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More enterprises are turning to virtualisation to solve data centre capacity problems but finding its more difficult than anticipated.

This half-day seminar (Tuesday 5th February at Le Méridien Piccadilly, London) with key speaker John Humphreys who is an expert in Virtualisation,  looks to change that. Attendees will learn that a mixture of operating systems can be an effective way of operating; that it is possible for interoperability to reduce complexity and that there is an easier path to virtualisation.  Click here to register and see full agenda.

The key lesson is 'Know what you want.' My company has been outsourcing some web design and maintenance for over five years. The first few years it was mostly done with UK companies but two years ago we decided to cut our costs dramatically by outsourcing abroad. We decided to start with a couple of new, non-mission crictial projects especially around the customisation of open source software. I am one of those people who believe that to learn something you have to put your toe in the water but try and make sure you don't get your foot bitten off in the process.

The communication challenges were interesting to say the least and timeframes stretched. Part of it was our fault and part of it lay with our partners. The real root of the problem is that having worked with a UK company with whom you could just explain the broad business objective, we learnt over time that you have to be very clear in knowing exactly what it is that you want when working with an overseas company. If your guidelines are broad there are lots of opportunities for misunderstandings. If there is an opportunity for misunderstanding the chances are it will happen! Of course, you cannot expect someone else to know what you want if you are unclear in your own mind so try and layout your ideas on paper, plot the broad functionalities that you need and then encourage a dialogue both with the overseas project manager and the programmer who is working on it.This process should allow you both to be clear in what it is you want done.

Another long-time Windows user has reached an inflection point. Mike Perkowski, a 30-year veteran of business and technology journalism, is ready to scrap his Windows PC. The veteran of PC magazine, CMP Media and Ziff Davis Media suffered a Windows meltdown days ago. Now COO of Microcast Communications, Mike's days with Windows appear over.

At first glance, The VAR Guy was underwhelmed by Dell’s decision to offer Sun Solaris on selected servers. But after an hour of digesting the news — and his lunch — The VAR Guy thinks this deal is a rare triple play for Dell, Sun and customers. Here's why.