Upcoming Meeting Notice

The Association of Service and Computer Dealers International (ASCDI) is a 30 year old, worldwide non-profit organization made up of companies who provide technology solutions, technical support or value added services to the business community.

Members and non-members are invited to learn how to grow your business, find new business opportunities, hear from industry representatives and enjoy some fabulous networking events at our conferences:

EUROPEAN CONFERENCE: June 17 - 19, 2009
Prague, Czech Republic

FALL USA CONFERENCE: October, 2009
Location under review

Click here for more information on ALL ASCDI MEETINGS, to view the agendas, lodging details, attendee lists and to REGISTER AT THE EARLY BIRD RATE.

ASCDI Inside
Asian channels
HP
IBM
iSeries
Juniper
Power
Storage
Sun

ASCDI Inside

ASCDI Conference
The ASCDI Winter Conference 2009 held at the Hard Rock Hotel Las Vegas turned out to be another fantastic ASCDI Conference with over 100 delegates from around the world attending this event.  The Conference started with an Opening Reception and private party at WASTED SPACE, a very cool venue at the Hard Rock Hotel.  Great food, networking, and kamikaze shots courtesy of Stuart Morgan at MI SECURE!  We even toasted Joe Marion’s Birthday (ASCDI President)!  Lots of great photos were taken with MI SECURE shot girls and you will have a chance to see those very soon. 

Thursday morning sessions included an informative session with HP RENEW followed by a very creative session presented by Graham King and the Services Committee, including different ways to market and sell services.  The ASCDI Charity Poker Tournament was held that afternoon and raised over $8000.  The winner of the Charity Poker Tournament was Karen McGaughey.  Karen says she never played; what do you think? 

Friday was a packed day of valuable sessions including two keynote speakers.  Technology Trends for 2009 and Beyond was presented by Bill Roch from IDC and Leadership and Team Dynamics Under Pressure – a Sub-arctic Survival Activity was presented by Marilyn Grant from Catalysis.  Lunch was served and we were pleased to once again have Tim Glinski speak about IBM updates.  We finished off the day with two important roundtable discussions – Networking Products/Cisco and Sun. 

The Conference ended with a fabulous closing reception and private party at Body English, the Hard Rock Hotel Nightclub venue.  The party rocked with show girls, a Vodka luge sponsored by ATN, food stations and music.  Some delegates departed for the airport for the red eye back east, others went to continue the party at the casino bar.  All in all, it was one great event.  I can’t say much more – what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.  If you were there, it was great seeing you.  If you were not, make sure to attend our next meeting in Prague, Czech Republic in June!
 
Sincerely,
Ruth Marion, ASCDI Conference Director ^Back To Top

Asian channels

DataCore Software partners with Digital China to distribute solutions to resellers across China
DataCore Software, a leading provider of storage virtualization, business continuity and disaster recovery software solutions, announced a new distribution agreement with Digital China, the largest IT product distributor in China. Digital China distributes a wide range of IT hardware and software products through a network of over 9,000 resellers and agents across the country. Digital China has put in place in China a proven marketing strategy, a strong channel network, efficient logistic management and e-commerce platforms to support their customers and deliver best in class distribution services to them. “Digital China understands the enormous potential for virtualization and storage within China,” said Peter Thompson, Vice President and Managing Director of Asia Pacific, DataCore Software. “Our partnership with Digital China is a lynchpin to our go-to-market strategy in China.”
Visit www.datacore.com or www.digitalchina.com.
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HP

New HP offerings help small and medium businesses thrive in challenging times
As part of the company’s Total Care initiative to better serve small and medium businesses (SMB), HP unveiled more than a dozen products, solutions and services designed to help customers manage, protect and grow their businesses, even in today’s challenging market. Along with new HP Officejet inkjet printers that deliver up to 50 percent cost per page and energy savings compared to laser printers, the new HP Total Care portfolio features special financing offers and HP Insight Remote Support automated remote management software to increase SMB customers’ efficiency. The company also unveiled new partner programs designed to help SMB customers quickly identify HP partners who can maximize their technology investments. SMB Elite is the latest addition to HP’s portfolio of PartnerONE Elite designations, designed to help customers easily identify HP reseller partners with technology expertise and training in specific technology solutions and markets. SMB Elite will bolster the tools, resources and marketing support HP provides to channel partners serving SMB customers.
Visit www.hp.com.
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IBM

IBM and resellers do the iLoyalty blitz
IBM is giving customers using old AS/400 and iSeries machinery trade-in credits on new Power Systems gear and is also cutting the cost of per-user software licensing fees on i5/OS V5R4 and i 6.1 until the end of June. These two deals are, in fact, part of something IBM and its master resellers have called the iLoyalty Blitz. In addition to these two deals, the iLoyalty Blitz is making use of an expanded no-charge i 6.1 processor entitlement deal that kills the cost of activating i 6.1 on selected Power Systems servers by $2,245 per core on entry 520 machines, $14,995 on midrange 520 and JS22 boxes, and $44,000 per core on big boxes. This existing deal gave customers moving from iSeries 810, 820, 825, and 830 boxes a freebie i 6.1 license if they bought a Power 520 or 550 or a JS22 blade server. Now, the four-core JS22 blade server is eligible for this "Move Up To i" promotion, and a slew of vintage machines are now added to it.
Visit www.ibm.com.
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iSeries

Infor ramps up IBM iSeries collaboration and support
Manufacturing ERP conglomerate Infor says it’s ramping up its support for the more than 15,000 customers currently running on IBM iSeries systems.  It’s setting up a global organization linking eight development labs, headed by former IBM executive Mark Wright, to look after product development, facilitate better technology collaboration between Infor and IBM and improve support.  Greg Corgan, president, global field operations and corporate senior vice president at Infor, comments that users of infor systems on iSeries will also gain access to new capabilities through Infor Open SOA – with, for example, the Infor MyDay Web 2.0 personalized home page portal.
Visit www.infor.com.
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Juniper

Juniper Networks announces Stratus Project
Juniper unveiled its latest market strategies for data centers, enterprises and service providers. The main announcement was Juniper’s entry into data centers with its Stratus Project. Much of what Juniper announced was a spin on other vendors' stories, but is low risk in what is expected to be a challenging year for all. Citing a proliferation of misguided data-center connectivity solutions, Juniper believes IP will be the solution to explosive high-performance data-center growth. While it is true we’ve seen HSSI, FDDI, InfiniBand and Fiber Channel fade, Juniper is not the first to propose IP as the ultimate data-center connectivity solution. Juniper disclosed that it will launch two new models of the EX line into the data center, with help from new partners IBM, Intel and Dell. However, this comes almost a year after Cisco launched the Nexus data-center switches and the Nuova acquisition, which may launch Cisco into the data-center server business.
Visit www.juniper.net.
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Power

Anderson Power Products introduces POWERMOD PSX
Anderson Power Products (APP) announces a new addition to its family of PCB products with the release of the POWERMOD PSX product line. This low profile family of connectors is 30 percent smaller than comparable products and is perfect for when board space is at a premium and overall mating heights must be minimized. The connectors are ideal for power connections to embedded AC/DC power supplies or for board-to-board connections in servers, storage enclosures and communications equipment.  The streamlined design of the POWERMOD PSX offers excellent performance with power contacts rated to 60 amps and signal contacts rated to 1 amp (ratings per UL1977). The series is available in either power and signal versions or power only to provide power distribution and control in a single connector body. 
Visit www.andersonpower.com.
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Storage

Western Digital, Iomega and Hewlett Packard make major moves in consumer network storage market share
As growth slows in the global consumer network storage market, competitors are jockeying for market share, reports In-Stat. Western Digital, Iomega and Hewlett Packard (HP) each made major upward moves in 2008 capturing share. Meanwhile, market leader Buffalo Technologies continues to hold the top spot in the market. "In general, other than Buffalo, networking-centric companies did not fare as well in 2008 as traditional storage companies," says Joyce Putscher, In-Stat analyst. "Meanwhile growth is shifting towards higher capacity models, as some vendors migrate the lower end of their product lines from 500GB to 1TB and higher capacity devices."  Recent research by In-Stat found that the worldwide consumer network storage market grew by 24% in 2008. Although 500GB products will have some staying power, from 2008 to 2013 they expect to see the highest growth coming from the 1.5TB+ segment. Among North American consumer survey respondents, nearly one half of network storage owners used the drives to play digital music, and over a quarter use the drives to play digital video. The EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) market is expected to outshine all other regions in growth from 2008 to 2013.
Visit www.in-stat.com.



Nexsan introduces iSCSI SAN for SMBs, midmarket
Nexsan’s latest product offering, the iSeries iSCSI SAN, is targeted squarely at solution providers servicing SMBs and midmarket customers. Nexsan broadens its product line with a new iSCSI SAN aimed at solution providers whose small and midsize business and midmarket customers need to mix-and-match storage connectivity in a single chassis. The new iSeries offers iSCSI, Fibre Channel and NAS (network-attached storage) configurations from the same system and provides twice the capacity of similar solutions, up to 1PB of storage, at a fraction of the cost of competitive products. Nexsan’s approach has been to offer Tier 1 storage at Tier 2 prices, and the iSeries will offer solution providers enterprise-quality hardware, scalability and reliability at a much more competitive price.  Many SMB and midmarket customers need to be able to mix-and-match SATA (Serial ATA) connectivity with SAS (serial-attached SCSI) inside the same storage chassis and the iSeries allows them the flexibility to do so, which can lower procurement costs as well as simplify data and storage management.
Visit www.nexsan.com.
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Sun

Sun expands SSD technology to servers and blade systems
Sun Microsystems is putting solid-state disk technology into its portfolio of servers, the latest step in its push to make the flash technology available in all of its products. In addition, Sun is releasing the design of its own Open Flash Module into the OpenSolaris Storage communities, a move that will enable developers in the communities to innovate on the flash memory standard. The moves come less than a year after John Fowler, executive vice president of Sun’s Systems Group, began telling customers, analysts and journalists that the company—convinced of the promise of performance increases and greater efficiency over traditional hard drives—would integrate SSD technology into all of its hardware, and optimize its software for it. Fowler also promised that Sun would build services around helping businesses deploy flash memory technology.
Visit www.sun.com. ^Back To Top