The Autotask Community Tour, which caters to both existing customers and new prospects, is 2/3 complete as we head into the holiday season. I’ve had the chance to attend both the Seattle and Boston sessions, making me uniquely qualified to offer my opinion and insights into the PSA ISV’s roadshow.

 

First of all, I must give my compliments for a robust offering that attracted a capable crowd in Boston and an even larger crowd in Seattle. In fact, the Seattle show today has a much smaller “fall off rate” than the 50% typically seen in the complimentary event model. I like to think it because we are superior in Seattle.

The workshop agenda is designed for me and those of us with short attention spans. The sessions are typically short, so there are a lot of sessions shoe-horned into one day.

The morning agenda is designed for

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SMB Nation BeerFest

SMB Nation is hosting one of their infamous evening BeerFests on Wednesday, November 16th at Bistro Nine in East Greenwich, RI from 4:00pm to 5:45pm. This Beerfest is partnered by D&H Distributing, Tech Collective and Vu Telepresence.
 
The structure of this SMB Nation BeerFest evening is:
• One part community
• One part SMB Nation
• One part VU Telepresence, D&H and Tech Collective
• One part BEER, WINE and FOOD!

Slightly chilled and poured slowly! Please be responsible…

AGENDA:
• 15 minutes of fame with VU Telepresence
• Community open forum discussion
• Qualify to win epic door prizes!

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Another powerful collaboration in the IT channel today as WorkSpace Communications, leading provider of Unified Communications in the Cloud revealed a partnership with leading Microsoft-based Unified Comm provider AltiGen Communications, Inc. The result is the WorkSpace Contact Center, an SaaS-based solution for the Microsoft Lync server.  This solution can be integrated into an existing on-premise Microsoft Lync solution, or into WorkSpace Communications’ hosted solutions.  This flexibility of adoption is an important industry trend, allowing companies to grow at their own pace. CEO of WorkSpace Communications Brian DiGiorgio explains further:

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Heads up, folks! This just in from our partners over at D&H:

This week, D&H resellers can check dandh.com for a daily deal consisting of discounts or rebates on products from vendor partners like HP, Tom Tom, Acer, Coby, Yamaha and iHome. Recent Steals of the Day included deals on an HP Pavilion Mini bundle, a Coby Sport MP3 player, a TomTom GPS unit, and an Acer Aspire notebook. Check the week of November 7-11 for the latest steals!

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HEROware, an industry leader in BDR for the SMB market, recently announced their HERO-Defender+ Stimulus Plan. This plan is designed to help channel partners during the rough economic times by matching any competitor’s invoice price, as well as granting a free first month of Hero-Defender+ services. HEROware has put this plan into place as of yesterday, with an end date of Dec. 31, 2011. Registered partners are only able to apply this guarantee to new installations of the HERO-Defender Server Replication Stack.

HEROware’s HERO-Defender+ Server Replication Stack is designed to easily integrate into 64-bit servers and provides total data and computing security and backup for a user’s system. There is also the option of hosting this device in the Cloud, for faster recovery and automatic failover. This solution comes with

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Happy Friday, ladies and gentlemen! I heard good news from our friend Ed Correia at Sagacent Technologies: they have selected and welcomed a new Senior Engineer!

Kevin Haralson joined Sagacent technologies last month, much to the delight of the staff. Kevin brings his 20 years of technology experience at companies such as Apple, NASA, Netscape and many SMBs. He has worn many hats over the years, working as a helpdesk technician, network admin and engineer, configuration technician, and project manager.

Kevin is married to a wonderful lady named Poppy, and they have two lovely children. Congratulations on your new position, Kevin! We wish you many happy years at Sagacent!

 

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Yesterday, Reflexion and VAR Dynamics released news of an exciting collaboration. Reflexion’s award-winning Compliance Suite is now available on VAR Dynamics’ cutting-edge Exchange platform in the Cloud. Previously, Reflexion’s e-mail security and encryption solutions were only available on-premise via the Microsoft Exchange platform.

Scott Barlow, VP of Sales at Reflexion, explains the partner choice: “For some time we have been searching for a Hosted Exchange provider with the operational expertise to be a reliable ‘one-stop shop’ for our channel partners. In VAR Dynamics we have a partner with the proven ability to deliver excellent uptime performance with reliable and professional technical support – exactly what our channel partners have been seeking.”

Matt Baldwin, CTO at VAR Dynamics, is equally enthusiastic. “We are thrilled to align ourselves with Reflexion and its suite of solutions, which have won numerous industry awards and are extremely popular in the IT channel,” he said yesterday. “VAR Dynamics is committed to being the Exchange ‘platform of choice’ for Reflexion partners, providing the range of services, operational reliability, and outstanding technical support that they need to serve their clients and grow their business.”

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On Tuesday, the Info-Tech Research Group’s released their latest Collaboration Vendor Landscape report titled “Select the Right Collaboration Platform.” As the name suggests, this report is aimed at helping organizations research and choose the social collaboration solution that best fits their needs. Vendors are selected based on their company strategy, reach and viability, and their product’s usability, architecture, affordability and features.The report revealed a growth in the collaboration market and an increase in the customization options available for companies. The Info-Tech Research Group listed Microsoft SharePoint, Cisco, OpenText, and Socialtext  as Champions of the collaboration market.

Tim Hickernell, Associate Lead Analyst with the Info-Tech Research Group, explains the trend towards social collaboration for enterprise companies:

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Yesterday, Lenovo released the results of its second fiscal quarter, which ended September 30. Lenovo has made impressive progress over the past year. They are now the world’s second largest PC vendor, netting a 13.5 percent share of the global market. This news comes on the heels of last quarter’s report, in which Lenovo was ranked as the third largest PC vendor in the world.

They reported a stunning 35.8 percent growth year over year for their PC shipments.  To put some perspective on the situation, the average rate of growth worldwide was 5 percent. Lenovo also reported an 87.9 percent increase in net earnings for the company, bringing the quarter total to US$144 million. This quarter’s report is one in a long streak of progress for the company, with the past ten quarters reporting above average growth. They increased their presence in mature markets, such as Japan and Western Europe, and emerging markets like Brazil, India and Russia. Lenovo’s balanced approach to internal growth and their desire to find a niche in all levels of business have combined to create a global powerhouse.

Liu Chuanzhi, Chairman at Lenovo, is ecstatic about the growth this past quarter: 

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Today Zenith Infotech, a leading MSP-Solution provider founded in 1997, announced the debut of an international cloud computing boot camp tour.  The tour is scheduled to take off in November, and will include Los Angeles, CA, Orlando, FL and Dallas, TX before going international. Zenith Infotech plans to take the tour to the Middle East, as well as Southern and Southeastern Asia.  

At right: Ron Hogue, Manager of Technical Training

The idea behind the tour is simple, as CEO Akash Saraf explains: “We have had a wait list for our boot camps for several sessions,” he said. “We felt that given the demand and the strength of our course, it was time to take the training to the locations where we have a high concentration of partners.” Mr. Saraf was recently granted a spot on the MSPmentor 250 list, a prestigious award celebrating the work of top experts who are shaping the global market.

Mr. Saraf has pointed to the growing population of industry partners who have adopted Zenith Infotech’s SmartStyle solution as a driving force behind this tour.  Ron Hogue, Manager of Technical Training at Zenith, reported the hard numbers for 2011 so far:

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