January 15, 2009
Symantec Partner Deal Registrations Jump 27 Percent
The VAR Guy
The VAR Guy writes about Symantec’s most recent deal registration information.
“For the quarter ended in December 2008, deal registrations within Symantec’s channel partner system rose roughly 27 per cent compared to the corresponding quarter in 2007, according to Randy Cochran, vice-president of channel sales for the Americas at Symantec…Cochran (said), ‘Everybody feels it (economy) and is getting pinched by it. As it relates to the Symantec portfolio, a lot [of our products] are not in the ‘nice to have’ [category], they are ‘have-to-have.’”
Sony said to be sitting on $1.1 billion annual loss, first in 14 years
Engadget
Paul Miller writes about Sony’s unofficial reports of losing $1.1 billion last year.
“There are plenty of directions to point fingers: trying to be a premium brand in a weak world economy, a strong Yen (harder to export) or difficulties in making the PlayStation 3 profitable, but whatever the cause, it looks like Sony lost $1.1 billion last year, the company’s first practical loss in 14 years. Of course, the report isn’t official just yet, earnings aren’t due until the 29th.”
Does Apple have anything to fear from the Palm Pre?
Network World
Yoni Heisler offers his thoughts on why he thinks the Palm Pre won’t be an Apple iPhone killer.
“The Pre is expected to launch in the first half of 2009, and will have to compete with the iPhone, the BlackBerry Storm, and the G1 in an already competitive smartphone market. To its credit, though, it seems that in developing the Pre, Palm wasn’t angling for an iPhone killer. So rather than mimicking what Apple has already done, they went off into some new territory, and came back with some intriguing new features like Palm Cards that will definitely make it an attractive phone for potential buyers…The Pre looks…extremely promising, but the iPhone is a freight train plowing through at 300 MPH, and it’s extremely unlikely that the iPhone has anything to worry about.”
