MS revamps partner programme

Microsoft unveiled plans to overhaul its channel partner programme, including doing away with the current 'gold,' 'certified' and 'general register' designations in favour of ranking partners according to their competencies, states ChannelWeb.

The company will also debut specific plans to help partners that work with its Dynamics ERP and CRM applications to focus more on vertical markets.

The changes are part of a broader series of channel programme plans Microsoft is unveiling this week at its Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans.

Seagate has released its fastest, largest 3.5-inch hard drives to the channel and OEMs will be bringing them to market in the next few months, according to V3.

The new 15K.7 Cheetah drives, available in capacities of up to 600GB, rotate at 15 000RPM, making them the fastest and largest the company has yet produced. They are shipping with 6Gbps serial attached SCSI (SAS) and 4Gbps fibre-channel interfaces.

The drives also come with an automatic self-encryption option that writes all data onto the drive in an encrypted format for data security.

Oracle has introduced Price Protection, an application that reportedly automates the price protection transactional processes and streamlines product pricing, promotions and discount management, writes Computer Business Review.

Developed together with Infosys Technologies, the offering updates, aggregates and provides access to a distributor's purchasing, inventory, costing and financial information, allowing distributors to reduce errors during claims execution, speed settlements and mitigate future discrepancies.

According to the company, the offering is designed to work with its E-Business Suite Release 12.1 and leverages its Fusion Middleware, enabling integration with existing ERP systems.