December 2008 Archives

The ITChannelPlanet staff wishes all our readers a happy and peaceful holiday season. Our channel blog will return with new entries on Monday, January 5.

According to published reports, Cisco has agreed to pay $5.45 million to Infra-Comm, a California VAR that successfully sued the networking vendor earlier this year for breaching its reseller contract. That means Cisco won't appeal the civil court decision it lost earlier this year.

Apple Computer has always had a tumultuous relationship with the channel, but its recent announcement that it is pulling out of MacWorld really seems to put it on the path of a true direct-sales vendor. Apple is becoming more Dell-like than Dell in its current sales approach 

Distributor Ingram Micro has teamed up with Heartland Tech Groups to bring peer-group practices to the masses, or at least the channel masses. In its announcement, Ingram executives say the idea to have soluton providers improve their business practices by accessing and sharing with each other.

With mobile smartphones representing one of the few bright spots in the high-tech economy, the report that Google's Android is gathering more industry support sets the stage for a knock-out battle among for market share among mobile operating systems

Apparently, consolidation isn't just for channel partners and vendors. Now, two of the channel's four leading trade groups, The ASCII Group and MSP Partners, have struck what amount to a joint membership deal. Essentially, it's a reciprocal membership agreement.

The federal government is back in court, desperately providing cover for the major telecom companies accused of doing its bidding by spying on Americans. The Bush Administration urged a federal judge in San Francisco Tuesday to back off from holding the telecom providers responsible for their actions.