The VAR Guy

The VAR Guy had a bit of an attitude this week. Spam. Meetings. Bad fast food. Hmmm… the distractions, the phone calls and the heart burn never seemed to stop. Alas, here are six channel party blog entries that The VAR Guy was too busy — or too lazy — to write for the week ending March 19, 2010.

A friendly (and timely) reminder. The VAR Guy’s sister site, MSPmentor, this Wednesday (March 24) will host a live webcast focused on Hardware as a Service (HaaS) and Technology as a Service (TaaS). Two fast-growing solutions providers — Everon Technology Services and Black’s Support Services — will describe how they promote, sell and profit from HaaS. Executives from both companies and CharTec (a HaaS specialist and the event’s sponsor) will answer questions throughout the webcast. We look forward to your participation and questions.

The Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) battle is getting aggressive. The latest move involves Microsoft and Citrix ganging up against VMware, hoping to switch VMware customers over to VDI solutions that leverage Microsoft and Citrix virtualization technologies. Microsoft is also changing its Windows licensing model to potentially speed VDI deployments. Here’s the scoop.

Cloud integrators. Those two words describe an emerging group of VARs, solutions providers and MSPs that piece together and manage multiple cloud solutions for customers. But is the cloud integrator term pure hype — or here to stay? Hmmm… Before you answer that question, consider an important lesson involving so-called Web integrators from the dot-com error, um, era.

Amid all the hustle and bustle of the iPad, Apple’s homepage today is plain with one news story. There are no ads or links to fancy pre-orders or special deals. Apple’s front page today serves as a memorial to Jerome B. York, one of Apple’s (and many other companies) most influential directors. He passed away on March 18th 2010 at 71 years old…

ZyXEL, the networking solutions company we’ve been tracking for some time now, has announced they’ve done a little spring cleaning with their ZyWALL series. A little polishing, a little upgrading, and some new features. Read on to find out…

VMWare is launching ThinApp 4.5 for your customers’ Windows 7 migration virtualization needs. Here are the potential implications for VARs or MSPs who are dealing with migration issues or legacy application.

It’s not the final nail in the coffin, but it’s yet another sign of Windows XP’s decline. Microsoft is officially dumping Windows XP support in the next iteration of Internet Explorer. Here’s the why and how and what’s next from Microsoft…

Paragon Software, whose expertise is in data management and security, is launching  Virtualization Manager 2010 Corporate Edition. The software could help VARs and solutions providers with Windows environment software migrations. Here’s a quick look at the potential benefits.

Yes, even business intelligence partner programs are connecting with the cloud. One prime example: Birst, an upstart in the BI market, says 27 systems integrators have joined the company’s SaaS-centric partner program. Here’s the scoop.

We’d previously reported that hosted Internet telephony automation service provider Ifbyphone had acquired VoIP application development environment Cloudvox, but now it looks like the acquisition is yielding its first fruit. Cloudvox has announced a pay-as-you-go rate of $0.03/minute and some new features for developers. Here’s the scoop.

Canonical’s effort to diversify beyond Ubuntu Linux continue to accelerate. Even as the company preps Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) for April 2010 launch, Canonical is also promoting Landscape — a remote management tool — to resellers and end-customers. And there’s even a cloud management twist. Here’s the scoop.

Ouch. Painful headline. But The VAR Guy is growing tired of social media “experts” trying to make a buck off of small businesses that are desperate to bolster their online identities. So, how can you tell a true social media expert from a pretender? Here are seven clues.