Providing value-add in any market can become increasingly difficult as the competition continues to mimic your every move and steal you thunder. But keeping pace with Bell Micro, and their ever expanding programs, might leave some of the competition a... (read more)

With the strong desire to reduce operating expenses and the push for a greener IT environment, it is becoming more and more understandable why green IT equipment is becoming the standard and encouraged. Take a look at U.S. federal agencies that purchase over $68 billion in IT equipment annually and are being encouraged, through the Federal Electronics Challenge (FEC). (read more)

Interoperability and compatibility are two important factors when determining the viability of a stable long term platform. It makes no sense to deploy a solution that works today, have a hardware failure tomorrow, and be unable to recover. For instance, you would never want to purchase a SAN from a storage provider that is supplied by only one HBA vendor; unless of course you are willing to stockpile HBAs for the expected life of your SAN. (read more)

Infrastructure management remains one of the nagging, unresolved issues of the information age. Companies bring more computer equipment in every size, shape and form into their data centers and offices. Getting this equipment installed and configured is rarely a problem. But tracking what pieces of equipment are under warranty, and when those warranties expire and keeping that information easily accessible when it is needed, is a rarity. Add the software maintenance contracts for each OS and application, each of which has its own expiration date, and the burden on already stressed IT teams is enormous. (read more)

The last thing anyone usually thinks about is the details of the service contract when they purchase a new product. Companies at a high level may know they are signing up for next day or 4 hour break/fix support. But, in practice, there is no guarantee in the contract in terms of when they will actually get their product repaired and their application back online. All that the 4-hour service level guarantees is that a qualified technician will be on-site within 4 hours. (read more)

Most companies presume that when they purchase service contracts that guarantee four hour break/fix response times for their computer hardware, they are purchasing the appropriate level of support to ensure they can recover their new equipment should it fail for some reason. This level of confidence is especially critical in circumstances where companies deploy new hardware in conjunction with mission-critical applications - or when that equipment is embedded as part of a custom system, such as a medical device like an MRI. With these applications, any downtime is unacceptable. Yet what many companies fail to recognize is that these service contracts guaranteeing 4 hour break/fix response times only promise one thing: a vendor response, not a hardware fix nor application availability. (read more)

The announcement in early July that Teneros, a provider of application continuity appliances for Microsoft Exchange 2003 and 2007, selected Hewlett-Packard's (NYSE: HPQ) ProLiant DL380 G5 servers as the hardware on which to base their appliance platform is pretty straightforward on the surface. Microsoft Exchange is one of the most, if not the most, mission critical applications in many companies so it only makes sense for Teneros to use servers from HP in conjunction with their email continuity appliance to support Exchange. In these environments, Teneros wants the highest level of assurance that the hardware and software are compatible with one another and will not experience any unexpected interoperability hiccups after its email continuity appliance is deployed in the field. (read more)

The yardstick for measuring the effectiveness of technology distributors has become exceedingly narrow. Most would agree that distribution competitiveness is currently measured as a function of component price and time-to-delivery for their reseller partners. Competing for new and expanded business opportunity using these criteria is tough, because of the maturity of distribution models and distributor practices which look largely the same from one to the next. (read more)