This week, at XChange Tech Innovator in Las Vegas, we presented the 2009 Tech Innovator Awards. Awards went to those companies that created the most dynamic new opportunities for solution providers, and winners included companies like Fortinet, Xerox and Panasonic, who each snagged "Innovator of the Year" awards. Check out all the winners in our slide show, and look for more details coming soon.

The latest issue of CRN Tech is online now, featuring an in-depth look at just what a business intelligence platform actually does:

"One differentiator between BI and your run-of-the-mill business analysis software, according to some BI tech analysts, is the ability of BI to not only do data analysis but to also do data visualization."

We also test out two of the best BI platforms, from JasperSoft and Cognos.

The issue also features a detailed rundown of the benefits and risks of running your office apps in the cloud, using Microsoft Office's Web Apps or Google Docs:

"There has also been growing concern about the security and reliability of the cloud-based world in which both Google Docs and [Microsoft] Apps reside. Recent incidents of Distributed Denial-of-Service, or DDoS, attacks have brought sites' other cloud-based platforms, like Twitter and Facebook, to standstills, albeit temporary ones."

In addition, you'll find reviews of more than a dozen of the latest products coming to the channel, including:

• Ubuntu 9.10, Karmic Koala;
• The Blackberry Storm2;
• Network storage appliances devices from LG, Quantum, and Iomega;
• A new portable projector from Viewsonic;
• Seagate's HD Media player;
• Digium's 'VoIP-in-the-box';
• AVG's security suite;
• Belkin's smart powerstrips;
• Samsung's latest digital camera;
• Insights into Lotus' future;
• And what makes users happy.

Don't forget, solution providers can apply for a free subscription to CRN and CRN Tech.

A stunning report from Business Week on two researchers who studied the Boeing workforce through years of cutbacks. How much is this affecting your organization? How much is it affecting you?

"Human resources specialist Frank Zemek was the researchers' main contact. In an interview, he recalled "the survivor's guilt of the people who were left, who were waiting and not knowing if the hatchet was going to fall on them. They experienced the worst stress."

As more manufacturing was outsourced, workers said they no longer felt as if they were building planes. They were simply snapping them together. They obsessed about the loss of institutional knowledge. Managers who had fired people, meanwhile, confessed deep, pervasive grief—what researchers sometimes call "executioner's lament." Moore says they tended to become emotionally numb and disengaged.

In the greatest surprise of all, the researchers discovered that the people who had been laid off often were happier than those left behind. Many had new jobs, even if they didn't always pay as well. Over and over, Moore says, average depression scores were nearly twice as great for those who stayed with Boeing vs. those who left. The laid-off were less likely to binge drink, often slept better, and had fewer chronic health problems. "

The Amazon Kindle has lit up the e-reader marketspace, with a user-friendly design, rich library of content, and handy wireless capabilities. And now Channelweb is there!

We've just launched the Channelweb Kindle Edition, a live feed of our latest news and blog posts deliverd over Amazon's wireless network and fomatted specifically for reading on your Kindle.

Try it out with a 14 day free trial. If you like it, keep it, with a $1.99 monthly charge. You'll find more information at our Channelweb Kindle Edition page on Amazon -- let us know how it works for you.

Smart phone users: don't forget that Channelweb's latest news is also available free for you anytime at http://m.crn.com.

We're anticipating some great weather here in the northeast U.S. this weekend--wherever you are, here's hoping it's a good one for you. For some great reading, take a look at these recent articles, from Channelweb and elsewhere on the 'net:

The 'Rogue' San Francisco Admin

I've written before about Terry Childs, the San Francisco network administrator who locked his superiors out of the municpal network and wound up locked up himself. In August, a judge dismissed most of the charges against Childs, leaving only one. At InfoWorld, Paul Venezia has stayed on the story:

"One charge remains: the charge that Childs violated a California statute regarding illegal denial of service for the San Francisco FiberWAN... But can that statute apply to someone who was hired and paid by the government to build, maintain, and repair that network, especially given that no damage was done, no resources were denied to any employee, and the network suffered no downtime?"

Though the charges were reduced, the $5 million bail was not, leaving Childs in jail, where he's been for over a year.

From the latest CRN

This month's magazine featured typically insightful analysis of the current tech landscape, including:

Bob DeMarzo on the economic recovery, such as it is...

"Credit is becoming less constrained while corporate profits are near historical lows. So perhaps an uptick in IT spending is on the way in a couple of quarters. But don't open the champagne just yet."

Steven Burke on Best Buy:

"From this vantage point, it looks like there is a lot more bad business than best buys at Best Buy. And it's that bad business that is sure to lead more customers from Best Buy to solution providers. "

Robert Faletra on cloud computing:

"Regardless of when cloud computing will be the dominant delivery of computing resources, it is going to reshape much of what we know today."

And Larry Hooper on ways to use Channelweb Connect:

"Say, one of your vendors is causing you some trouble. Maybe the salespeople are pushing a little too hard near the end of a quarter or they are taking bigger clients direct. Is it you? Or is it a pattern? Pose that question on Channelweb Cosnnect and the answer will come..."

Don't forget, subscriptions to CRN are free for solution providers...

Our Most Popular Articles Online In August:

Smartphones, OS upgrades, cyber-crime, and more topped our most visited pages last month:

10 Hottest Smartphones 0f 2009

Side-By-Side: Snow Leopard and Windows 7

The Most Powerful Women of the Channel

Simple: Theft Of 130 Million Credit Card Numbers Didn't Take Much

The Top 30 Channel Contenders of 2009

If you already knew about all that, try our news quiz for August.

Assorted Links:

BusinessWeek has just come out with an optimistic look at The Return of Capital Spending, saying:

"A BusinessWeek analysis of companies in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index found that 45% increased their global capital expenditures in the second quarter from the prior one. Only 19% did so in the first quarter... Companies generally don't shell out money on new equipment, software, and buildings unless they think demand is picking up and profits are sustainable."

Surprise! Multitaskers Not Very Good At Multitasking.

And finally, here's an interesting twist on some summer advice "everyone knows" -- what should you do if you're stuck in a rip-current? It may be best to stay right where you are:

"If you swim parallel to the shore... there's a 50-percent chance you'll end up be swimming into a stronger current. But if you just tread water... there's a 90 percent chance of being returned to shore within about three minutes."

Be careful out there, and have a good weekend!

One way to make the most of Channelweb is to get your own subscription to CRN magazine--the first, and still the top, publication covering the technology channel marketplace.

Channelweb Connect members can apply for a free subscription now, at subscribecrn.com. You'll get the annual VAR 500, Fast Growth, Partner Program Guide, and Channel Champions issues, along with key insights on business trends and technologies throughout the year. In addition, you'll hear from Everything Channel's top editors, solution providers sharing their observations about what they're seeing in the field, and the top tech product pics from the Test Center. And it's all free to qualified solution providers, so sign up today!

Smart solution providers are always on the lookout for ways to grow their business and better serve their customers, and if that means bringing in new products from new vendors, that's just fine.

CRN has recently completed a detailed survey of solution providers to see which vendors are challenging the market leaders in fourteen different technology categories, including servers, security, storage and networking. In Meet The Channel Contenders, our Scott Campbell reports:

"With the economy lagging, many solution providers say it makes sense to look at more vendors in a given technology product category as a means to reduce costs, make more margin and provide more choices to customers."

You'll find the contenders that solution providers chose in each category described in our slide shows:

The complete report wraps up with our picks for The Top 30 Channel Contenders of 2009.

A much-linked post on Slate yesterday declared, "The Recession Is Over!", quoting proprietary research from the Economic Cycles Research Institute, and other sources:

"[ECRI's] long-leading index growth rate has been recovering since November 2008, the weekly leading index has been recovering since last December, and the short-leading index growth rate bottomed in February 2009. In sequence, each turned up... Sure, corporate profits continue to disappoint, and the unemployment rate is climbing. But for ECRI, which navigates by relying exclusively on its instruments, that's only a part of their picture..."

Using earlier ECRI data, econo-blogger Barry Ritholtz pegged the end of the recession "sometime in the first half of 2010". So this is good news -- though job creation remains a way off.

Even rough times have an upside for solution providers, though. Our Steven Burke reports that businesses are reaching out to solution providers:

"The OnForce Services Marketplace Index for the second quarter shows a marked rise in services partners providing "micro-staffing" services for IT departments struggling to do maintenance and network changes in the wake of layoffs."

Though things are not as promising on the hardware side. In another report, Burke finds a corporate world laden with too many PCs:

"A huge excess supply of IT equipment in businesses, a result of a blizzard of layoffs in corporate America... is going to continue to provide a hang-over for PC product sales oriented solution providers."

But there's always the hope of new technologies shaking up the market. See our reports: 10 Glimmers Of Hope In The IT Industry Wreckage, Upcoming Tech That Will Rock Your World, and Five Trends That Help VARs Grow.

Meanwhile, veteran industry observer Michael Malone says high tech may even get fun again:

"The last seven years of high tech can be characterized as a dozen or so major companies, each with a lock on their marketplace, and each doing their damndest not to interfere with each other’s success...

Everywhere you look right now, companies are moving fast to step on each other’s turf. And when I say fast, please note that almost none of this had surfaced even three months ago - and now almost everything seems to be in play."

Finally, Robert Faletra's May advice remains sound:

"You have to plan for a weakened economy at least through next year. If it improves faster, then it's a plus, but I don't think you can count on it... This downturn is the longest of our adult lives and it is going to set many more records before it is all over. You have to cut costs, conserve cash and find new sales to get through this. "