Ranking Highlights the Up and Coming VARS in North America

August 31, 2011 – Third Octet today announced Everything Channel has named the company to the first ever 2011 CRN Next-Gen 250 list.  The CRN Next-Gen 250 is an annual listing of innovative and nimble business and technology integrators, solution providers, and resellers in North America offering solutions and services in cloud computing, mobility, unified communications, virtualization and other emerging technologies.

The CRN Next-Generation 250 list is comprised of the most exciting new solution provider organizations (founded 2000-2011) bringing new and emerging implementation ideas and business models to the market.

“In today’s competitive environment solution providers have to do more than just talk about innovation. The ability to quickly implement new processes, models and technologies is what drives margins and the bottom line,” said Kelley Damore, VP, Editorial Director, Everything Channel. “The CRN Next-gen 250 highlights the most interesting new solution providers who are demonstrating such innovation and uncovers the new techniques and technologies that are driving their success.”

For more information, visit the CRN Next-Gen 250 List.

Third Octet Inc.

Third Octet is an Information Technology consulting firm specializing in the fulfillment of business challenges utilizing sound technology services, solutions, and approaches, targeted towards the small to medium (SMB) and enterprise markets. Our approach is unique, and not specific to a particular subset of industry verticals but, rather, specific to the objectives and needs of all businesses – ensuring that an organizations technology investments not only make sense but that they also satisfy business requirements. Your business challenge is our business challenge, and it’s in our expertise that gives us the enablement to ensure that the business equation is solved with the most sensible and cost effective solution.

Everything Channel

Everything Channel is the premier provider of IT channel-focused events, media, research, consulting, and sales and marketing services. With over 30 years of experience and engagement, Everything Channel has the unmatched channel expertise to execute integrated solutions for technology executives managing partner recruitment, enablement and go-to-market strategy in order to accelerate technology sales. Everything Channel is a UBM company.

UBM plc

UBM plc is a leading global business media company. We inform markets and bring the world’s buyers and sellers together at events, online, in print and provide them with the information they need to do business successfully. We focus on serving professional commercial communities, from doctors to game developers, from journalists to jewelry traders, from farmers to pharmacists around the world. Our 6,000 staff in more than 30 countries are organized into specialist teams that serve these communities, helping them to do business and their markets to work effectively and efficiently.

Receive Partner Subsidy Dollars When You Buy or Renew Software via eligible Open License programs from April 4 – June 30 2011

Big Easy 6.0 is here! That means it’s the best time for you to take advantage of an incredible offer with the latest Microsoft products.

Big Easy 6.0 lets you:

• Obtain up to 30% in partner subsidy dollars on qualifying Microsoft purchases
• This applies to new and renewal software purchases
• Apply these partner subsidy dollars towards future purchases of Microsoft solutions or services
• Valid on qualifying purchases made between April 4th and June 30th 2011.
• Receive a reimbursement on the purchase of a Windows Phone device through Open Business or Open Value

Big Easy 6.0 offers you the following partner subsidy dollars (%):

New Purchases:

Renewal Agreements:

Rebate available for Open Business or Open Value customers who renew under a new Open Value agreement.

There are a number of options available for you to purchase software or renew your license agreement. The most beneficial option for new software purchases is through an Open Value Subscription (OVS) agreement, and the best option when renewing existing license agreement is through an Open Value (OV) agreement.

To learn more about OVS, click here

Special Online Event with Citrix and Intel

March 16th at 11AM PST / 2PM EST: “Virtual Desktops: From Wow to How” shows you the amazing capabilities and real-world applications of desktop virtualization for any user, on any device. This 1-hour session features a Q&A to help you get started. Register today and you could win a MacBook Air or a signed Dilbert® cartoon. Compliments of Citrix.

Learn how to make desktop virtualization a reality!

In our quest to find the ultimate design that spoke to the simplicity of our company and, most importantly, the concept behind our name, we came across a site leveraging crowd sourcing for design.  Leveraging the “crowd” had a nice ring to it, and an awful amount of familiarity (think “cloud”).  And, after a few weeks of design submissions – some of which were amazing, others outright wonky – we have our new look.

In today’s competitive global market

Microsoft has a long history of developing and delivering innovative software and services for businesses and individuals. Designed to meet your unique business needs, our software-plus-services vision brings together the best of rich on-premise applications and flexible online services to give you ready access to the latest messaging and collaboration tools – without costly deployment and time-consuming maintenance. Microsoft Online Services reliably delivers 99.9 percent scheduled uptime and carries a financially backed service level agreement.

Let Our IT Resources Work for You

Microsoft Online Services gives your business the powerful productivity capabilities of Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, Microsoft Office Communications Server, and Microsoft Office Live Meeting —all hosted online and all up and running quickly and easily without the upfront costs of an on-premise deployment. The suite of productivity tools enables your workers to communicate and collaborate effectively, while enabling your IT team to focus on more business-critical tasks. And with services hosted by Microsoft, you can have peace of mind knowing that experts are managing your IT and that your services will be available when you need them.

Features and Benefits

Microsoft Online Services makes it easy for you to leverage and rapidly deploy familiar Microsoft server products as flexible services.  These hosted services—the Business Productivity Online Standard Suite—include the following:

Provide employees access to e-mail, calendar, and contacts from virtually anywhere, at anytime, on desktops, laptops, and mobile devices—while helping to protect against malware and spam. Exchange Online can be rapidly deployed, flexibly expanded, and is designed to be securely administered using a powerful yet easy-to-use Web-based console.

Share documents, contacts, calendars, and tasks in a single location. Based on Microsoft Office SharePoint_® Server 2007, SharePoint Online delivers rich collaboration capabilities that enable team members to flexibly and efficiently collaborate, find organizational resources, search your intranet site, and manage content and workflow.

Connect with colleagues and customers through real-time meetings, training sessions, and events using only a PC with an Internet connection. Hosted Web conferencing services from Microsoft Office Live Meeting give your employees the power to collaborate wherever they are, to set up project meetings, brainstorm ideas, and collaborate on whiteboards without the cost and hassle of travel!

Enable users to find and rapidly connect with the right person from the applications they use most. Office Communications Online provides streamlined access to rich presence and instant messaging capabilities that are centrally managed by IT and work seamlessly with a range of Microsoft Office system programs.

How It Works

Each Microsoft data center, located strategically throughout the world, houses a highly reliable complex of equipment that provides seamless connectivity to the Microsoft Online suite of services. This global network of geo-redundant data centers provides around the clock access to your business-critical collaboration services, and helps keep your data safe.

 With Microsoft Online Services, your IT staff retains control over the services offered to your end users. Microsoft Online Services work seamlessly with Microsoft Active Directory, so you can continue to manage user policies centrally and control which services are available via your existing users. A single administrative panel—with consoles for provisioning, usage, monitoring, and support—enables simple and centralized management. And your users can enjoy the convenience of a single sign-on to access all their hosted services.

Visit www.microsoft.com/online today for your free 30 day trial, or contact us for more information.

Start putting our IT resources to work for you!

Within the Information Technology spread, new offerings will include courses for:

• Microsoft
• Citrix
• Cisco
• CompTIA
• Security
• Telecommunications
• Help Desk Institute

For Business Process Improvement, watch for:

• Project Management
• ITIL
• Business Architecture

The Training and Education page will be receiving modifcations over the next several weeks to account for these course introductions.  Stay tuned.

XenDesktop 4 is a comprehensive desktop virtualization solution that delivers a complete Windows desktop experience as an on-demand service to any user, anywhere, making virtual desktops a mainstream reality for hundreds of millions of corporate employees for the first time ever. Unlike first-generation VDI-only solutions that were applicable only to a narrow set of users, XenDesktop 4 with its new FlexCast™ delivery technology is the first product in the industry to support every major desktop virtualization model in a single, integrated solution – a breakthrough that improves ROI, simplifies management and extends the benefits of virtualization to every employee in the enterprise. XenDesktop 4 further simplifies desktop computing by integrating all the functionality of Citrix XenApp™, enabling customers to deliver on-demand applications as a seamless part of their overall desktop strategy. XenDesktop’s award-winning HDX™ technology also ensures every user receives a high-definition experience. By using up to 90 percent less bandwidth than competing solutions, XenDesktop with HDX is the only solution to deliver a high-definition experience over WAN connections, and can support up to three times more users on the same LAN.

“InfoWorld Technology of the Year award winners are not just the best products in their class, but the products that are leading the way in the technology categories that businesses and IT professionals should care most about,” InfoWorld Test Center Executive Editor Doug Dineley said. “These are the products that are changing the way businesses operate and how people work.”

“We are honored that InfoWorld Test Center editor and reviewers recognized XenDesktop 4 as an InfoWorld 2010 Technology of the Year Award winner. It’s a testament not only to the strength of our innovative solution, but to the growing mainstream adoption of desktop virtualization overall,” said Raj Dhingra, group vice president and general manager, XenDesktop product group at Citrix Systems. “XenDesktop 4 has proven to be a market-leading and award-winning desktop virtualization product and to share this win with other top-notch solutions, like Intel’s Nehalem processor, Microsoft Windows 7 and Apple’s iPhone OS and AppStore is a true achievement.”

Read the entire article at Citrix.