April 6, 2010
April 12: Will Microsoft Pink finally make its debut?
ZD Net
Mary Jo Foley writes about Microsoft’s upcoming Pink phones.
“None of us knows for sure (yet), but it’s looking like next Monday, April 12, could be the debut of the long-awaited Microsoft Pink phones. Microsoft has sent out invitations to members of the press for a mystery event on that date in San Francisco. Speculation is growing that this will be the Pink launch. Pink is the codename for the successor to the Sidekick and the services for those devices. The target audience for Pink is the teen/20-something market. There are a number of Pink device codenames floating around, including Pure, Turtle, Lion and Pride. Pure and Turtle are believed to be manufactured by Sharp, but are expected to be branded as Microsoft phones.”
The iPad’s first victim? Dell, HP cutting back on 10-inch netbooks as sales slow
ZD Net
Sean Portnoy writes how Apple’s iPad device is having an impact on the netbook market.
“Perhaps due to a bit of iPad anticipation, the sales growth of netbooks has slowed this year compared to the mania for the devices last year. The effects seem to be hitting the 10-inch varieties first, as DigiTimes is reporting that Dell and HP are scaling back their production of these netbooks, and floating the rumor that HP may abandon the 10-inch netbook market altogether.”
MSP Service Level Agreements: What’s Covered, What Isn’t?
MSPmentor
Paul Barnett offers his advice of what partners should include in their managed services offerings.
“Here is what I think, based on my experience at Virtual Administrator and Network Depot…Included Items: help desk support: Help your customer remotely solve workstation issues, onsite repair: there should be some limitations here, but normal onsite repair work such reinstalling corrupted Operating Systems and fixing and repairing hardware failures/issues should be included, server support: remote and onsite server support should be included, switch and firewall management: manage, monitor and support switches and firewalls, remote monitoring/management: remote monitoring, reporting, and patch management of network attached systems.”
