The VAR Guy

CIOs plan to increase IT spending 5.2 percent this year and 4.8 percent in 2007, according to a survey by Merrill Lynch.

Talk about a triple whammy. CA surprised investors today by delaying 4Q financial results, restating 3Q results and delaying a June 8 Financial Analyst Day with Wall Street’s power brokers.

Dell’s decision to preinstall Google search software on some of its desktops is a watershed event in the PC industry.

Gartner and IDC have released their latest sales estimates for the server market, and most major vendors are declaring victory. Let’s check the claims vs. market realities.

Keep a close eye on this week’s Retail Systems Conference in Chicago. That’s where NCR, Novell and other major vendors are unveiling their latest retail-related solutions.

Talk about delivering cradle-to-grave services. BearingPoint says it has helped Texas offer online ordering for birth and death certificates.

For the second time this month, Unisys has made an open source move that warrants your attention. The company has signed a worldwide distribution agreement with MySQL Inc. to support the open source database. The deal comes three weeks after Unisys signed a similar deal with JBoss, a leading provider of open source middleware.

Eager to cash in on the SMB sector? Want to ride the IBM brand into the enterprise? Distributors are happy to help. Ingram Micro today introduced flexible finance and leasing options, face-to-face regional seminars and other services to help solutions providers support SMB organizations. Separately, Tech Data unveiled new services to help integrators develop, sell and support IBM solutions.

For the third time in a month, a prominent CA Inc. executive is leaving the company. The latest departure involves CFO Robert Davis, who is departing “under mutual agreement.” Other recent defections include CTO Mark Barrenechea and COO Jeff Clarke. CA has already warned that its quarterly results, to be announced May 30, won’t meet expectations.

Okay, we admit it. Some of us were Carly Fiorina fans. She made big promises … developed a grand vision for HP’s merger with Compaq … but failed to deliver the financial goods at HP.

Speculation is growing that Oracle will either acquire or develop its own version of Linux within the next few months.

By now, you likely know that Keane Inc. President and CEO Brian Keane has abruptly resigned amid allegations of personal misconduct at the IT consulting firm.

When it comes to managed services, many solutions providers focus on security, storage or email. In stark contrast, netASPx–a managed service provider in Herndon, Va.–has successfully positioned itself as a leading provider of hosted ERP solutions.

Wall Street is buzzing about Dell’s latest earnings warning. But instead of worrying about plummeting PC prices and razor-thin margins, the channel should increasingly focus on software and higher-margin services.

When Cisco Systems announces 3Q financial results on May 9 the company’s channel partners should tune in. Aside from digesting Cisco’s latest earnings and sales data, VARs can pick up key hints about where Cisco is heading next.

If you focus on the server sector, it’s time to change your tune. Instead of focusing on speeds and feeds, you should evangelize heat and power considerations to your customers.

Forget Windows Vista. Maybe Microsoft should call the oft-delayed upgrade Windows 2008. Officially, Microsoft says Vista will ship preinstalled on PCs in early 2007. But Gartner is warning enterprises that the upgrade may face further delays.

CDW is stealing a page from the old Novell Inc. playbook. In the early 1990s, Novell CEO Ray Noorda evangelized his concept of “coopetition”–wherein Novell competed on some fronts but cooperated on other fronts with key tech industry companies.