tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50358085165523532332012-02-16T07:42:34.336ZMy humble opinion on trends in virtualisation.Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.comBlogger541100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-78859174813814159382011-12-15T19:28:00.000Z2011-12-15T19:28:24.159Z

If you are a DataCore distributor, channel partner or end user - or even none of the above but would like to take a closer look at what we do - you are cordially invited to our annual Customer Conference on 2nd February in London. Several of our most senior VPs will be in attendance and it promises to be a hugely rewarding day. We would love to see you there - please let me know if you intend to

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-16733368649137455272011-12-14T21:07:00.001Z2011-12-14T21:23:45.311Z

Whilst I, as a DataCore employee, certainly don't want to be seen to be taking advantage of other people's misfortune, the facts are that there is a shortage of hard disk supply at the moment due to recent flooding in Thailand. As has been widely reported, Western Digital, Toshiba, Intel and others have been directly affected and, with the current situation being as it is, the usual rules of

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-46777651369525550662011-08-09T20:51:00.003+01:002011-08-09T21:12:57.860+01:00

After the announcement last week that the Govt are spending over the odds on IT due to what was termed an "oligopoly" of vendors and suppliers, infrastructure decision-makers may now feel obliged to look at their options. On the topic of hardware which, in many cases, is one of the most expensive parts of any project, virtualisation technologies have enabled choice. But not, it would seem, in

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-24951416048404485892011-08-09T20:18:00.003+01:002011-08-09T21:14:03.519+01:00

I know, I know, it's been a while - almost a year in fact - since I last posted any thoughts on here. I never went away but a few things have certainly changed and, for a while, I had neither the time nor the inclination to continue writing this blog if I'm honest. All that is different now though, I have a new motivation and energy - a change is as good as a rest, as they say - and a new area of

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-52626401837021789632010-09-24T15:19:00.001+01:002010-09-24T15:22:23.830+01:00

I've heard a couple of juicy acquisition rumours are circulating. I may be a bit behind the time actually, Googling them brings up stories from weeks ago. Finger back on pulse from now on... Firstly, I've heard that VMware may be looking at buying Novell. This I can fully understand, VMware need to work with a full-blown operating system and they'll never be on Microsoft's Christmas card list.

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-58334914616618130412010-09-21T17:46:00.001+01:002010-09-21T17:52:14.416+01:00

The new virtualisation practice is now up and running at COMPUTERLINKS and things are moving on incredibly quickly. All the legals are long gone, the official launch PR has been and gone, the vendors are bedding in nicely and getting to know COMPUTERLINKS as a company and we are now concentrating on going to market with their solutions. The most recent development has been the confirmation of two

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-62185738447039012932010-09-15T12:20:00.000+01:002010-09-15T12:20:05.433+01:00

COMPUTERLINKS, together with several of our vendors, recently sponsored the CRN Golf Day at Foxhills in Surrey. A large part of the sponsorship package was the filming of an expert panel discussing the questions and issues around security in the modern, virtualised data-centre. CRN provided all of the filming and editing and the final version is now ready. CRN are currently showing it on their

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-7892751578815181462010-09-09T09:10:00.001+01:002010-09-09T09:11:24.101+01:00

I've had a few of these emails in the past but none has captured my attention like this one did. Needless to say I made contact immediately and am arranging the transfer of deeds to my house to this poor unfortunate woman as fast as the legal process will allow. Here, verbatim, was the desperate plea for help that so tugged at my heart strings. Dearest trusted one, Based on the trust and God's

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-77116047984479003332010-08-31T18:32:00.004+01:002010-08-31T18:35:27.538+01:00

A few months ago, COMPUTERLINKS announced that we were re-structuring our business slightly, to try and take advantage of other growth areas of IT. Many in the market regarded us (and possibly still do) as a niche distributor in the IT security space - although thankfully most also think we are very specialised and deliver considerable value in this area. We want to replicate this good reputation

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-25304018783555790352010-08-23T17:34:00.000+01:002010-08-23T17:37:10.598+01:00

Those of you who are subscribed to this blog on RSS would have had pretty continuous radio silence for quite some time. I do apologise but the title of the blog is virtualisation tribulations after all – it would be far too easy if everything ran smoothly, wouldn’t it?I won’t go into the reasons I suddenly stopped writing in any detail, suffice to say it was decided that there was an inherent

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-32712935832788381362009-04-07T15:23:00.003+01:002009-04-07T15:30:44.390+01:00

Some friends of ours over at 360is have come up with a clever way of displaying their capabilities and services around XenServer: a free administration poster. This rounds up such things as internal networking diagrams, essential commands, guests & templates and hardware essentials in an easy-to-read overview, ready to print out and keep handy in a XenServer-based data-centre. There are 2

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-17566987384387786092009-03-16T20:11:00.003Z2009-03-16T20:15:17.468Z

I know I've been particularly slack the last few weeks and not updated my blog. There are plenty of things to write about and I will get round to them, but there simply aren't enough hours in the day at the moment.In the meantime, I'm very proud to be able to say I have been published in the Financial Times' Digital Business section under the Personal View column. For reasons of copyright, I

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-23224206904788593862009-02-19T11:41:00.007Z2009-02-19T15:02:23.121Z

According to rumours in the press today, XenServer will soon be given away free of charge. As this is very new news, I don't know the ins and outs, I'm sure we will hear more over the coming days, but, if it's true, this would be something of a sensation. We can supposedly expect an announcement on Monday 23rd February.As I understand it, the XenServer Enterprise product, as it is at the moment,

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-64021926420027898712009-01-14T17:08:00.003Z2009-01-14T17:30:28.923Z

With 2009 now well underway (Happy New Year everyone, I hope your festive periods were relaxing, fruitful and merry, although perhaps not in that order), it's time to look ahead and try and get some idea of where the famously speedy - and often shortlived - IT sector trends will take us this year.Virtualisation, I think we can all agree, took a giant leap forward last year, with general

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-13292906479609717312008-12-23T17:00:00.008Z2008-12-23T17:36:22.094Z

Well that's it folks, I'm on holiday now until 5th January so a last few words to wish you all a very merry Christmas and an even merrier New Year. Or, if you're Chinese, enjoy continuing work as normal until January 26th.It's been an eventful year, virtualisation has taken a foothold and steadily makes its way towards mass market, only now to be replaced with the next IT buzzwords: Cloud

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-47087633702802353832008-12-12T10:30:00.002Z2008-12-12T10:40:49.707Z

I know this is geek humour rather than real humour, but I found an amusing entry this morning on Computerworld blogs, which I hope they don't mind me slightly amending here. Just goes to show why Citrix brought out EdgeSight - Citrix automatically gets the blame for everything!A user catches their administrator in the hallway and asks her to look at his PC, because Microsoft Outlook takes soooo

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-66540624698468349092008-12-08T11:01:00.005Z2008-12-09T16:55:31.826Z

It's been over a year now since Citrix announced their acquisition of XenSource and eventually re-branded not only the server virtualisation product to XenServer but also their flagship product, Presentation Server, to XenApp. The theory behind this was that the term Xen = virtualisation and the second section of the word simply denoted which kind. XenDesktop followed earlier this year and, not

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-27354262121606026392008-11-26T17:39:00.003Z2008-11-26T17:47:59.302Z

Last week I attended the Distributor Conference for RES Software, one of the multitude of Citrix/VMWare eco-system vendors. If you haven't heard about RES, you should really take a look - it's one of the software makers that doesn't get half the respect it deserves. And I don't say that just because COMPUTERLINKS works with them as a distributor, but because I know what a great product they

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-56993613794347339112008-11-05T14:08:00.004Z2008-11-05T17:01:48.508Z

I think it's fair to say the NetScaler product line has never really been regarded by most as an integral part of the Citrix portfolio. Or at least the technology behind it is not typically something you would associate with Citrix. The buyers are different, the established Citrix channel partners don't always have the networking background required for it and Citrix's arch-rivals in this space,

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-31854942820859050882008-10-23T10:47:00.004+01:002008-10-23T11:02:38.209+01:00

Citrix announced their Q3 2008 results today and, whilst revenue growth is impressive ($399 million compared to $350 million and therefore 14% up on Q3 last year), profits have taken a bit of a hit. It has not gone unnoticed that what previously was a seemingly endless stream of acquisitions has come to a complete stop lately. The last two announcements that I can think of involving 3rd party

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-46623242268210434382008-10-20T13:21:00.003+01:002008-10-20T14:46:40.028+01:00

Last week I attended a successful event staged by one of our key customers, Nebulas Solutions, in London. They recently formed a division called Nebulas Virtualise, which focusses, as you might expect, on virtualisation and related technologies. Nebulas also employ what they call a "Technology Incubator" to help them decide which products should be incorporated into their corporate portfolio of "

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-55030862979964485982008-10-03T16:26:00.005+01:002008-10-08T10:09:39.359+01:00

Returning, as I do, with a glistening wedding ring on my finger, I must now live up to my new status as a mature, upstanding, married member of the community. Losing my phone on honeymoon wasn't the best start but I'll put it down to teething problems.When I (temporarily) signed off a couple of weeks ago, it was a matter of days before VMWorld and I was utterly convinced that Citrix would

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-51074573321137934542008-09-11T23:08:00.004+01:002008-09-11T23:36:14.612+01:00

There comes a time in most men's lives when they must kiss a fond farewell to youth, freedom and singleton-ism (if that's even a word) and devote their undivided attention to the future mother of their children. That time has now, happily, arrived for the otherwise completely devoted creator of this blog. It is with perhaps a touch of excited nervosity, but yet every confidence, that, at about 1:

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-33425941250431426002008-09-11T23:02:00.002+01:002008-09-11T23:08:24.345+01:00

Again, just like the "Virtualisation - a bit of a snapshot" article below, this piece was written a while ago for a broader audience than this blog typically addresses, but I would like to post it nonetheless. Whilst doubters remain, cynically citing vendor marketing spin, concerning the real impact that such things as virtualisation have on energy consumption and carbon footprints, companies

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-23211514751801122582008-09-05T16:23:00.003+01:002008-09-05T17:17:00.647+01:00

Thanks to the market-shaping friends I keep, I have received (on extremely good authority) some information that I think will be of great interest to you. In the very near future, you will see several ground-breaking mergers and acquisitions in this wonderful, crazy IT world that we work in. Please keep these under your hat for now, as I'm pretty sure they are supposed to remain absolutely

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-64170651441484425902008-09-04T16:40:00.002+01:002008-09-04T16:47:49.116+01:00

Note: I wrote this for our company's newsletter, so a very broad audience. It may be somewhat low-level for the hardcore amongst you but I'll post it anyway.Currently one of the hottest topics in the IT marketplace, virtualisation has opened up new and exciting avenues of expertise (and, ultimately, revenue) for the entire IT channel. Many billions of dollars have been pocketed by the likes of

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-72258911411937806842008-08-28T16:22:00.003+01:002008-08-28T16:42:08.469+01:00

I have been royally slated today for supposedly biting the hand that feeds me. Please can I therefore have it be known, officially, that my livelihood has been built on Citrix products and that I have stayed loyal to Citrix, despite temptation, for very good reasons. I love Citrix products and I think they're world-beaters but I am also entitled to an opinion on what I think is right and wrong.

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-70542116012185485772008-08-28T12:50:00.004+01:002008-08-28T13:08:00.509+01:00

Up until recently (I personally had no idea this was the case and I wonder how many people actually did), Microsoft did not officially permit you to move VMs (Virtual Machines) running 41 of their products around willy-nilly.Once you had installed certain MS apps on Server X but wanted to use XenMotion or V-Motion etc. to then move them to Server Y, you weren't officially allowed to do this until

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-48469743031567113992008-08-28T09:28:00.005+01:002008-08-28T15:39:11.958+01:00

In the past few weeks, Citrix has announced several product upgrades and other bits of news but I have been in hibernation for a while and have neglected to keep you informed. For this I apologise. Writers block methinks. That and a valiant, but ultimately fruitless, attempt to improve my golf.Below is an update of the main announcements with a few pointers as to what they entail (where possible)

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-43333389021106190322008-08-13T14:25:00.003+01:002008-08-13T17:24:50.531+01:00

The takeover bid by Barclays Private Equity of my employer COMPUTERLINKS went through successfully today. They secured 84% of the COMPUTERLINKS shares. I wrote about how I felt about it back in June.

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-42892481851757771262008-08-06T12:17:00.003+01:002008-08-06T12:19:47.876+01:00

I have had to remove the Green IT piece for now because it will soon be released to the press by our PR agency as a new article, but I'll put it back on again in a couple of weeks once (or if) it has been published. Sorry about that.

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-23890166579016304192008-07-31T17:09:00.003+01:002008-08-01T12:06:44.059+01:00

In another shock move for most of us (except people in the UK, who are now well used to price increases and are currently trying to get their heads around how the hell British Gas can justify a 35% hike the day before Centrica, their parent company, announced having made 1 billion pounds profit), Citrix have decided to increase their prices on all product lines in EMEA, effective 1st September.

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-49278307142260293882008-07-31T16:31:00.004+01:002008-07-31T17:09:38.765+01:00

Citrix took the unusual step this week of canning 3 of their 4 distributors in the US. Only Ingram Micro remain and they will now be processing Citrix orders from all of the 1,900 partners in the States. Apparently 75-80% of the Citrix business in America goes through the channel and the US does (I think) around half of the total number for Citrix globally. Now I only got a C in GCSE maths but,

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-23710522238646227622008-07-24T21:23:00.004+01:002008-07-24T22:28:38.089+01:00

I've noticed that the point products in the Application Delivery Controller (ADC) market are rapidly being snapped up, typically by vendors who a) do a whole lot more than just accelerating traffic and b) see ADC as just a small, but critical, part of what they do (or, more accurately, should be doing).As I see it:1) Applications, file transfer protocols and web traffic are demanding more and

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-77447846527357357062008-07-24T16:56:00.002+01:002008-07-24T17:08:14.978+01:00

Citrix released financial results for the second quarter of this year yesterday. I couldn't listen in to the call myself but a contact of mine did and he has given me permission to publicise his synopsis of what was said. Unfortunately I can't name him in person due to compliance issues surrounding his role but I'm sure he will accept my thanks in absentia for the below. (I am going to a wedding

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-24072514244471456632008-07-22T17:00:00.003+01:002008-07-22T17:29:42.864+01:00

One of our partners, 360is, are probably the foremost XenServer reseller in the UK at the moment. They are certainly the most pro-active and are leading the way in terms of advocating the product over VMWare throughout the end user community, not without success either, I hasten to add. The deserve their success too; they understand it better than anyone and have put a lot of time and effort into

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-7166973963874355082008-07-10T12:35:00.005+01:002008-07-10T22:36:39.222+01:00

I don't expect for one moment that the people who read my blog (and, by the way, we have now reached the monumental landmark of over 200 unique visitors and 600 page views, which I am incredibly pleased with considering I've only been doing it 2 months, so thanks very much for visiting!) are not also loyal devotees to Brian Madden's website but just in case there are one or two unaware of Brian's

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-58637355503850232092008-06-30T17:51:00.003+01:002008-06-30T17:58:19.198+01:00

I have uncovered some grossly underhand tactics by mischievous colleagues of mine to deliberately tamper with and manufacture results of my recent poll entitled "What do you think of my blog?" so I have reluctantly removed it. A free and fair voting procedure is an important part of the democracy we enjoy and concerted efforts to falsify results is not something that can be tolerated. Just ask

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-62926035796702798882008-06-30T14:42:00.008+01:002008-07-10T22:33:51.890+01:00

After about 3 years of coding and development (a lot of which was, by all accounts, carried out by XenSource before the acquisition by Citrix), Microsoft have finally released Hyper-V, their long-awaited hypervisor and management system. I haven't seen it myself, and wouldn't actually know what to do with it if I had, so I'll just concentrate on the commercial impacts I believe this will

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-20636342568450170942008-06-27T10:53:00.003+01:002008-06-27T11:24:15.392+01:00

I found out yesterday that a reseller I know reasonably well went into administration this week. I won't mention their name here as I don't think it's fair to broadcast it any more than is necessary, both legally-speaking and in terms of protecting the owner's dignity. Suffice to say, they were a Citrix partner, although (thankfully) not one of ours, and were heavily involved in the server-based

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-6092541986587579272008-06-18T11:26:00.002+01:002008-06-18T12:16:28.346+01:00

As you may have seen in the press over the last couple of days (on Channel EMEA, CRN or Bloomberg amongst others), a company called Platin 274 which is financed by Barclays Private Equity in the background, has made a friendly offer to acquire the COMPUTERLINKS group for €15.50 per share. This values our company at €104 million or approximately 82 million pounds.I am extremely pleased by this

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-70108016469878706832008-06-17T18:22:00.003+01:002008-06-18T12:20:50.385+01:00

And finally... Green IT.I've heard a lot of people banging on about Green IT in the last year or so and, in actual fact, I personally am responsible for some of that banging. I have always thought that virtualisation, as a concept, is fantastic in itself in lowering carbon emissions by reducing power consumption and so on but I must admit I had never considered the impact to be that huge. That

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-88620446468191487972008-06-17T17:39:00.003+01:002008-06-18T12:23:01.340+01:00

I actually attended one particular session at iForum that I didn't even mean to atttend. I walked into the wrong room by accident but, due to the fact that about 30 pairs of eyes revolved 180 degrees in unison thanks to the door slamming hard behind me, I then felt compelled to sit down and shut up anyway. As it turned out, it was all about virtualisation and security and was thoroughly

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-89848975545036245082008-06-11T12:13:00.002+01:002008-06-11T13:34:54.100+01:00

One of the so-called Super Sessions at iForum was conducted by Ian Pratt, who is a professor at the University of Cambridge and was one of the original founders and writers of the Xen hypervisor. His is a rather interesting story that started in the early noughties, when he decided that hypervisors should be small, stable and, most importantly, free. It wasn't until 2004, though, that it saw the

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-68871114913926349502008-06-10T17:29:00.002+01:002008-06-10T18:35:51.907+01:00

Today saw the first day of the conference proper. Mark Templeton kicked things off in his inimitable style. I like the way he tones things down when talking to a typically reserved British crowd. No toe-curling renditions of how "pumped" he is and no enthusiastic requests for audience participation, as there are at the Summit event in Orlando. It doesn't go down too well over here and Mark knows

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-3929653127966632502008-06-09T21:08:00.003+01:002008-06-09T21:28:39.564+01:00

I am currently up in Edinburgh attending Citrix iForum 08. It kicks off in earnest tomorrow but I went to the opening "party" tonight. Maybe it's just me getting old and cynical but I get the impression everything is ever so slightly lower-key this year. The devil's in the detail with these things and the conference bag's not up to much this time around, I must say. It looks like something a

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-72803742220236156562008-06-04T11:54:00.002+01:002008-06-04T12:00:27.463+01:00

After putting down some thoughts last night about XenDesktop and trying to understand why Citrix paid such a huge amount of money for a hypervisor, I was fascinated to find this article on Google Alerts this morning: http://www.dabcc.com/article.aspx?id=7884. It's written by Doug Brown and covers why he thinks Citrix spent 500 million dollars on XenSource. Doug is one of these highly-respected

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-18695241589499789432008-06-03T17:39:00.003+01:002008-06-03T18:26:00.021+01:00

I mentioned below I would write about XenDesktop soon and I have noticed a lot of other people doing the same thing of late. And rightly so - it could possibly just be the next big thing in IT. One such person doing this much more intelligently than I ever could is Robin Bloor, founder of Bloor Research and author of the titillatingly entitled Have Mac, Will Blog. (Thanks to Harry at Citrix UK

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-46014413851472288942008-06-02T21:07:00.002+01:002008-06-02T21:14:18.661+01:00

Thursday 5th June sees three things begin...The good: England start the 3rd test against the New Zealand cricket team after a fantastic comeback in the 2nd test. They lead 1-0 and just need a draw to win the series.The bad: Euro 2008 gets underway. I hate football, as you'll see from one of my May posts, but it does amuse me that none of the home nations is involved.The ugly: The single worst

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-91144788208239697972008-05-28T13:36:00.002+01:002008-05-28T14:08:48.273+01:00

During my visit to Channel Expo last week, as described below, I also spent an hour listening to Nick Leeson, the now infamous rogue trader and destroyer of Barings Bank. Ever since this story surfaced in 1995, I have been fascinated by it. (Not sure quite what it has to do with the IT channel but I was very grateful for the opportunity to listen to him anyway.)For anyone who has been living in a

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-60602657481564288072008-05-23T18:37:00.002+01:002008-05-23T19:04:59.810+01:00

I attended Channel Expo this week at the NEC in Birmingham. I'm afraid the show wasn't quite what I had expected. Lots of tiny computer companies trying to flog laptop cases and "funkily" designed PC housing, meanwhile trying to fend off the mass of unemployed losers taking time out from Jeremy Kyle and trying to outdo each other in the amount of freebies they can bag from the stands. Stands that

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-84530411659925511862008-05-21T22:15:00.002+01:002008-05-21T22:47:04.289+01:00

I had intended this blog to be purely about my professional capacity in the Citrix world but what the heck. 10 seconds of the UEFA Champions League Final on Thursday 21st May in Moscow summed up football for me. It's widely known in my private circles that I am a big rugby supporter, always have been, and therefore have little time for football and even less for footballers. Whether someone is

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-50199075253398883192008-05-21T15:22:00.002+01:002008-05-21T15:37:20.390+01:00

It's not often I get really excited about doing events. I have found in the past that you put an awful lot of effort in for about 15 registrations, of which perhaps 10 will turn up on the day if you're lucky. Getting end users to attend is one thing, it's a nice day out of the office for them. Getting resellers to come is another entirely - it's a day away from re-selling.A couple of years ago,

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5035808516552353233.post-3020099225437183792008-05-20T12:31:00.000+01:002008-05-20T12:36:49.676+01:00

In this ueber-politically-correct, high-visibility-jacket-wearing world of ours, I feel compelled to add the following: Please be aware that all posts on this blog are strictly my own personal views and opinions only and do not necessarily express those of my employer. The product names used in this message are for identification purposes only. All trademarks and registered trademarks are the

Rupert Collierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10804525549669532289noreply@blogger.com0