With all the talk about the cloud, it seems appropriate to refer readers a blog entry by Bruce Richardson of Infor, who recently recounted what he called the enduring appeal of System i, formerly the iSystem, formerly the AS/400. Richardson, who joined Infor a few months ago, was surprised that so many customers run Infor software on the venerable IBM hardware and that the customer retention rate "continues to be several points higher than our 93% level average across all of our products." Read more...

Fishbowl Inventory has given its resellers until June 30 to decide where they want to fit in the company's new VAR program. Current participants must choose between working as referring consults or preferred VARs. That requirement was outlined in a video of a session about the new program, available on the vendor's Web site. Read more...

Exact is planning on recruiting new resellers and driving more of its products through its channel, including Globe, Synergy and JobBoss. But for most of the 30 channel members, the former Macola products are still their primary offerings. Of the two products to cross the Atlantic from Europe, Synergy and Globe, Synergy is offered by many of the dealers. Read more...

Qurius, one of the top Dynamics VARs in Europe, has struggled through much of the last year. It halted payment on debt last year and then caught up by using proceeds from a subsidiary it sold. And it lost money for 2009. The company has now formed an International Leadership team to design a new strategy.

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