A Christmas open house during the recent holidays brought home the social media divide among adults. I was pondering the fact that in the last two months I hit 400 Facebook Friends, about 1,024 Twitter followers (it tends to fluctuate a bit) and 1,040 LinkedIn connections. But at the get together, I was confronted by several adults in their 50s and 60s who had no clue about how to get value from social media – and most of whom were IT professionals.

The message was not made in its statement about acquisition of the Tectura's North American business. But UCX Ltd. said in its 2013 annual report that market was one of its prime areas. "High market growth of Microsoft Dynamics AX in the North American and US market presents an opportunity for increased growth within a sector in which we have strong Global leadership," managing director Cris Nicolli wrote in the document on August 22.

Infor has started a micro-vertical product program for partners based on the Infor Mongoose development framework. Partners can build industry-specific applications with the Mongoose platform enabling them to more easily design and deploy applications without knowledge of complex source code or programming languages. After presenting an application idea to Infor, partners have the opportunity to build and promote the envisioned product with the help of Infor's technical staff and global sales organization.

Avalara is increasing the commission its channel members can earn on business referred to the sales-and-use tax company. The company is keeping the rewards front-reward based on input from the channel. "The overwhelming feedback from our partners was that they wanted more upfront, and cared much less about recurring amounts which were too small and too far out in the future," says Pascal Van Dooren, EVP of marketing and sales for the Bainbridge Island, Wash.-based company.