With Windows 8, Microsoft will extend its dominant desktop operating system to tablets and smartphones. Windows 8 will also feature a new, tiled interface called Metro, which is optimized for touch-screen devices.

Each year, the CDN editorial staff sits down to discuss the events of the past year in the Canadian IT channel community, and to select CDN's Top 25 Newsmakers of the year. In part two of our CDN Top 25 Newsmakers of 2011 slideshow series, we meet our final 12 newsmakers and our pick for top issue of 2011.

The annual Consumer Electronics Showcase launched dozens of tablets, smart phones and new Intel-based UltraBooks, but some are more likely to attract corporate users than others. A prep list for CIOs and IT managers.

From high-profile product releases, security breaches and the death of a tech legend, 2011 was a big year for the industry. As another year draws to a close, we look back on the IT-related comments that stuck with us.

Each year, the CDN editorial staff sits down to discuss the events of the past year in the Canadian IT channel community, and to select CDN's Top 25 Newsmakers of the year.

Gift-givers will find no shortage of tablet PCs to choose from this holiday season. And the following guide can help determine which tablet is best suited for you or a loved one.

The death of Apple's Steve Jobs sent shockwaves throughout the high tech industry as well as sparking many tributes.
There is no question that Jobs’ passing was the most high profile of executive deaths this year, but he was far from the only significant loss. Here's a look back at those who died this year in the Canadian and U.S. tech sectors.

A crowd of more than 200 people packed the Paramount Conference and Event Venue in North Toronto in September to find out which company would be named Solution Provider of the Year as part of CDN's 2011 Channel Elite Awards.

Meet the winners for categories such as best cloud solution, best mobile solution and, of course, solution provider of the year in this CDN slideshow.

Pricing in Canada versus our neighbours to the south has been an issue for years, but has come to the forefront recently with a Senate committee assembling here to examine the gap that can be as large as 20 per cent.

Pricing for products- especially technology- can vary among countries for many reasons, but CDN decided to compare prices of just a few popular products between Canada and the U.S.

After several slow years, the largest government technology conference in Canada, GTEC, was back with a bang in October with over 7,000 attendees taking in the keynotes, education sessions and tradeshow at the new Ottawa Convention Centre. Shared Services Canada and IT service delivery reform were among the key topics discussed.

Innovation is a hot topic these days in Canada, as we wonder why we're lagging behind other countries in productivity. Many tech companies tout their products and projects as the answer to Canada's problem, with several investing hundreds of thousands of dollars into research and development projects.

There's still two months left in 2011, but if the book were closed on the year today it wouldn't go down as a good one for Canada's Research in Motion. There were new products and partners, but also service outages, layoffs and earnings disappointments.

In this slideshow, we'll take a look at seven proposed mergers that we hope will never see the light of day, as their consummation would likely mean the end of the entire tech industry and possibly even the entire world.

The average executive wastes six weeks every year searching for paper, according to certified professional organizer Ellen Delap. Maintaining an organized office where you can find items quickly and easily saves time and makes you more efficient, effective and productive. Here, Delap outlines some strategies and tools anyone can use to keep a home office, commercial office or cubicle organized and effective.

Microsoft has so many rivals it's hard to know which are most likely to keep Steve Ballmer up at night. Apple? Google? Every Linux vendor ever? Microsoft tries to dominate every software market. Windows and Microsoft Office would be enough to sustain most vendors, but Redmond wants more: databases, cloud computing, e-mail, search, virtualization, unified communications, Web browsers, mobile phones and tablets, even video games. Here, we'll focus on the rivals we think pose the biggest threat to Redmond.

On August 16, CDN launched its first-ever Women in the IT Channel Solution Providers Luncheon. Held in Toronto, the event brought together more than 100 individuals from the Canadian IT channel, including 25 women specially recognized by CDN.

Every tech company has its ups and downs, but Apple is more like a roller coaster. Yet Apple's highs and lows are not so much about individual products as they are about attitudes and philosophies -- the underlying causes of, say, both the iPad (triumph) and the Pippin (failure). Here are Apple's five greatest successes and most miserable failures. We'll start with the failures first, just for fun.

As a concept, there's a lot to like about the cloud. Drop those bulky servers and get yourself a big, white hard drive in the sky. Someone else handles the upkeep and lets you put your data where you want it. Even the word "cloud" itself brings to mind a heavenly (if slightly fluffy) fantasy. The reality is, of course, a mixed bag. What you gain in avoiding upkeep, you lose in control. And the security concerns are considerable. But nowhere is the nightmare as vivid as it is when your cloud service goes down. To help keep your business pain-free in the cloud, we offer these hard-earned lessons at the hands of 10 of the worst cloud storms the Web has weathered.

Close to 500 solution providers from Canada attended the 2011 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Los Angeles. And practically all of them were on hand for the Canada Party at the Mayan Club in downtown Los Angeles hosted by rap artist Maestro Fresh Wes and featuring the hit band the Arkells.

A cautionary tale of how one security vendor went astray in the computing cloud, and what the channel can learn from it. When security experts sound the alarm about embracing cloud computing with little understanding of the risks, it's usually a case where the expert — working for a vendor — is making a pitch for their employer's products. That's all well and good, but here's the problem — some of them have trouble keeping their own side of the cloud clean. Nils Puhlmann, co-founder of the Cloud Security Alliance, revealed one example where a sizable security vendor made multiple mistakes in the cloud.

This, CDN showcased 20 exceptional women who play major roles in Canada's IT channel. In Part Two of our slideshow, we profile the second half of this year's list.

This year, CDN showcased 20 exceptional women who play major roles in Canada's IT channel. In Part One of our slideshow, we profile the first 10 women on our 2011 list.

It's a name that's legendary in the world of video games: Atari. But few people today remember that the former video game giant once made computers, too. Let’s take a look.

With the Roaring Twenties in full swing, IBM looked beyond its borders, and by 1924, it renamed itself from Computing Tabulating and Recording Co. (CTR) to International Business Machines (IBM). Today, IBM operates in 170 countries and with that, there are 170 distinct channel communities.

With new threats popping up every day (and old ones returning), security is a crucial market for businesses. CDN asked eight channel executives in the market about their philosophies regarding their companies, security and the channel.

Data centres need to be secure, temperature controlled, spacious, redundant, reliable - nothing sexy. But that doesn't mean they can't be. Here are a few that rise above the crowd and take advantage of the possibilities.

'Going green' has, for many companies, gone from being trendy to being crucial. The green movement has evolved within the IT sector into one dedicated to both sustainability and cost savings. CDN looks at 10 Canadian solution providers who have incorporated being green into their products, services and company cultures.

After two flat years from the CDN Top 100 Solution Providers rankings, the Canadian channel roared back to prominence in 2010 by posting a 6.2 per cent overall growth rate.

For many years, we heard security professionals lament the way they are perceived. Terms such as "the place where good ideas go to die" and "the department of no" weren't uncommon just a few years ago when referring to the security function.

In the third and final night of man vs. machine on Jeopardy in February, IBM's Watson supercomputer trounced its champion opponents.

Apple celebrated its 35th birthday on 1 April 2011. In this slideshow, we take a look at some of the highs and lows of the company that started out in Steve Jobs' garage.

Microsoft has so many rivals it's hard to know which are most likely to keep CEO Steve Ballmer up at night. Apple? Google? Every Linux vendor ever? Microsoft seemingly tries to dominate every software market in both the consumer and enterprise landscapes.

Doing an about-face on key issues: It's not just for politicians anymore. Tech honchos like Ellison, Schmidt and Ballmer do it from time to time -- even the mighty Steve Jobs is guilty. Click on to meet the biggest flip-floppers in IT.

With the clock ticking down to CDN's Top 100 Solution Providers of 2010 gala event, it's a good time to take a look back at those channel partners that have been the leaders of the pack over the last decade. The first Top 100 list was compiled for 2002, and is a ranking of the top solution providers in Canada based on revenue. For this slideshow, we took the top five performers for each year and awarded points based on their ranking each year. We then added the points up to get the nine top performing partners of the decade. Some of the top solution providers are still ruling the roost today. Some have merged, acquired or changed their names. And some are simply no more. Who are the top solution providers of the 2000s? Read on to find out.

The year of the tablet. Every January the tech community gathers in Las Vegas to show off its latest offerings and try to convince the crowd at the Consumer Electronics Show it has the next big thing. And inevitably, each year a theme emerges. Last year, CES was all about 3D televisions. While the hype was out in force, the technology has been slow to make it to retail shelves in 2010. At CES 2011, it was the year of the tablet. Find out what devices vendors are hoping will find their way into your hands in 2011.

Every year, the CDN editorial staff sits down to discuss the events of the past year in the Canadian IT channel community, and to select CDN’s Top 25 Newsmakers of the year. It’s often a heated and passionate debate, particularly when determining the top spots, and this year was no exception. In part two of our CDN Top 25 Newsmakers of 2010 slideshow series, meet our remaining newsmakers, and learn what put them on our list.

Every year, the CDN editorial staff sits down to discuss the events of the past year in the Canadian IT channel community, and to select CDN’s Top 25 Newsmakers of the year. It’s often a heated and passionate debate, particularly when determining the top spots, and this year was no exception. In part one of our CDN Top 25 Newsmakers of 2010 slideshow series, meet our Top 12 newsmakers, and learn what put them on our list.

Three Canadians make the list of the best known celebrity-based high tech endorsers. There are two time-honoured schools of thought when it comes to high tech advertising. The first touts the many virtues of the featured product in an attempt to show that it's superior to competitors such as the case with Jerry Seinfeld and Microsoft. The second makes an end run around reason, hires a celebrity, and has them do something ridiculous in the general vicinity of the product. From Mr. T playing non-existent classes in World of Warcraft to Chuck Norris passing out, we've found some of the more interesting celebrity high tech ads.

During the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s a widely-held concept was Internet time: the idea that, with the instantaneous communications enabled by the Web, in the IT world time moved a little quicker.

Symantec held its annual Partner Engage event at Las Vegas' MGM Convention Centre. The theme of this year's conference was "Power your business."

Avnet Technology Solutions (ATS) held its annual IBM Partner Summit in San Antonio, TX., where more than 800 guests were in attendance this year. Company executives also took this time to announce a lofty multi-million dollar goal to reach $600M with its partners this quarter.

There were many established vendors at the D&H Canada's Tech Fair such as Cisco, but the distributor also brought in many others who are new to the Canadian market.

This year's annual CDN Channel Elite Awards event, held at Toronto's Paramount Conference and Event Venue, saw 26 awards handed out across 10 categories. In addition to the usual awards categories, this year's event also introduced a new category: Best Cloud Computing Solution.

After their marriage, a channel partner's relationships with their technology vendors are probably the most important, and long-standing relationships in their lives. And not unlike a marriage, a strong vendor/channel relationship requires nurturing, give-and-take and mutual respect.

There's a whole lot of green-washing going on -- and a lot of lip service being paid to environmental initiatives. But some solution providers are truly committed to making a difference. Again this year, CDN honours our pick for the top 10 green solution providers. Learn more about these partners, and what makes them green leaders.

With the resignation of Mark Hurd as CEO of Hewlett Packard (NYSE: HPQ), speculation is rampant as to who will succeed him at the helm of the technology giant.

We're only half-way through 2010, and already the IT channel has seen many changes with new names taking charge, old names getting new positions, and some veterans moving on all together.

The annual Microsoft Worldwide Partner conference was held in Washington, D.C. While U.S. President Barack Obama ran the U.S. from the Whitehouse, former president Bill Clinton dropped by the event to address channel partners.

HP held its annual Tech Forum conference in Las Vegas this year, where more than 5,300 partner and customer attendees came from around the world. During the opening keynote speech, Dave Donatelli, executive vice-president and general manager for HP enterprise servers, storage and networking, said one of the biggest challenges for customers today is IT sprawl. Most customers are currently spending about 70 per cent of their overall IT budget on managing their existing infrastructure, while the remaining 30 per cent of their budget goes towards innovation. Thanks to HP's vision of a converged infrastructure, the company is helping customers to save costs and time using their solutions and technologies.

Research and analysis firm IDC Canada recently identified 10 Canadian Mobile and Wireless companies to watch. These are 10 companies that are innovating and developing promising technology in this hot market.

The annual Computex Trade Show in Taipei is a showcase for new technology. But this year's event proved to be quite controversial as protestors disrupted the show by demonstrating against some of the participants over a rash of high tech worker suicides.

Business software vendor SAP AG (NYSE:SAP) held its annual Sapphire user conference in May, and for the first time the show was simulcast concurrently from both Orlando and Frankfurt.

Cisco held its annual Partner Summit in San Francisco this year, where the vendor announced new initiatives and programs to help its channel partners accelerate their growth.

These 20 female senior-level executives are helping to lead the way and are setting a new bar in the IT.

These 20 female senior-level executives are helping to lead the way and are setting a new bar in the IT channel.

Canadian comedienne extraordinaire Jessica Holmes hosted the annual Top 100 Solution Providers event in Toronto.

Kaspersky Lab hosted its third annual Americas partner conference in February in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. The event brought in close to 200 channel partners from across North America where they heard about new marketing initiatives from the security vendor, as well as new programs.

In part one of our CDN Top 25 Newsmakers of 2009 slideshow series, meet our Top 5 newsmakers, and learn what put them on the map in 2009.

In part two of our CDN Top 25 Newsmakers of 2009 slideshow series, meet newsmakers six thru 15, and learn what put them on the map in 2009.

In our third and final slideshow installment of our Top 25 Newsmakers of 2009, meet newsmakers 16-25, and see why they made our list this year.

Symantec Corp. held its annual Partner Engage channel conference earlier this month, encouraging partners to unite, collaborate and thrive together

The release of Windows 7 was much anticipated in Canada. The new efficiency of the OS was a topic Microsoft tried to convey at the launch in Toronto

This year's second annual D&H technology show and fun fair event left partners with a message of staying optimistic despite today's changing and challenging economy.

Approximately 400 Canadian solution providers (some even drove) made there way to bayou country in the deep south of the United States to attend Microsoft’s annual Worldwide Partner Conference.

This year's annual Sage Insights Partner Conference brought partners from around the world together, in an effort to help all partners go back to basics.

Cisco's worldwide channel team along with thousands of solution providers came to the historic city of Boston for the annual Partner Summit.

Comedian and Air Farce alum Jessica Holmes was the master of ceremonies for the CDN Top 100 Solution providers of 2008 event, held in April in Vaughn, Ont. The event celebrates excellence in the Canadian IT channel, and recognizes the top 100 Canadian solution providers in 2008, by revenue.

During CDN's Top 100 Solution Providers 2009 event, workshop attendees were treated to an in-depth look at customer purchasing patterns and the channel partner landscape.

More than 7,000 attendees came to Orlando in May for EMC World 2009, the storage vendor's annual user conference. They heard the latest about the vendor's data centre and virtualization strategies, and the product roadmap.

Networking and mentoring group, Women in Leadership and Technology (WIL&T), a division of non-profit organization, International Association of Microsoft Certified Partners, held its first Canadian meet & mingle event for women last Monday.

Cisco Systems hosted solution providers from around the world at its channel marketing conference called Velocity.

At this year's annual Lotusphere conference' IBM executives outlined the strategy for the collaboration platform and pinpointed the channel opportunities.

Well, another year has passed and again the time has come to reflect on what has gone by in 2008. In the IT industry the one constant this year has been virtualization whether in server, storage or desktop.

The Channel Elite Awards represents something special because they are peer awards. Part three of CDN’s Channel Elite Awards slide show features the best in channel marketing, managed services and collaborative solutions.

The Channel Elite Awards represents something special because they are peer awards. In part two of the Channel Elite Awards Slideshow series the winners of Best Enterprise, Best Mid-Market and Best Service Organization are featured.

This year’s annual Tech Data Vendor Partner Summit, which took place in October in Mississauga, drew over 400 technology executives and professionals, including more than 120 vendor partners.

Microsoft Canada partners from across Canada came to Toronto recently to honour innovation and achievement in the software giant's partner ecosystem at the 2008 Impact Awards.

CDN’s 2008 Channel Elite Awards were held on Oct. 28th, 2008 with solution providers from across Canada gathering to honour achievement and innovation in the Canadian channel community.

The first annual Computer Dealer News Channel Chiefs feature includes profiles of six of Canada's leading channel chiefs, along with all the information you need on Canada's major channel vendors, from channel chief contact information to rebates, margins and product release schedules.

Top five solution providers, xwave, BlueCurl, Softchoice, Laser Networks and WBM Office Services, have met the green demand by creating more energy-efficient solutions, improving productivity as well as bringing cost-saving advantages to the business world.

The country of Taiwan has been the hub of IT manufacturing for several decades, but as more manufacturing moves over to China because of lower labour cost Taiwan's tech titans are transitioning from its manufacturing base to one of innovation.

The executives and events that made the biggest impact on the Canadian IT channel in 2007 Each year CDN, Canada's No. 1 IT channel publication, selects the leading executives and one news trend that made the biggest impact on the channel.