Apart from the typical benefits from certified status of Microsoft’s validation with customers, Microsoft’s policies of encouraging partnerships is generating new business for Actiance from other Microsoft vendor partners, and developing a higher value-add channel for them.
Nectar also announced a second new offering, around Microsoft Skype, with a suite of cloud enablement solutions that parallels ones they had previously offered for on-prem deployments.
Office 365 business continues to show impressive growth, although Microsoft is impressing upon partners that the real money here doesn’t come from selling subscriptions, but in integrating it into other solutions and building their own custom offerings on top.
AppRiver has announced the availability of unlimited dial-in conferencing to Skype for Business at an affordable rate, as a new optional feature of their Skye for Business service.
Sonus sees significant opportunities here for partners, who are their sole go-to-market in the enterprise space. They also announced their SBC portfolio has been certified for Skype for Business.
With the Mitel deal now off, Polycom needs to build its own bridge into a cloud future. Nick Tidd, who runs their Global Partner Organization, outlines the company’s plans to do just that, with one key objective being to get their own channel to sell Polycom and Microsoft together.
Kicking off the company’s 2016 Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella outlines what a focus on the digital transformation of business will mean to both Microsoft and its partners.
The new offerings include the Dell Wyse 7040, which becomes Dell’s top of the line thin client, and Wyse ThinLinux, a brand-new thin client-optimized software based on SUSE Linux.
Key elements include Azure becoming Citrix’s preferred cloud platform, and Microsoft Skype for Business now being optimized for the Citrix VDI environment, the only one to receive this preferred treatment.
Logitech and Intel are looking to provide a reliable low cost conferencing offering for organizations that use PC-based video conferences.
Westcon’s Comstor group teams with Polycom to offer cloud-based video-as-a-service that solution providers can offer under its GoldSeal services label.
An appliance originally designed to bring Citrix into the low end of the market has had its scalability increased more than tenfold, now supporting up to 5000 users. Dell also announced its new ThinOS software, which now supports Skype for Business, and is backwards compatible into the existing install base.
Citrix said at its partner event that its new focus on its core business – the secure delivery of apps and data – turned around 2015, and led to a very strong close to the year. They then laid out how they intend to continue that in 2016.
The increasing impact of style and functionality from the consumer segment to the commercial PC space is not a new trend, but HP believes it has taken it to a new level with its latest announcements, designed to appeal to millennial customers both in their esthetics and through a new commitment to improving the notebook PC as a communications device.
Several new desktops, all-in-ones and notebooks were announced, with HP emphasizing new design, security and collaboration features, some of which are unique to them.
Microsoft is taking notice and reportedly ready for drastic measures to move the needle, including a free versions of Windows 8.1.
As expected, Microsoft named veteran insider Satya Nadella as successor to CEO Steve Ballmer, making the 46-year-old just the third chief executive.
Microsoft reportedly narrowed the list of possible replacements for retiring CEO Steve Ballmer.
Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman tells analysts longtime partners in innovation Intel and Microsoft are now competitors
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says acquiring handset maker Nokia is necessary to keep up with the smartphone R&D output of rivals Google and Apple.
