The VAR Guy

Enterasys is quickly moving from being the “best kept secret in IT” to a force to be reckoned with in the networking space. And it has its channel partners to thank.

McAfee, an Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) security business, continues to accelerate its SMB push with channel partners, according to Senior VP of Worldwide Channels Gavin Struthers. But what exactly is McAfee doing in the SMB market with partners? Struthers, McAfee’s channel chief for about four months now, offered The VAR Guy some updates.

If the steadily growing user base and market share of Skype are any indication, the service, which is now nearly a decade old, will remain widespread on PCs, smartphones and other devices for a long time to come. But for Linux users, the future of Skype support is appearing a bit less certain. Will Skype — owned by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) — still run on open source platforms five years from now? Here are some thoughts.

Enterprise software company SAP (NYSE: SAP) unloaded a slew of announcements at its Sapphire Now conference in Orlando this week, including a new wave of mobile apps for Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android and RIM’s (NASDAQ: RIMM) BlackBerry devices, and an agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) (NASDAQ: AMZN) to offer its cloud-based mobile device and application management platform, Afaria 7.0.

Technology giant Hewlett-Packard (HP) (NYSE: HPQ) continues to expand its partner programs, this time focusing on the PartnerONE program by adding new features to its Marketing Depot resource that enable partners to customize HP demand-generation tools to boost their marketing firepower.

Lenovo believes its channel partners have been and will continue to be the key to its success as it seeks to overtake the top spot in the PC space and make a name for itself in the server/workstation market — that’s the message Lenovo hammered home during its Accelerate 2012 partner event in Las Vegas.

On the second day of its Accelerate 2012 partner event, Lenovo gave attendees a sneak peek at its upcoming ThinkPad X1 Carbon 14-inch Ultrabook, as well as additions to its  T, X, L and W Series.

With mobile-based and Web-based payments on the rise, the PCI Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) is reaching out to systems integrators and resellers with a training program for secure installation and maintenance of validated Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS) applications into customer environments to support Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliance.

As a company, Inktank, one of the open source ecosystem’s newest commercial enterprises, is only days old. But it has already made a determined foray into the Linux server market with the announcement this week of integration of the Ceph distributed file system into Ubuntu 12.04. Here’s the scoop, and what it says about both Inktank and Ubuntu.

On the back of an underwhelming quarterly financial report and the divestment of its enterprise wireless voice solutions business, unified communications specialist Polycom has updated its RealPresence video content management platform for Google Android and Apple iOS mobile devices. The Video Content Management solution will be available worldwide July 2012.

Enterasys Networks is bringing its partner base to Las Vegas for its annual partner confab, slated for May 15-17, 2012. The venue isn’t as exotic as last year’s event in San Juan, Puerto Rico, but with the amount of information Enterasys has packed into two days, there’s little doubt attendees will notice.