are able to share ideas, practices, resources with different membership segmentations, deeper partner and ultimately success through membership. profiling and better pairing of partners, VTN can become even Rounding out the marriage theme, Fago stressed trust. “I more personal and relevant. can’t emphasize trust enough,” he said, reminding partners Other plans for the future included faster and increasingly that they come to VTN not only for partnership but for mobile connections between peers and Ingram Micro. Fago friendship. said members need, want and expect a high level of speed in connections.

White Glove and new membership options With so many new members at the event, expansion of One of the new benefits of VTN is the White Glove program.

VTN was on the minds of most attendees. Fago addressed the Fago highlighted four key areas of the program: strengthened matter of expansion including ideas that included a future awareness, prioritization, exclusive resources, and coverage. where other regions were potentially included in VTN. While According to Fago, the program boils down to “service,” as that may be a lofty goal, he also said the organization would

“IT’S LIKE ANY GRASSROOTS ORGANIZATION. ONCE YOU PLANT IT, IT GROWS ON ITS OWN.”

november 2011 | 8 |

channel insider canada

John Fago of Ingram Micro emphasized the community aspects of VTN while discussing expansion and the group’s future.

Tony Hseih, CEO of Zappos: “We’re a service company that just happens to sell shoes.”

VTN co-presidents Rob Bracey and Jim Veraldi: “We’ve all learned we compete and collaborate, but compete has a small ‘c’ and collaborate is much bigger.”

Paul Bay, EVP, North America at Ingram Micro, addressed Ingram Micro’s third quarter earnings and stressed areas of agility, accountability and partner focus for the company.

focus on more specialty groups such as the Mastermind peergroup within VTN made up of company leaders.

Fago said one immediate way VTN can expand is to deepen its reach into member organizations. VTN can explore areas such as marketing, where members bring their contacts together or other initiatives such as becoming more meaningful on the associate level, incorporating sales managers, representatives or even engineers.

Further elaborating on the direction of VTN but focusing on the organization’s advisory council (a member-led panel dealing with governance), VTN co-presidents, Rob Bracey of Toronto-based Quartet Service, and Jim Veraldi of Denville NJ-based Micro Strategies, said that one complaint about VTN is it stopped at the C-level. Clearly, there is a desire both from within Ingram Micro and the VTN membership to reach deeper into member organizations.

While keeping members satisfied is important, VTN must also remain relevant and engaging to vendors. Bracey and Veraldi said that manufacturer engagement will continue to be an important part of VTN. During the event many vendor representatives were on hand and VTN leadership encouraged new and old members alike to book times to speak one-on-one with them.

The feeling of the event was summed up best by Paul Bay, EVP, North America at Ingram Micro, who stressed the ideas of dialogue, openness and willingness to work with partners, both on the Ingram Micro business and on the member’s business.

DELIVERING HAPPINESS The VTN Fall Invitational featured many good speakers including Tony Hseih, CEO of Las Vegas-based Zappos. com, the popular online retailer, who delivered an engaging keynote to VTN members that emphasized working towards something bigger than “selling.”

While Hseih’s company primarily sells shoes, it is famous for its focus on customer service. Zappos was recently purchased by Amazon for over US$1 billion but Hseih’s commitment of “delivering happiness” to customers has not swayed.

Hseih showed how great companies lay out their core values and then stick to them, no matter what they are. He said companies must be ready to hire and fire based on these core values alone, not only performance.

For all the talk of Zappos being focused on customer experience, Hseih said its true priority is culture. Zappos is widely known for its exuberant culture that Hseih admits would not work everywhere, but he contends it is its commitment to that culture within the company that makes Zappos so successful.

november 2011 | 9 | channel insider canada

SUPPLIER POV

AVAYA DRAWS INNOVATION ROADMAP AT AI PARTNER CONFERENCE 2011 THE SHIFT FROM “COMMUNICATIONS” TO “COLLABORATION” REQUIRES A NEW LEVEL OF COMMITMENT FROM THE CHANNEL.

by CHRISTOPHER ROGERS

A

vaya’s Canadian partners are members of the Americas International (AI) region, which includes Canada as well as Latin and South America, and the Caribbean. The partner conference for this group took place in Cancun, Mexico in October. Its theme: “The Power of We.” Joel Hackney, SVP sales and marketing at Avaya, told journalists that fundamentally, this should be interpreted as “faster, better, smarter.”

Hackney said Avaya is in a period of accelerated growth.

“We have tremendous momentum as a business,” he said. “We’re very excited about what we have accomplished and what the future holds.”

Focusing on the evolution of the company, Hackney pointed out that Avaya was not simply a “telecommunications company.”

“We are a technology company that is focused on helping our customers with faster collaboration, smarter decisions, and better business.”

Finding a competitive advantage in today’s business world is always difficult and Hackney said that the speed at which companies can turn their ideas into reality is critical. For customers, Avaya was the key to speedy collaboration, he said.

Although Avaya is not able to disclose many specific numbers regarding growth because of regulations surrounding its IPO, the Americas International region experienced, “strong double-digit growth,” over the last year.

Vertical wins The company has also seen major vertical wins in Canada over the last 12 months in a range of sectors, including entertainment/ communications, government, health care and automotive.

Hackney said Avaya was seeing broad-based growth in the region across all its product lines. He said that this was the result of clearly defining the company’s position as a collaboration leader.

More and more Avaya customers are buying solutions instead of products, though UC and contact centre solutions did see particularly good growth.

It was, however, a different kind of sell over the last year for Avaya.

“Two or three years ago, I would say we would go to market with a specific technology capability,” Hackney said. “Really, the benefit of Avaya is we’re one of the very few companies that are focused on collaboration but we have the full breadth of offer.”

Hackney described one of the key differentiators as openness.

Consumerization of IT plays to this strength because solutions are device agnostic.

“Customers are looking for choice and flexibility much more than they were two or three years ago,” he said.

november 2011 | 10 |

In the AI region specifically Hackney said the past 12 months have brought more new customers than the prior two to three years.

The interest level for John DiLullo, VP Americas international, upgrades is highest in Avaya, on stage during the AI 2011 areas where the company Partner conference can bring communications enablement to a business process.

Overall, Hackney said both new customers and upgrades/ refreshes are robust areas for Avaya but it is seeing a higher percentage of net-new customers.

Impact of acquisitions Avaya recently acquired two companies, Sipera and Aurix. The Aurix acquisition occurred just weeks prior to the conference.

“We believe speech and speech recognition technology is a key differentiator going forward,” Hackney said, referencing Aurix’s speech analytics capabilities. He added that the technology would augment Avaya’s contact centre offerings.

Hackney said Avaya plans to continue to invest in the technologies it has acquired, and use its market coverage to bring the technologies to customers.

He said that Avaya will continue to use acquisitions to strengthen its current innovations instead of using them to launch into new technology areas.

On Avaya’s major acquisition of Nortel, Hackney said part of the reasoning for that acquisition was to expand Avaya’s market reach through the channel. Another driver of the acquisition was to “increase [Avaya’s] innovation momentum,” he said, including announcing close to 60 major new products in 2011, which he said represented the highest levels of innovation for Avaya in its history.

Hackney said the Nortel acquisition also helped with the transformation of Avaya from a communications company to a collaboration company by adding capabilities around data networking and services.

While Avaya doesn’t share specific R&D numbers, Hackney said the company was investing in both its channel-facing and directsales forces in the AI region.

He said the company is interested in recruiting partners that are looking to become “leader[s] in collaboration.” Avaya helps partners by investing to update their skills and marketing message to move from communications providers to collaboration providers. Hackney did say that the transition is a struggle for some partners and Avaya looks to new partners to help fill that void.

channel insider canada

Spring May 8-92012, 2012,Hart HartHouse, House, U of TT Information technology is one of the primary consumers of electricity in public and private sector organizations, accounting for as much as 5% of global power and emitting a comparable proportion of global carbon emissions.

However, responsible IT management and the intelligent application of information technology in business activities could reduce global carbon emissions by 15%. These practices are collectively known as sustainable IT. Executives and management in the 21st century will require an understanding of sustainable IT practices to reduce both their carbon footprint and overall operating costs.

The Centre for Environment, University of Toronto, in partnership with IT in Canada (publisher of the Sustainability Platform website), is presenting Sustainable IT, a 2-day workshop to provide both IT and business managers with the tools to plan and implement a decisive sustainable IT strategy.

Topics include: - IT power management - How IT & facilities can work together on sustainability - Reducing travel costs and carbon emissions with IT - Environmentally-responsible approaches to printing - E-waste management: best practices and compliance Workshop Rate: $1499 plus HST - apply now for early bird or volume discounts

For more information or to register, visit:

www.learn.environment.utoronto.ca Presented by

INDUSTRY ISSUES

LINK BETWEEN ‘BIG DATA’ AND CLOUD LOOMS LARGE IN CHANNEL’S FUTURE: EMC CUSTOMERS WILL ASK PARTNERS TO HELP THEM TURN DATA HOARDS INTO INFO GOLDMINES, STORAGE PROVIDER SAYS.

by CHRISTOPHER ROGERS

C

loud computing and “big data” were the topics of the day during EMC’s Forum 2011 held in Toronto earlier this month. The topic could be important to channel partners as most predictions indicate that an explosion in unstructured data is already well underway, and customers will need help managing all of that information.

It’s particularly important as the idea of big data gains traction.

An extension of the cloud, big data provides analysis of the various kinds of information generated within the enterprise (not only documents and files, but also machine-to-machine data, systems information, et cetera) for improved business intelligence.

Mike Sharun, country manager Canada at EMC, said that while 2009 was all about the journey to the private cloud and 2010 focused on the journey to the cloud, 2011 has focused on the intersection between the cloud and big data, and how EMC and its partners can take advantage of the cloud to manage big data.

That intersection is relevant for solution providers, said Sujal Patel, president of the Isilon storage division of EMC. He said that as the journey to the cloud continues the discussion is not just about infrastructure, but it’s also about moving up the information stack to applications and middleware.

Big data is an issue that Patel said should not only be discussed in terms of future and immediate action. The data deluge is a real concern in the enterprise. He cited a study showing that the business world contains a total of 1.2 zettabytes of data, and that amount is predicted to grow 30 times over the next 10 years.

Patel described an environment where the types and sources of data are changing, even as the amount of data simply grows. Ten years ago most data was structured, whereas he said today 90% of growth is in unstructured and semi-structured data.

EMC partners and the data/cloud roadmap For partners, the key takeaways were that virtualizing missioncritical applications has gone mainstream, that the enterprises and professionals who “win” will be the ones who make the most of big data, and that the hybrid model of a partially private/ partially public cloud will be the platform of choice for the enterprise.

Enza Alexander, executive vice-president of OnX Enterprise Solutions, an EMC partner, said that EMC is the storage platform provider for OnX’s second- and third-generation cloud. The thirdgeneration solution Alexander described as a partnership that included EMC, Cisco, VMware, and OnX together.

“We believe that [EMC] understands that one of the major opportunities in cloud is really to have the ability to store more data, and to store it at potentially a lower price-point.”

Alexander said the other part of the opportunity is how clients access their data and information. How that data is used to create

november 2011 | 12 |

valuable insights for the client is just as important as the storage solution itself.

As for where customers are on the journey to the cloud, FlexITy’s chief architect Nolan Evans said they’re still exploring. “[Customers] are trying to build a strategy and trying to understand what cloud means to them for their specific business needs, because in the end, Sharun: Channel can use cloud to manthe cloud as a model age big data of delivering IT makes a lot of sense, because it’s leveraging the capabilities from the staggering growth we’ve seen in technology capabilities over the last few years.”

Leveraging the channel Although it’s no longer difficult to make a case for storage and cloud infrastructure, today’s economy means that more people are trying to make the most of what they already have. Michael Kerr, EMC’s director of channels in Canada, said customers are interested in having EMC and its partners help streamline storage assets.

Evans from FlexITy said clients are still buying – strategically.

“Customers are quite willing to make an investment on a new platform that has real ROI in a fairly short period of time that will take them further forward,” he said.

Kerr said EMC is finding that the cloud concept is providing customers with a much faster ROI. He also highlighted a number of new products that are exclusive to the channel including the VNXe series and the Datadomain DD160. “[EMC] is trying to teach our sales force that while we have tremendous expertise in our product set we don’t necessarily have all the necessary expertise in all the other areas,” Kerr said.

“So we’re doing a better job of educating our own sales force to leverage the much bigger team we can be.”

EMC’s partners tend to agree. Evans said he has worked with EMC in various capacities for over 10 years, and the evolution of its channel business has been staggering.

“They’re very much more a channel-focused organization than they ever were,” he said. channel insider canada

RESEARCH FEATURE

CUSTOMER CONNECTIONS: ALIGNING MARKETING ACTIVITY WITH BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MARKETING HAS LONG BEEN CONSIDERED TO BE A WEAK LINK IN THE CHANNEL’S SALES AND DELIVERY PROCESS. RECENT RESEARCH SHOWS THAT THERE IS BOTH INTEREST IN AND ROOM FOR GROWTH…

by MICHAEL O’NEIL

I

t’s axiomatic that Figure 1 effective marketing is what differentiates IMPACT AND EFFECTIVENESS “great” from “just OF THE MARKETING FUNCTION good” VARs. And it’s clear that channel marketing managers, and the vendors and distributors that support them, are looking to improve the marketing cost/benefit ratio. What isn’t always clear, though, are the answers to the specific issues that each cog in the system wrestles with.

Vendors wonder what kinds of investments work best to advance the channel’s ability to attract new customers and further develop existing clients. Distributors look to understand where their resellers have gaps in marketing capability, and how they can provide services that will address compared with where buy-side managers capitalizing on its benefits, but less these requirements. report that they look when evaluating certain that they are investing at the Meanwhile, the channel itself is trying IT products or suppliers. Here’s what we same rate as their peers. to manage a portfolio of marketing learned…

Let’s look at these issues individually. activities that is largely shaped by past Responses to the statement “Marketing investments, but which needs to respond 1. Marketing’s role in channel is essential to our business success” to new and evolving customer demands. business success show that this belief is near-universal To shed some light on this area, IT The first section in our survey looked in the channel. Almost three-quarters Market Dynamics, with support from at marketing’s contribution to business of respondents “completely agree” Ingram Micro Canada, conducted success. We asked respondents to react with this statement, and another 20% a survey of 257 Canadian channel to three statements: “Marketing is “somewhat agree” less than 10% are members – readers of Channel Insider. essential to our business success,” “We neutral or disagree, a finding that will The survey included several questions do an excellent job of using marketing to come as some surprise to observers who that we had asked in 4Q10, giving us drive our business success,” and “How believe that marketing is sometimes a total sample of 510 respondents (or would you rate your organization’s treated as the (much) less significant two time-sequenced groups of about marketing effectiveness – both in terms portion of channel “sales and marketing” 250 each) to look at issues like vendor of overall effectiveness, and in terms of responsibilities. contributions to channel business the efficiency of your use of marketing As is seen in the pie chart in Figure 1, success, as well as “net new” questions resources – relative to your peers in the responses to “We do an excellent job of targeted at evolving channel marketing channel?” The responses demonstrate using marketing to drive our business needs, and one question structured to that the channel is convinced that provide perspective on where the channel marketing matters and that they are thinks customers turn for information, Continued on page 14... november 2011 | 13 | channel insider canada

RESEARCH FEATURE Continued from page 13...

success” tell a similar Figure 2 tale. Here, we find 37% of respondents reporting that they “completely agree” with the statement, marking themselves as leaders within the channel – and an additional 35% who “somewhat agree.”

Asked to categorize their effectiveness and efficiency relative to peers in the channel, we get an interestinglydistorted view, with the common selfperception switching to “efficiency.” As is seen in the 2x2 matrix in Figure 1, more than 90% of our respondents believe that they are “more efficient” in their use of marketing resources than their peers. However, this group is split roughly in half, with one segment believing that they are both more efficient and more effective than their peers, and the other believing that they are more efficient but less effective – essentially, reporting that they make good use of marketing resources, but that their organizations under-invest in the function.

Summary finding: Channel members believe that marketing is important to their organizations, and that they are efficient users of often-scarce resources.

2. Marketing funding and uses The previous analysis begs some related questions, including: what is the extent of the channel’s marketing investment, and where do they obtain the greatest benefits from these investments? These were two of a series of questions asked

by ITMD to establish the current norms in channel marketing practice.

PROPORTION OF REVENUE ALLOCATED TO MARKETING

As Figure 2 shows, there is some divergence in the proportion of revenue allocated to marketing, both within and across the three channel business models considered in our research: services-centric, or channel members deriving more than 60% of revenue from services; product-centric, which refers to resellers who derive more than 60% of revenue from product resale; and balanced services/product, used to describe resellers who derive 40% to 60% of revenue from both product resale and services. In total, our respondents dedicate just less than 2.5% of overall revenue to marketing; as is seen in the Figure, marketing investments are somewhat lower within the servicescentric group, and somewhat higher for product-centric resellers. One possible reason for this is the use of co-operative marketing funds from vendors, which often require co-investment: elsewhere in the survey, we looked at access to vendor marketing funds, and found that this latter group makes more use

november 2011 | 14 |

of vendor marketing programs, which would increase both overall marketing spend and the channel contribution to marketing activity.

In both the 3Q11 survey and the ITMD channel survey conducted in 4Q10, we asked channel respondents to rank the business impact of seven different marketing activities – three vendor-funded activities, and four other areas which are generally channel-run – on reseller sales and profitability. The aggregate responses from more than 500 Canadian channel respondents are fascinating: three of the four highestimpact areas are funded by vendors, and three of the four activities that are generally in the domain of channel marketing – paid search/SEO/online marketing, channel-funded direct mail/ advertising, and PR/press coverage initiatives – rank at the bottom of the list. The results to this and related questions highlight areas where

channel insider canada

Continued on page 16...

IT in Canada’s Reseller Reference File (RREF) is our directory of lead ing Canadian resellers

Receive current, actionable intelligence on the 1,100 900 most important and innovative VARs in Canada Type/size Geography Products carried Vendors carried Company description VAR records include company name and address, URL, phone number, and contact executives. Almost all records also contain the names of key contacts within the organization.

Regular updates and expansion: Each entry checked annually for “in business” status, and 150 new entries added to the file each quarter The RREF has been built from a variety of sources – lists of top resellers, of Microsoft partners, of advanced partners of 20+ other vendors, of firms selling targeted solutions, and by including firms covered in our research activities, including those who have won BusinessPeople’s Choice© awards.

Most recent additions: 100+ leading ERP solution partners.

The RREF is sold as an Access database application The interface allows customers to search on any of the fields in the database: products carried vendors carried, location of headquarters or branch offices, or the scope of the reseller’s operations (national/ international, super-regional, regional, local).

Customers can also search by VAR name Available today, to help increase the productivity of your channel sales force!

For more information on the RREF

CONTACT US

at Sales@itincanada.ca

or call Patricia Bush 905-727-4091 x336

RESEARCH FEATURE Continued from page 14...

suppliers might usefully support the channel.

Vendor contributions are particularly wellreceived in field sales and marketing (and especially, as a related question shows, in lead generation); the channel will value improved performance in this area. Meanwhile, the lack of impact from online marketing and media-related communications might indicate opportunities for distributors, which are increasingly active in supporting reseller marketing activities, to provide needed assistance.

Figure 3

IMPACT OF MARKETING OPTIONS ON SALES AND PROFITABILITY

Summary finding: Channel members do invest in marketing, but rely heavily on vendor support for marketing activities.

3. Alignment of channel and buyer perceptions Perhaps the most fascinating finding from the 3Q11 VAR research actually results from a comparison to an earlier ITMD survey, asking end-users where they turn for information on new IT products and suppliers. We repeated the same categories in our reseller survey, asking the channel where they believe their customers turn for insight.

As Figure 4 shows, while the channel is “tuned in” to the importance of referrals and print and online trade media – and the less-widespread appeal of case studies and analyst reports – there are some major discrepancies in the perceived importance of online and print general/business media, and of blogs and forums. Channel members ascribe much greater weight to online articles from general or business media than do buyers themselves. Conversely, the 710 IT in Canada subscribers surveyed last year are far more interested in what they

find in newspapers or general business magazines, and in blog and forum posts, than the channel appears to realize.

Summary finding: Channel members’ understanding of user information sources is not well aligned with customer behaviour; better targeting would likely increase the impact of communications activities.

offerings and oriented towards field sales support, represent an efficient use of marketing resources. However, actual execution in delivery of marketing messages is mis-aligned with buyer requirements.

What does this mean for the three stakeholder groups discussed at the top of this article? Implications vary across the communities: vendors need to continue to invest directly in field sales and marketing activities, especially those

The Channel Marketing in Canada:

Conclusions Netting out the data in Figure 4 relative to the other three figures, we see a portrait emerging. We have a channel that is “bought in” to the importance of marketing. It is investing in the marketing function – perhaps not to the degree that it would like, but as an important aspect of ongoing operations.

The channel believes that its activities, which are primarily shaped by vendor

november 2011 | 16 |

channel insider canada

2011-2012 report is available to subscribers to ITMD’s All Points Connected research program at no charge. Non clients can order the report, which is delivered as a PowerPoint presentation, for $995 plus HST. Please contact Stephen Symonds at Stephen.symonds@itincanada.ca for more information.

RESEARCH FEATURE that yield usable leads; distributors have an opportunity to step up to help resellers to execute on areas like online optimization (including blogging) and PR; and the channel itself needs to better understand where customers are looking for information, and position their messages accordingly.

However, in the end, all of these imperatives combine on a single set of requirements: marketing needs to be a shared activity across VARs, vendors, and distributors – and it needs to use the available resources from all three communities to better align investment with buyer requirements, to the mutual business benefit of the entire IT supply chain.

Figure 4

WHAT DO YOU THINK THE BUYER REACTS TO?

PARTNERS NEED HELP SHARPENING MARKETING SKILLS In the battle for business, value-added resellers would do well to work with distributors and vendors to hone their marketing efforts, according to Ingram Micro’s vice-president and general manager for Canada.

Responding to results from IT Market Dynamics’ channel marketing study, Mark Snyder noted that only the best channel organizations are considered to be truly effective marketers.

That’s no surprise, he said. “Due to the complexity of our businesses, it takes a lot of skill and experience to develop to the point where there is a solid return on investment of channel marketing dollars. This is why we recommend that VARs partner with experts such as our vendors and Ingram Micro, rather than trying to fund half-solutions that are ineffective and detract resources from a VAR’s main business.”

Different kinds of resellers need different kinds of marketing programs, he said. “Are they selling transactional type products? If so, they can focus on effectively utilizing their website and growing their database by pushing leads through the online channel. Are they service-based or dealing with product solutions that have a much longer sales cycle? Do they have a strong sales team that can nurture warm leads?

Then they might benefit from lead or appointment generation campaigns.”

Product-centric resellers may want to apply different tactics than service-centric companies, but according to Snyder, both should begin with data analysis.

“I think it is crucial that VARs ensure they start with strong data analytics so that they can customize their message and offerings,” he said.

Social media has become an important marketing tool, yet the channel lags in that area, according to the survey. “VARs may under-value social media vehicles such as blogs – when in fact the end-user decision makers have stated that this is a channel they often use to get information,” Snyder said. “So if a VAR wants a very inexpensive way to be positioned as an expert, or a non-biased thought leader, investing time in social media would be a great start.”

Traditional media outlets can also play a role in VAR marketing, yet many partners don’t engage newspapers and magazines. Snyder said that has to change.

“The reseller channel should consider starting with very simple [public relations] initiatives. Connecting with their local media to discuss their philanthropic initiatives is a great option. Many VARs partner with local charities and when those initiatives are profiled in the media, it’s good for the charities and the VARs.”

november 2011 | 17 | channel insider canada

TRIBUTE TO STEVE JOBS

‘STAY HUNGRY, STAY FOOLISH’ MORE BONO THAN GATES, APPLE’S CEO PUT EXCELLENCE ABOVE ALL ELSE.

T

by CHRISTOPHER ROGERS

Image provided by Acaben, cropped by Kyro

he outpouring that followed the death of Steve Jobs was not difficult to foresee but it was nonetheless wonderful to observe.

My local Apple store was decorated with hundreds of multi-coloured sticky notes, each with personalized thank yous and condolences for Apple’s former CEO. How could this be? Jobs was the CEO of a massive corporate entity. This type of mourning is usually reserved for rock stars rather than businessmen. But understand: Jobs was a rock star. The company that he helped found, and the company he brought back from the brink, is beloved. Apple carries with it the same sort of feverish fandom that usually only accompanies stadium-packing rockers.

So then, what was Jobs’ White Album, his Pet Sounds, his Exile on Main Street? It wasn’t the iPod, iMac, or iPhone. It was simply a commitment to excellence.

Beyond innovation Many obituaries and articles have dubbed Jobs an innovator, and he was. But Jobs sought to give users an experience they did not get anywhere else; they couldn’t get anywhere else.

If an Apple fan takes a good look at the track record of the company, has it always been innovative? No. But, under his watch has it always been excellent? Absolutely.

That idea not only permeated all of the products Apple has released since he last took over as CEO, but it seems to have been instilled in the culture of the company and it will remain a concept that resonates with consumers.

Jobs set out to deliver an excellent user experience and that is still the cornerstone of what Apple products do. Even the experience at Apple’s retail stores, despite always being packed, is about an experience. There are no cash registers and they are loaded with employees ready to help.

Apple’s machines do not come with a plethora of customization options and they’re not always innovative (remember the FireWire debacle? The circular mouse on the first iMac? Do you remember the Rokr phone?), but everything down to the power cord (MagSafe) exudes excellence. Often, it results in products that are strikingly innovative.

Apple’s slogan for years was “Think Different” and that is indeed what Jobs did. His style was more reminiscent of Bono than Gates. It was blue-jeans and a black mock-turtleneck; so very anticorporate and that too made Jobs even more likeable.

Combine it all and frankly, from a consumer’s perspective, Apple is very easy to fall in love with. It’s what many have done and what many will continue to do.

One of the most memorable of Jobs’ many speeches was his 2005 commencement address at Stanford University. In it he addressed his first bout with cancer: “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.

november 2011 | 18 |

Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”

More than Mac Many will only remember the Steve Jobs of Apple’s recent renaissance, but when looking back at his first run with Apple, then Pixar, even NeXT, being excellent is everything. Pixar is the best and most well-known animation studio in the world and much of today’s OS X environment is built on OPENSTEP, a NeXT platform.

It’s difficult to actually imagine Apple without thinking of Jobs.

His culture became the culture of the company and it is almost impossible to conceive of a scenario where that changes.

At the end of the Stanford speech, Jobs talks about a magazine from his youth called The Whole Earth Catalog, and its final issue: “On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: ‘Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.’ It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself…”

To the end Jobs was both.

In the days that followed his death, there were many who commented that they didn’t understand the cascade of emotion from the public. After all, they hadn’t lost their iPhone and their MacBooks still worked. But what those comments missed was Jobs’ stature in culture: he was a giant, and, not for the products he helped create but for the values that underpinned those efforts.

In other words: The king is gone, but he’s not forgotten.

channel insider canada

PROGRAM UPDATES

MCAFEE UPDATES CHANNEL STRATEGY WHILE LENOVO STAYS THE COURSE

by CHRISTOPHER ROGERS

MCAFEE UPDATES CHANNEL STRATEGY, FOCUSES ON THREE PILLAR APPROACH

B

ehind McAfee’s latest channel program update is the theme of “partner profitability.” At its Focus 11 partner summit in Las Vegas, the security vendor said the program would now focus on three key pillars: investing in partners, growing together, and optimize for partners.

With the first pillar, investing in partners, McAfee will strive to offer the channel programs, tools, training and resources that drive mutual profitability. The company cites its McAfee Accredited Channel Engineer (ACE) program as an example because it provides partners with the skills to independently drive technical pre-sales activities.

A new initiative under this pillar is the McAfee Authorized Support Provider (MASP) program. It has been in a limited pilot program, but now enters general availability. Through the program, partners gain access to comprehensive training, proprietary tools and third-level support engineers. The program trains partners to develop expertise in delivering first- and second-level McAfee support.

The second pillar, growing together, is aimed at identifying new markets and opportunities for partner growth. For this pillar, McAfee announced that it is expanding its partner program SecurityAlliance beyond the reseller ecosystem. The new McAfee Managed Service Partner (MSP) program will now be included as part of SecurityAlliance.

With the change in approach for MSPs, McAfee hopes to address the unique needs of this partner segment. They will now have the ability to sell, deploy and support their own branded solutions.

McAfee added new SMB specializations over the summer to its channel program. Included in that update was SMB accelerated deal registration, which offered deal protection and 25% margin enhancements. McAfee also promised deals were to be approved in four hours or less. To date, McAfee has approximately 1,000 partners participating in the program.

“Together with our partners we are going to lead the transformation of the computing experience to one that is more mobile, seamless, and secure,” said Alex Thurber, senior vicepresident of worldwide channels at McAfee. “We are evolving our channel strategy to fuel this transformation by helping our channel partners innovate and differentiate themselves. There has never been a better time to partner with McAfee.”

The third pillar, optimize for partners, is meant to make it easier for partners to do business with McAfee. This boils down to enablement and to that extent McAfee will deploy a new continuing-education approach for partners. Certified individuals will now begin to receive credits for approved learning activities that can then be applied towards certification requirements the following year. There will also be a new learning management system. Both new programs will be available in January 2012.

LENOVO’S CHANNEL SALES DIRECTOR TALKS CHANNEL STRATEGY IN CANADA

W

hile not specifically a channel update, Lenovo’s channel sales director, Stefan Bockhop, recently spoke with Channel Insider about the company’s strategy in Canada. Lenovo, in Canada does 80% to 85% of its business through the commercial or business partner channel with some variation from quarter to quarter.

“We are primarily distribution focused, so distribution is our hub to the marketplace,” Bockhop said. “We think they offer scope, scale and capabilities and logistics that we can’t offer at the same rate and level of execution, so that’s our primary route to market.”

Bockhop said that over the past six years, Lenovo has focused on listening to partners and trying to offer programs that provide the route to market or support they look for as they are building solutions for their customers. Partners, he said, want the programs to be effective but straightforward. Partners are also looking for support on the post-sales end as well.

Part of what makes Lenovo unique in the PC space is something it doesn’t offer, namely, a services business. Bockhop said that is a positive differentiator for the company. Partners understand that Lenovo is not going to compete with them on professional services where many of them make the majority of their profits.

Bockhop was clear that professional services is not an area Lenovo is considering either.

In terms of break-fix, Lenovo delivers 90% of the service through partners. “Partners do like the fact that they can service what they sell. It’s part of their value proposition and as a channel-focused company we fully support that,” he said.

november 2011 | 19 | channel insider canada

TRACKER NETWORKS

SPECIAL BID PRICING: SEPTEMBER 2011

WHAT DOES THE FIRST YEAR-OVER-YEAR COMPARISON HOLD?

W

by JASON DOEL, Tracker Networks e have a few new VENDOR BID VOLUME BY MONTH figures this month: a year-over-year comparison for the month of September and a new table showing 12-month trend lines in addition to the standard six-month versions. Despite the volume increase, August’s volume was still lower than March and every month in Q2. You have to go back to February to find a month with lower volumes.

Bid volumes increased again in September, up 9% from August and continuing on the 8% growth from July. This increase fit the typical quarterly pattern of highest volumes in the final month of the quarter and was expected with the general seasonal increase in business activity that VOLUME OF SPECIAL PRICING AGREEMENTS IN THE CANADIAN CHANNEL occurs in September.

The increase in September was still not enough to make up for the large drop in July.

September volumes are higher than the sixmonth rolling average, but only modestly so. The six-month rolling trend line is still downward for overall bid volume and for hardware vendor volumes in particular. are needed to close deals. This is certainly a logical hypothesis, We have included although our anecdotal experience leads us to believe that this may charts for a 12-month trend line for the first time. These charts not be the case. As a majority of hardware transactions are already show that the 12-month trend line has continued positive. This done through special bids (i.e. it has become standard practice in could be based on the larger volumes earlier in the year that good times and bad), it may be that fewer bids simply reflect fewer continue to elevate volumes on a year-over-year basis. Factoring transactions being done. A comparison of average discount levels in the downward six-month trend line, it appears that bid pricing would shine real light on this question, but we are not able to activity has slowed for hardware vendors over the last quarter and provide this analysis at this time. may reflect an overall decrease in business activity.

Also interesting is that software vendors have diverged from We also included a year-over-year monthly comparison for the hardware and are showing a positive trend line. This coincides with first time, comparing September 2011 volumes with September our observations that more software vendors are starting to follow 2010. These show that volumes are essentially flat over the last hardware vendors in the use of special bids. As a much lower year. While this does not show a decrease, it is not in line with percentage of software transactions have been done through bid an increasing 12-month trend line and does support the idea of a letters in the past, an increase in software bid volume could reflect slowdown in the last quarter. an increase in the need to discount to get business closed. Either The question is still open as to what lower hardware bid way, software vendors continue their trend of making greater use volumes really mean. It has been suggested that tougher economic of bid pricing. times would result in a larger number of bids as more discounts november 2011 | 20 |

channel insider canada

CASE FILE DESKTOP VIRTUALIZATION PROVIDES PEACE OF MIND AT LAW FIRM HOW OUTSOURCING IT TO CLOUD-BASED VIRTUALIZATION LET AN OFFICE MANAGER RELAX OVER THE SUMMER

by ROBERT JANELLE

M

inken Employment Lawyers is a small Toronto-based law firm specialized in helping employers and employees resolve workplace disputes.

The 20-year-old firm has about 10 users, as well as part-time employees and a bookkeeper working remotely. The company’s IT infrastructure included desktops for users, and servers to keep all of the data and to run the legal software.

However, the firm lacks in-house IT support. Instead, technology issues are the responsibility of office manager Natasha Krestinina, along with all of her other day-to-day administrative duties.

The firm is always looking to keep up with the latest technology, but Minken began to find it difficult to keep up with users’ hardware requirements.

“We had servers on site that weren’t powerful enough for what we wanted to do,” said Krestinina. “They became difficult to manage for me, not being from an IT background.”

The firm had tried working with IT consultants in the past, but did not have very good experiences.

“We had IT issues all the time and we don’t have the resources to have in-house IT,” said Krestinina.

The situation would change when members of the firm attended a seminar put on by ThinDesk.

Hosted virtual PC ThinDesk is a Markham, Ont.-based provider of hosted virtual desktops, allowing users to switch to a thin-client setup, delivering a full desktop experience through the cloud, while the heavy lifting is done by rented servers in a data centre.

In essence, not only do ThinDesk users outsource IT support, but hardware and software as well.

“I was sold instantly,” said Krestinina. “There was no hope of getting strong IT support in a small office.”

Users at Minken access a full Windows desktop through VMware, though not over a conventional Internet connection, but a secure network run by Bell Canada.

ThinDesk infrastructure also provides back-up support, sending additional copies to a separate data centre. However, given the importance of data security and retention in the legal profession, Krestinina said the firm is planning to set up its own on-site backup server for added protection.

“Lawyers are very concerned about data,” she said.

The solution was delivered directly by ThinDesk staff, occasionally checking in with the law firm for necessary technical details.

“It was, from my perspective, smooth,” said Krestinina.

The thin-client setup went live in May after a day of downtime that was expected, especially given that the company was making such a drastic change to the IT infrastructure.

For users, however, the change was minimal as the virtual desktop isn’t too different from a stand-alone PC, said Krestinina.

Users did need to adapt to some minor differences – for example, transferring files to a USB drive requires a slightly different procedure.

The only real hitch, explained Krestinina, has been getting the planned on-site backup server working, as additional on-site servers are not part of the usual ThinDesk setup.

“They’ve been very accommodating,” she said.

Time savings While Krestinina said she expects to see cost savings in the future from switching to cloud-based virtual desktops, she said the biggest immediate benefit has been saving time.

First of all, there’s a massive reduction in downtime from having all of the hardware in a data centre with trained IT staff ready to handle anything that might go wrong.

Time has also been saved in that the company no longer needs to hold meetings to discuss what kind of hardware or software is appropriate. Instead, Minken defers to what is available in the data centre; this paves the way for potential cost savings in the future.

“Hardware is expensive at a small firm and trying to keep up is financially demanding,” said Krestinina. “There’s no worrying about hardware to upgrade now.”

Running virtual machines through the cloud off site has also provided users with a better experience working remotely. For example, Krestinina explained, in the event of a power failure, users could go home and log into the same session, with all of their applications as they were before the power went out.

Finally, moving most of the IT infrastructure off site has freed Krestinina from most of the IT duties. She no longer has to operate as a one-woman IT administrator and help desk.

“I had my first normal summer in 12 years,” she said. “I wasn’t worried about any IT issues.”

Users were instead directed to ThinkDesk’s support, which was able to guide staff through any technical issues that arose.

“I think morale has improved with a happier office manager,” she said.

november 2011 | 21 | channel insider canada

FOCUS ON COLLABORATION

THE MORE, THE MERRIER IN COLLABORATION TECHNOLOGIES COMBINING A NUMBER OF COLLABORATION TECHNOLOGIES YIELDS THE GREATEST BENEFITS – BUT UNCOVERS NUMEROUS ISSUES AS WELL.

by STEFAN DUBOWSKI

“It appears – perhaps unsurprisingly – that collaborative

No surprise

infrastructure only delivers benefit when multiple systems

That organizations employing more than one kind of collaboration technology see more benefits came as no surprise to channel interviewees.

“It’s not very often that we have an engagement with a client that is only looking at one thread of unified communication,” said Tom Jolly, VP, GM, unified communications at MTS Allstream.

“They’re not just looking at IP telephony.

They’re thinking about presence and Tom Jolly, UC leader at MTS Allstream, integrating that with says hosted unified communications introtheir messaging duce small businesses to collaboration infrastructure, and can technologies. they connect that to their video collaboration infrastructure.”

But the tough stuff resides in the details. For instance, what size organization are we discussing here? Selling small businesses on collaborative solutions – as opposed to individual collaboration technologies – is particularly difficult, Jolly said.

For one thing, small organizations often lack high-tech sophistication; there’s a good chance that the prospective smallbiz client doesn’t know what collaboration is, or how its various pieces (unified communications, unified messaging, presence, social-media platforms, et al.) might help the business. Channel partners selling to the small business space face having to teach customers about the technology before even coming close to landing a sale.

But perhaps even more challenging is addressing the small business’ collaboration needs, which typically have more to do with improving communication with external partners and customers than with Continued on page 24...

are integrated within the enterprise; users who deploy a ‘stand-alone collaborative’ technology are likely to find that these applications convey limited benefit to their organizations.”

S

uch was our pronouncement late last year, based on findings from a survey conducted by IT Market Dynamics (ITMD), the research arm of the IT in Canada network, designed to explore issues with collaboration technologies. In its analysis of survey responses, ITMD discovered that organizations using just one kind of collaboration system – unified communications on its own, for instance, or an internal social media platform alone – weren’t exactly ringing up massive cost savings or crowing over productivity gains. But organizations using more than one sort of collaboration – unified communications in conjunction with social media, for example – were well pleased with the results.

ITMD explained: Success seems to stem from multi-layered collaboration system implementations. Respondents reporting that collaborative systems contribute significantly to their success share certain traits: • More than 30% are more likely (than those who are not deriving significant business benefit from collaboration systems) to be using supply chain systems or internal collaboration products.

• More than 60% are more likely to be using community or social media as collaborative tools.

• Nearly 200% are more likely to have deployed UC systems within their organizations.

The more the merrier? This being the technology realm, it’s never so simple. To test ITMD’s conclusions in the real marketplace, we have gathered in this article, views on collaboration from the channel’s perspective. And while the folks we contacted said the results seemed right, they also outlined a number of challenges associated with this type of multi-solution implementation that could count as stumbling blocks – or opportunities – for value-added resellers. november 2011 | 22 |

channel insider canada

FOCUS ON COLLABORATION Continued from page 22... sharing information internally. It’s one thing to convince a business owner that collaboration technologies help save money and boost productivity. It’s another thing when you have to convince the business partners and clients as well.

“It becomes a difficult conversation for them to have in that they can’t really drive change in those other organizations,” Jolly said, describing the small-business owner’s point of view.

Still, think back about 10 years ago, and you might recall that unified communications was considered something of a largebusiness technology. Today, mid-sized companies use it, Jolly said; so it may just be a matter of time before small businesses also come around on collaboration. Hosted unified communications offerings from companies like MTS Allstream provide a smallbusiness gateway for collaborative solutions, he said, explaining that a business owner may wish to explore the possibilities of collaboration once he’s used to UC.

Importance of search When IT professionals discuss collaboration technology, they usually reference unified communications and social media functionality. They don’t often mention search functionality.

According to Gary Novosel, it’s time for that to change.

The CTO of Edmonton-based technology service provider and collaboration specialist Acrodex, Novosel pointed out that all too often, search is the missing piece of the collaborative puzzle.

He noted that collaboration intrinsically involves myriad information. When a customer-service representative has one of the business’s clients on the phone, for instance, the rep may want to not only find a subject-matter expert to help address the customer’s issue, but the rep might also seek marketing material or product diagrams to send to the client via email to further meet the client’s needs.

A comprehensive search platform brings all of those things together – and yet, organizations often overlook search as an important component of collaboration. Novosel said he brought this up in a question for analysts at Gartner during a recent conference, and the response he received suggests that for many businesses, it’s a matter of failing to distinguish the forest from the trees.

“It’s a little bit time consuming, and it’s also a little bit nebulous for companies,” he said. “They are spending the majority of their time trying to get somebody to answer the question that the client just asked, trying to find the document or PDF that relates the success story to the client – and out of habit, I think, they simply haven’t gone to that length yet,” – the address of those problems head on with a search implementation.

It’s a challenge to convince customers of the importance of search, he said, though some are starting to get the point.

“I think it’s a little bit of an uphill slog. We’re starting to see that some of our larger customers are recognizing that business intelligence... is becoming more and more important. In the City of Edmonton, for example, we’re starting to see that within their software-as-a-service applications. They certainly see a need for it.”

Another challenge for businesses implementing collaboration solutions has to do with understanding just which technologies address individual employees’ needs. Collaboration encompasses

november 2011 | 24 |

such an array of hardware and software that it can be difficult to pinpoint the proper solution, Novosel said.

That challenge is best met with employee information: what does the worker do? What tasks are involved? Who do they connect with? What sort of corporate data do they need?

“The business would need to clearly articulate not the titles, but the roles and responsibilities to be able to understand the business process and who needs access to what information,” Novosel said, adding that channel partners can position themselves to help end-user organizations with business-process assessments.

One platform, many feeds Collaboration technology creators, meanwhile, are positioning themselves to provide end-user organizations with a new level of connectivity. Collaboration platform provider Open-Xchange, for instance, has developed a system that draws numerous communication feeds into one place, so users can manage the information more effectively, whether it comes from email, instant messaging, or LinkedIn. “The challenge is that the average user needs to select a channel to work with, but on the other hand, they need quick access to that other information without having to go to all the different sources,” said Frank Hoberg, Open-Xchange’s co-founder.

“It’s a gap. So many things have developed in the last three to five years, but it’s not easy to make efficient use of it.”

That’s why Open-Xchange’s collaboration technology is designed to pull information from social media websites, email and other communication channels into a unified dashboard. But the next version, due out in the second half of 2012, will go even further.

“We turned it around,” Hoberg said. “For example, if you were part of my contact list and I click on your name, I can see everything that’s going on with you, whether that’s an appointment, your Twitter feed, or your LinkedIn profile, whether you’re on Skype.”

It’s like presence on steroids, giving users the information needed to connect with others via the most appropriate technology. If the person you want to contact is on Skype, for instance, you could use Skype to contact her, rather than waste time composing an email or leaving a voice mail message.

Open-Xchange’s system can be installed on a customer’s premises, or offered as a cloud-based service via partners. (The company’s Canadian partners include Cirrus Hosting, LinuxMagic, and ABPro.) Hoberg said the hosted solution accounts for the majority of Open-Xchange’s sales. But where does that leave the average value-added reseller? Most VARs aren’t interested in building their own cloud platforms to compete in the collaboration market.

Hoberg said he figures distributors have an important role to play.

“The distributors have the power to set up their own cloud services. And that’s what we’re doing right now as well. Beyond the web hosting companies and telcos, we are setting up businesses with distributors, which are a great source for VARs to resell cloud services.”

channel insider canada

FOCUS ON HEALTH CARE

HEALTH CARE IN CANADA: THE IT PERSPECTIVE

MANY VARS SEE HEALTH CARE AS A MAJOR OPPORTUNITY. HERE’S WHY.

by IT MARKET DYNAMICS, THE RESEARCH DIVISION OF IT IN CANADA

HEALTH CARE MARKET SEGMENTS

Health care is a complex sector. In this chart, we’ve shown six segments, but each of these can be combined in different ways (for example, as with the LHINs in Ontario) as funders seek the optimal balance between network efficiencies and responsive care delivery.

From an IT perspective, there are additional layers of complexity. The system can be seen as divided acute vs. chronic care, with acute care accounting for most large IT-inclusive projects, and chronic care accounting for a majority of overall budgets.

Within several segments, there are different application ecosystems, each with their own leaders. Layer on top of all of this the attempt (headed

by Canada Health Infoway) to create standards for Electronic Health Records that span the different care delivery points, and global databases designed to collect and analyze diagnosis and care information, and you see a sector with many different ways to profitably deploy information management systems.

HEALTH CARE ECONOMICS Canadian spending on health care has increased tremendously, rising from $12.2 billion in 1975 to over $191 billion in 2010 – at which point, health care spending represents more than 12% of GDP, up from 10.2% as recently as 2005.

There is a clear need to rein in growth in health care spending, especially as – with an aging population – demand for service is likely to continue to increase. There is a clear case for increasing spending on IT, which is generally thought to have been under-deployed in Canada vs. the US, and the overall opportunity for automation-enabled efficiency.

However, it is difficult for administrators to allocate budget for technology when they have pressing needs for more physicians, nurses, medications, medical equipment… november 2011 | 25 | channel insider canada

FOCUS ON HEALTH CARE IT IN CANADIAN HEALTH CARE

Data from IT Market Dynamics shows that health care allocates 2.9% of revenues to IT product acquisitions, and 4.4% to IT operations – meaning that despite the perception that Canadian health care is under-invested in IT, health care as an industry is actually more IT-intensive than many other industry sectors.

This underscores the enormous opportunity for applying technology within the health care system – and also, the need for greater IT efficiency, particularly in operations. Overall 2011 growth in IT expenditures for health care, at 3.6%, is somewhat lower than the aggregate for other industry sectors (4.5%).

It’s worth noting that the health care industry segments – acute care facilities, long term care facilities, physicians offices and clinics, research facilities, and administrative offices – use and support technology in very different ways, so “average results” may not apply as neatly to individual operations here as in other sectors.

2011 IT PRODUCT SPENDING IN CANADIAN HEALTH CARE

In 2011, the Canadian health care sector is expected to spend just over $2.5 billion on IT products.

Client devices represent one-third of this total, and software, nearly 25%. Other major categories include servers, networking, and storage, each of which is expected to account for 11%12% of new acquisitions.

HEALTH CARE AND THE CHANNEL

As might be expected, a market that is complex, IT-intensive, and poised for future growth attracts the attention of the Canadian channel. A poll of North American VARs conducted at the SYNNEX Varnex 2011 spring conference in Boston showed that 13% of attendees considered health care to be their primary market.

While most of the public debate around IT in health care is focused on large EHR projects that are more likely to be contested by global SIs than local channel organizations, there are many different niches that provide opportunities for specialized VARs. A recent web search on “health care application software” garnered nearly 39 million hits: clearly, there is substantial need for “trusted advisory” services to evaluate, deploy, integrate and support software in this market!

november 2011 | 26 |

channel insider canada

We don’t go home happy until you do.

Maurice

Downtown Ottawa 377 O’Connor St. 800.465.7275 victoriapark.com

and the snow storm

Maurice, our Front Desk Agent, isn’t exactly a huge fan of the snow.

And driving in the stuff? He dislikes that even more. But one cold, grey December evening, our intrepid Maurice ventured out into one of the biggest storms of the season.

What could have driven him to drive into this tempest? His sense of duty.

You see, one of our guests had left an important item behind.

Knowing that a cab wouldn’t make it to the airport in time to reunite our guest with his property, Maurice took matters, as well as a frigid steering wheel, into his own hands. Arriving at the airport with mere minutes to spare, Maurice personally handed the item to our surprised, and extremely relieved, traveller. Proof once again that, even after you’ve left our hotel, you’re still a VIP.

Really,

ReallyBig Hotel Suites.

The moment.You know it.

It happens any time you stay at a new hotel, right after you swipe your room key. The moment before you open the door. Will the room be big, or small? Light, or dark?

Nice, or not?

and feature real bedrooms, real kitchens and real living rooms. And they don’t cost any more than those of our competitors. Really, why would you stay any place else?

Here’s what you’ll find the moment you open your door at Albert at Bay—space, and lots of it. Our suites are the biggest in Ottawa

DOWNTOWN OTTAWA

435 ALBERT STREET

613.238.8858

RESERVATIONS 800.267.6644 ALBERTATBAY.COM

TEST BED

iOS 5 TAKES APPLE A STEP IN RIGHT DIRECTION THE NEW MOBILE OPERATING SYSTEM HAS PLENTY OF NEW FEATURES, BUT IT ISN’T PERFECT.

by CHRISTOPHER ROGERS Supported Devices: iPhone 3GS, 4, 4S; iPod touch 3rd and 4th Generation; iPad and iPad 2 Released: Oct. 12, 2011 Price: Free update What the manufacturer says: “With iOS 5, we’ve added over 200 new features - taking a mobile operating system that was already years ahead of anything else and moving it even further ahead.”

A

fter using iOS 5 for a number of weeks it feels like the best kind of update, one that makes everything a little bit better without hampering older features that users have come to enjoy. Many of the updates might seem like reinterpretations, but they are in fact evolutionary. Some of the new features will have long-time iOS users jumping for joy but there are a few annoyances. With almost too much to describe in the iOS 5 update, we’ve chosen to focus on the features we feel will be most important to every user on iOS 5, regardless of their iOS device.

Siri The biggest update to iOS is the addition of Siri, Apple’s voice command software.

Siri has received a lot of attention but it is currently only available on iPhone 4S, which means the majority of iOS users are out of luck. Siri uses voice commands to complete tasks such as messaging, scheduling or even checking the weather.

It all looks very enticing and is sure to drive adoption of newer iPhone models (as if Apple needed to give users more of a reason).

Notification Center There are three big changes in iOS 5.

The notifications feature is one of them.

The big blue push notifications from iOS 4 were getting tired. If you received more than one message, the previous

notification would be deleted with no hope of retrieving it. The notifications would interrupt any and every process (how many games of Angry Birds were ruined by text messages?). The solution is Notification Center.

Notification Center is a pull down drawer that contains updates from Mail, Messages, Calendar and any other app that supports it. Users can choose how many updates each app can display and they can view and clear the messages directly from Notification Center. Gone are the blue push notifications for the most part. Instead alerts are displayed at the top of the screen, fading in and out, without user intervention. Messages are displayed with the app icon, a headline and a quick description, so there is no confusing a notification that needs urgent attention with a text message from your friends.

On iPhone, the weather and stocks apps display in the Notification Center as well, so there is easy access to those updates from any place on the device.

The lock screen now has a different look to it as well, with updates stacking underneath the date and time. IOS comes with the ability to swipe the notifications from the lock screen, initiating a reply. If it’s a voice mail notification it will play back the message.

All of the notifications are customizable from within the settings menu.

iMessage The second big change is the introduction of iMessage, Apple’s instant messaging app, similar to BlackBerry Messenger (BBM). Users upgrading to iOS 5 will hardly notice a difference, however, as it integrates seamlessly into Apple’s previous Messages app. When connected to a 3G or Wi-Fi connection and messaging another user with an iOS 5 device, users will see messages blue in colour, and a small “typing” icon when their correspondents are replying. iMessage uses a Wi-Fi or data connection, so messages do not count against a user’s text-messaging limit. When users are on regular text messaging services

november 2011 | 28 |

The reminders app is useful but lacks features

Subscriptions are managed from within the Newsstand store messages appear green. Conversations can carry on between iMessage and regular text messages seamlessly without interruption. iMessage works well and is a great addition.

Camera The third change all users are likely to notice is the evolution of the iOS camera app. Users can now access the camera directly from the lock screen simply by double clicking the home button. While engaged in this way, multi-tasking is disabled and users can’t access any other apps. The shutter is also now controllable from the volume buttons (or rocker),

channel insider canada

TEST BED

Notifications now stack on the lock screen which means no more fishing around for the shutter button on devices without front facing cameras. The new options menu allows users to overlay a grid on the view finder for easy framing. A few gestures have also been added to the camera including pinch to zoom and touch and hold to lock the autofocus and exposure.

The photo app has also been updated with some basic enhancement features such as crop, rotate and remove red-eye.

to authenticate for every new app they installed, and more native apps would support Twitter. It works as advertised: Safari, Twitter, Camera, and YouTube, all have Twitter integration; even Maps allows users to share their locations using Twitter. Accounts are all managed in the Settings menu and multiple accounts are handled well also.

The rest

Reminders iOS users get a barebones reminders app in iOS 5. Reminders syncs with iCloud to enable sharing of task lists across multiple devices including iCal for OS X. Type a reminder then check it off when it’s complete. Devices should automatically update when they sync with iCloud. In its current form, users on iCal can set priority tasks but users with other devices cannot.

The app itself is a nice addition but in its current form poses little threat to popular task managers such as Wunderlist.

Twitter Integration Deeper Twitter integration was a big part of the pre-release buzz around iOS 5. Twitter users would no longer have

Pull down the dock to see a list of current tasks, even weather

The majority of iOS’s updates might go unnoticed by users but many of them add good functionality to existing apps, such as new multi-touch gestures for multitasking, the un-dockable keyboard (and split keyboard on iPad), which allows users to place the software keyboard anywhere on the screen, updates to iPad’s Calendar including an iCal-style heat map that shows users where they have the most appointments booked, and updates to Mail such as flagging and rich text formatting.

Two additional features that stand out: Newsstand and the updates to Safari.

Newsstand is an e-reader designed for subscription-based media like newspapers and magazines. Users will likely either love or hate Newsstand as it adds a new icon to the home screen that cannot be

deleted or moved to a folder. This will likely change eventually, but in order to drive adoption of subscription services, Newsstand is here to stay. The interface is very similar to iBooks and the story is accessible directly from the home screen.

It’s currently difficult to search through the magazine selections as there is no specific periodical search. Instead, users must browse the entire catalogue. Also, instead of listing copies of a magazine users have purchased, the app displays the entire collection of a periodical, forcing users to browse entire catalogues. It’s clumsy in its current form to say the least.

It also lacks some features of iBooks such as bookmarks and page turning effects.

Safari sees an upgrade in iOS 5 that includes Reader, an option to read web content in a plain text fashion without distraction, and Reading List, which saves articles and web pages across iCloud enabled devices. It’s like a syncing bookmark list. Both options are good additions to Safari, with Reader for viewing content on the iPhone’s smaller screen. Reading List doesn’t provide offline reading functionality like the popular Instapaper so it’s usefulness is somewhat limited. On iPad, tabbed browsing makes an appearance, as does the ability to open links behind the current window. Both are welcome features.

Finally, for new iOS users, Apple has successfully severed the PC cord. Users no longer have to sync their new iOS devices to a Mac or PC to get them running.

Updates are pushed wirelessly and backup is handled via iCloud. Wi-Fi syncing is the logical extension of this feature and it allows users to sync their devices over networks, transferring content to iTunes.

The list of new features goes on (Music, Accessibility, Game Center), but the final word on iOS 5 is a fairly clear win for Apple. The biggest let down was the lack of Siri on older devices, but we’d cautiously say the other features make up for the disappointment. The update was just as much about the big additions as it was the small features that make life easier. There is still plenty of room for improvement, but iOS 5 is an unequivocal step in the right direction.

november 2011 | 29 | channel insider canada

DISTRACTIONS

DISTRACTIONS, NOVEMBER 2011:

FEATURING NEWS YOU CAN’T USE – BUT SHOULD KNOW. THIS EDITION: BETTER BRUSH UP ON YOUR IM SKILLS

by CHANNEL INSIDER STAFF

E

mail may be on its way to becoming the next snail mail, judging from the results of a study by Robert Half, the IT recruitment company. In a survey of 270 CIOs, 48% of respondents said that realtime communications technologies such as instant messaging would be “much more” or “somewhat” more popular than email for employees in the future. (That said, 38% indicated that they thought real-time communications would be equally popular as email.) Robert Half points out that instant messaging allows employees to conduct conversations at the click of a button, without having to wait long for responses. What’s more, many instant messaging programs include features such as micro-blogging, forums, and document management, eliminating the need to switch between separate programs to communicate.

“Although there is a definite place for email in the workplace, using real-time tools allows workers to solve problems and get the answers they seek much more quickly,” said Lara Dodo, a regional vice-president for Robert Half Technology in Canada. “IT professionals need to be sure to keep pace with new technologies, as expertise in these real-time tools can enhance their marketability.”

Erasable e-paper saves trees A new e-paper product from the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) in Taiwan can be printed on, wiped clean, and reused, according to a story on eWEEK. Made of a durable plastic, the material uses technology similar to reflective e-readers, but it’s more flexible for printing purposes. E-paper will cost 50 cents for a letter-sized sheet when it becomes available in 2012; since it can be reused up to 260 times, a single sheet would replace a half-ream of ordinary paper. Users can also write on the paper with water-based markers, which can be washed off later. ITRI predicts that its

e-paper will first be used in a variety of business applications, since it requires different printer thermal print heads.

E-paper-compatible consumer printers are expected to appear on the market late next year. “Most printed pages in the office will be discarded in only a few days or weeks after being printed,” said Janglin Chen, VP and general director of ITRI’s display technology center. “Our e-paper, on the other hand, can be erased and reprinted hundreds of times with no ink or toner or tree products being consumed, making it both efficient and green.”

Who wants the corner office?

Most workers aren’t interested in their manager’s job – and employees generally don’t think that they would be able to do the job any better than the boss, according to an OfficeTeam study. In a survey of 648 Canadian workers, the staffing services company found that 56% of respondents would not like to have their manager’s job, and 50% feel that they could not do a better job than their manager. The survey revealed that more workers between the ages of 18 and 34 wanted their manager’s position (29%) than those in other age groups. “Many aspects of management involve making difficult, sometimes

november 2011 | 30 |

unpopular decisions, and not everyone is comfortable in this role,” said Robert Hosking, executive director of OfficeTeam.

“Being a strong individual contributor does not necessarily equate to being an effective leader. The most successful bosses excel at motivating others to achieve great results.” OfficeTeam lists a number of good management traits: integrity, sound judgment, diplomacy, adaptability, strong communication, good listening skills, and strong networks within the organization to gain support for ideas.

channel insider canada

media:scape™

furniture and technology merged to help teams access and share information www.steelcase.com/cometogether

expect more

Contact us to learn more

·media:scape™ creates a collaborative destination ·Everyone can share their digital information instantly ·Information is visible by all participants

POI Business Interiors has more than 50 years of experience in providing knowledge, products and services that help people work more effectively.

We understand the issues facing organizations today.

T 888 296 9967, F 905 479 6941 www.poi.ca info@poi.ca

The ideal scenario is to transform “you get what you pay for” into “get more than you pay for”.

Choose the remarkably-valued DellTM PowerEdgeTM R610 2-socket server, featuring the energy-efficient performance of the Intel® Xeon® processor 5600 series.

• Up to Six-core Intel® Xeon® processors, energy-tuned technology with advanced thermal control • Lifecycle Controller for advanced systems management • Up to 192GB (12 DIMM slots); Up to 16GB DDR3; Up to 1333MHz • Choice of SAS, Near-line SAS, SSD and SATA HDs • 2 PCIe G2 slots + 1 storage slot

Learn More

For greater value go to DELL.CA/Partner or call 1 866-390-6968.

Dell cannot be responsible for errors in typography and photography. TM Dell, the Dell logo and PowerEdge are trademarks of Dell Inc. TM Intel, Intel Logo, and Intel Xeon are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.

Visit www.intel.com/go/rating for more info. © 2011 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.