The VAR Guy

Collax Inc. is trying to make its mark in the small business market. The company, which makes a Linux-based alternative to Microsoft Small Business Server, has launched a channel partner program that includes special incentives for VARs. But there’s a catch: Partners need to sign up by Oct. 31 in order to receive rebates beyond normal product discounts.

I got a call Wednesday from Michael Parker, a global product marketing manager for Symantec’s Backup Exec. He’s riding out tropical storm Ernesto in Orlando.

Every few months, my wife insists that I start throwing away old business magazines that are piling up in my home office. I finally caved into her demands yesterday. That’s when I stumbed across Fortune’s “Most Admired Companies” edition of 2005. Topping the list: Dell.

When Novell announces quarterly results on August 29, recently appointed CEO Ronald W. Hovsepian will have nothing to lose. If the company delivers poor results, Hovsepian can blame his predecessor (Jack Messman) and describe a turnaround strategy. If the quarterly results reveal some upside, Hovsepian can take the credit.

Let’s face it: Many businesses can’t afford to give smart phones and mobile email devices to their employees. But what if you or your customers could avoid proprietary mobile email charges, and lower the cost of supporting mobile devices? That’s where Funambol enters the picture.

Paul Weinstein, executive VP of business development at MySQL, tells me the open source database provider will launch a major channel push sometime this October.

In addition to meeting MySQL, I toured five other up-and-coming companies today. My most animated chat occured at Barracuda Networks’ offices, where I met Ezra Hookano, VP of sales, North America, and Stephen Pao, VP of product management.

Before calling it a day (and writing this blog), I had dinner with JasperSoft CEO Paul Doscher. His company specializes in open source business intelligence (BI) software. BI is a very fragmented market with expensive software. In other words it’s ripe for consolidation or a low-cost alternative. With fewer than 50 employees, JasperSoft has 4,000 paying customers and sales of its open source software have recently grown more than 100 percent from quarter to quarter.

I’ll be on the road most of this week in San Francisco and San Jose, meeting with a range of open source and networking companies. I’m wrapping up my visit by attending VoiceCon at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Anoop Gupta, VP of Microsoft’s Unified Communications Group, is one of the keynote speakers. Microsoft is working closely with Nortel to push deeper into VoIP applications. In many ways the strategy puts Microsoft on a collision course with Cisco Systems.

Like many companies, IBM thinks the small and midsize business (SMB) sector is a prime target for new technologies and services. But unlike many rivals, IBM is opening its wallet to help resellers engage SMBs. Big Blue estimates that it will spend $100 million supporting SMB channel partners with various tools, technologies and marketing programs. If you want a piece of the action check out IBM’s Express Track site.

At the LinuxWorld conference in San Francisco, open source continues to march up the software stack–from operating systems to databases to applications. The CRM sector, in particular, seems ripe for open source.

You can change a company’s name. Change its CEO. And change its logo. But changing a company’s sales culture? That’s the hard part. CA once again has disappointed investors with poor quarterly results. The company plans to cut about 1,700 employees or about 11 percent of its work force. CA has its share of loyal partners. But I wonder how long investors will back CA’s management team.

While watching TV last night I was surprised to see Best Buy advertising laptops with biometric security. Lenovo was among the first notebook makers to promote biometric security, selling its 1 millionth ThinkPad with an integrated fingerprint reader in January. CXOs and auditors who carry confidential information on laptops were the first users to jump on the biometric bandwagon. Backed by Best Buy, it’s a safe bet biometrics is ready to go mainstream.

Calling all PC bounty hunters. Unisys is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of a missing desktop PC. The system, which looks like this, contained information about 38,000 veterans. If you’re ready to turn in your friends for $50K, call 1-800/CALL-FBI.

Scott Murray, we hardly knew ya! Six months after 3Com named Murray to succeed Bruce Claflin as CEO, Murray has resigned because he was “not able to commit to the extended time in China.” 3Com replaced Murray with Redline veteran Edgar Masri.

Greetings from Orlando, host of CompTIA’s Breakaway event for solution providers. My meetings kick off at 10 a.m. and run through most of the day. I’ll be sitting down with an interesting mix of established ISVs (such as Diskeeper) and MSP-enablers (such as Autotask).