March 2010 Archives

In the last year, Cisco Systems Inc. has provided its channel partners with tools to help them survive the economic downturn, as have many other IT companies.

Now, with the economy seemingly poised for some degree of resuscitation, the vendor is offering its channel partners assistance to uncover and drive customer demand.

Accordingly, Cisco has launched a free, global, Web 3.0-based marketing engine called Partner Marketing Central, consisting of tools to help partners create and manage demand, generate reports on marketing campaigns, manage events, all on their own or in concert with the vendor.

In a video blog, Luanne Tierney, Cisco vice president, worldwide partner marketing, said that the new offering "simplifies and enhances our partner marketing experience so that now partners can truly have integrated marketing campaigns."

Tierney said that Partner Marketing Central is the "ultimate tool for partners to do co-demand marketing generation."

In particular, she pointed to an events module in Partner Marketing Central that allows channel partners to offload time consuming tasks associated with conducting an event such as registration, setup, email, incorporating social media and other activities.

"It helps partners with the execution phase of their marketing," she said.

Novell Inc. said it has dismissed a $2 billion buyout bid from investment firm Elliott Associates L.P., contending that the $5.75 per share cash proposal inadequately expressed the company's value and its growth prospects.

In rejecting the Elliott offer, however, Novell seemed to leave room either for a meatier offer from the investment firm or solicitations from other suitors.

In a statement, Novell said that its board has "authorized a thorough review of various alternatives to enhance shareholder value," including stock repurchase or cash dividend, strategic partnerships, alliances, joint ventures, or a "recapitalization and a sale of the Company."

Novell said that its openness to exploring financial alternatives "is in the best interests of the Company and its stockholders."

The vendor said that it will not provide any further information on its options until its board approves a course of action.

Elliott, an institutional holder of 8.5 percent of Novell's common stock worth about $120 million, made a play for the company earlier this month, in an offer that represented a 20 percent premium over the company's closing stock price of March 1, 2010.

Cisco Systems Inc. said that the European Commission (EC) has approved its acquisition of Tandberg, a process that required the networking giant to guarantee enhanced interoperability between its video conferencing equipment and competing products to win the nod.

The acquisition all but ensures Cisco the top spot in the heated up video conferencing market.

Cisco's winning the EC's regulatory approval for the deal centered around interoperability and open standards, specifically for its TelePresence Interoperability Protocol (TIP).

To gain approval, Cisco agreed to relinquish to an independent industry organization ownership both of TIP and the library of open source software used by developers. The vendor also must provide the industry body with all other rights necessary to implement TIP, including authorizing it to license those rights, free of royalty, to any interested third party.

Cisco also agreed to provide information about TIP implementation and allow the industry organization to evolve TIP with the input of other players.

The regulatory approval included a requirement that Cisco appoint an independent observer, under the EC's consent, to see to it that the vendor follow through on its commitments.Once the monitor is appointed and approved, a 14-day window to close the transaction will begin.

Cisco said that it has received word from the U.S. Department of Justice that it will not challenge the acquisition based on the vendor's performance statements to the EC.

"We appreciate the thorough and efficient manner in which the Justice Department and the European Commission conducted their review of this transaction, and we are grateful for the leadership and close cooperation between the agencies throughout this process," said Marthin De Beer, senior vice president, Cisco Emerging Technologies Business Group.

"Cisco has always strongly believed that industry expansion and growth is best fostered through open standards and interoperability, and our commitments to the Commission formalize our approach in this area."

Google Inc. closed its China website, a scant two months after threatening to do so over a censorship dispute with the Chinese government officials, and redirected users to an uncensored search engine in Hong Kong.

The search giant said that it decided to "no longer continue censoring our results" at its google.cn site.

"Earlier today we stopped censoring our search services--Google Search, Google News and Google Images on Google.cn," said David Drummond, Google chief legal officer and senior vice president, corporate development, in a blog post on the company's web site.

Within hours of Google's decision, a Chinese government official issued a statement that the search giant has "violated its promise" and is "totally wrong" to stop censoring its Chinese language search results and for blaming China for alleged hacker attacks.

Chinese government officials subsequently moved to restrict user access to Google's mainland China site, disabling certain searches for unacceptable material and blocking links.

Drummond said that Chinese users will be re-directed to Google.com.hk, where the company said it is offering "uncensored search in simplified Chinese." Google said that the site had been designed specifically for users in mainland China, delivered by its servers in Hong Kong.

Google conceded that the expected increased load on its Hong Kong servers could slow traffic.

While Drummond offered that Google "hope(s) that the Chinese government respects our decision, though we are well aware that it could at any time block access to our services."

Google did not fully withdraw from China, retaining its local research and development presence as well as a sales team.

While Google's move is a clear repudiation of the Chinese government's censorship of its web site, the company has also turned away from some 400 million Internet users in China. How that plays out for Google is anyone's guess at this point, although only a fraction of the company's $24 billion in revenue is generated from China.

"Figuring out how to make good on our promise to stop censoring search on Google.cn has been hard," Drummond said.

Distributor Tech Data Corp. said that its Healthcare Specialized Business unit, which recently launched a vendor affiliate program, will offer grant writing and tracking services for channel partners selling to healthcare providers and organizations.

The distributor said it has partnered with the American Grant Writers' Association (AGWA) to provide resellers with professional grant writing, review and coaching services at a discounted rate.

In addition, Tech Data has teamed with Input, a researcher that tracks government spending, to help channel partners monitor government grants for health care IT providers.

The grant writing and tracking services will be made available to members of Tech Data's TechMed Alliance, a group of channel partners focused on delivering health care IT solutions.

Specific offerings include grant writing assistance tailored to the level of government, agency of foundation targeted, a five-hour grant writing course and expert review. Resellers may sign up for long-term grant writing support, in the case of larger customers pursuing multiple grant opportunities.

Hitachi Data Systems said that its nine-year long reseller relationship with Sun Microsystems will end at the close of this month, according to an email the storage maker sent to solution providers, a copy of which was posted in a blog entry by Greg Knieriemen, a vice president at Chi Corp., a storage network solutions specialist based in Cleveland, OH.

In the letter, HDS suggested that the breakup was an expected fallout of Oracle Corp.'s acquisition of Sun.

"Due to the recent acquisition of Sun Microsystems by Oracle Corporation, there has been much speculation as to the effect the merger will have on the market, product offerings and partnerships," the HDS letter said.

"As you are aware, Hitachi Data Systems and Sun Microsystems have enjoyed a successful business partnership. On March 31, 2010, the current distribution agreement that Hitachi Data Systems and Sun Microsystems have been jointly operating under for the past nine years will come to an end."

In the letter, Hitachi said that it will counsel solution providers on positioning its products and solutions and associated service issues.

"We are jointly determining the positioning of the products and solutions based on Hitachi Data Systems that you have deployed with clients. We understand you and your customers have questions and concerns surrounding service obligations to the global install base moving forward."

Hitachi said that it will provide "solid transition programs" to assist resellers with the change.

In a statement, the vendor said that "with the acquisition of Sun Microsystems, Hitachi Data Systems and Oracle agree that the time is right to evolve this relationship into one reflecting the priorities of both our companies."

Hitachi said that it currently is talking with Oracle to expand their relationship, perhaps to include application integration and optimization.

"Our main priority is to ensure that we are working together to ensure that our customers are being fully supported during this time of transition, and we are both committed to providing the exceptional service both our companies are known for in the marketplace."

Hitachi said it will offer more details on its "expanded relationship" with Oracle in the next few months.