Good week, bad week
Who was hot to trot, and who fell off their horse last week?
Good week
HP
Like Letitia Dean's doomed attempts to drag herself away from Albert Square, whenever HP moves to distance itself from the client computing market it finds itself drawn back in by the clarion call of personal computers.
Little more than a year after it canned its nascent TouchPad device, the vendor is to bounce back into the tablet market with the launch of the business-focused ElitePad.
The device, which is due to hit shelves in January, features a 10.1in screen and a 16x10 aspect ratio.
It weighs a slimline 1.5lbs and is just 9.2mm thick. More details will be announced nearer Christmas. As, more importantly, will our Letitia's schedule for panto season
this year.
Cloud
It seems that the cloud-shaped bandwagon is never full, with three major names adding to its load this week.
First up is the EU, which announced its own cloud-focused strategy, claiming the scheme would create 2.5 million new jobs across Europe by 2020. Then IBM threw its hat into the ring with its new global initiatives aimed at MSPs. The final contender for bandwagon jumper of the week was Ingram Micro, which unveiled its plans to move its
Channel Transformation Alliance to the next level of cloud computing provision.
With so many players up in the clouds, we sometimes worry that some of them will come crashing back down to earth.
Mimecast
Anyone who sniggered at Mimecast's plans to become one of the biggest players in the email security market should be laughing on the other side of their face now, after the vendor announced it has secured $62m worth of Series C funding.
The UK-based firm (big up the UK massive!) has ambitions to dominate the US market and will use its considerable cash pile to fulfil its growth goals across the pond. For six of the past nine years, the vendor has seen more than 50 per cent revenue growth. Definitely not to be sniffed at. Triples all round at Mimecast's office, we imagine.
Bad week
Ultrabooks
Similar to a cowboy-loving Bonnie Tyler circa 1984, the embattled PC market is holding out for a hero. But that hero is not the ultrabook - at least not yet, says IHS iSuppli.
High prices and ineffectual marketing have stymied uptake and the analyst has consequently more than halved its 2012 ultrabook shipment forecast to 10.3 million.
Still, with the new Intel Haswell chip coming out next year and shipments forecast to hit 95 million by 2016, the ultrabook could yet sweep the market off its feet and earn hero status. Yee-haw!
Fat cats
Northamber's chairman is emerging as some kind of anti-Gordon Gekko character after opting to draw just a fraction of his salary for a second year running. Showing the FTSE fatcats how it's done, David Phillips paid himself a waferous £15,000 of his £180,000 contractual wage for the distributor's fiscal 2012 after admitting being "conscious of the impact [it] could have on the finances of the company".
With Acer's boss JT Wang last year forgoing his entire salary, it seems the IT industry could act as a template for wider executive responsibility in these straitened times. We'll be the first to buy Phillips a beer if he attends this year's Channel Awards.
Incumbents
It's often said that a rolling stone gathers no moss. We have no idea how or why this is applicable to everyday life, but we noted this week that three of the channel's mossiest bosses (as it were) are set for pastures new.
First it emerged that long-serving Cisco main man John Chambers may finally be eyeing the exit, after revealing he's considering who could succeed him. Another venerated vendor veteran, ex-Big Blue CEO Sam Palmisano, announced he is retiring and leaving for good after nigh on 40 years. Closer to home, Avnet UK&I chief John Toal departed after eight years as part of Bell and, latterly, Avnet.
We're sure the channel hasn't seen the last of them because, as some might say, a newly dislodged stone quickly gathers momentum. Maybe.