The VAR Guy

The VAR Guy loves a good crime drama, especially when it involves technology. Have you heard the one about the Cisco reseller who turned to the dark side? The Bad Guy (no relation to The VAR Guy) allegedly used false identities in 39 states to order networking gear from Cisco since 2003.

The VAR Guy has a confession: He barely knows how to use the IP phone sitting on his desk. Basic features like call forwarding and voice conferencing are complete mysteries to him. It sounds pathetic, but there are thousands of IP phone users just like him. Small business and enterprises often don’t have the time or money to offer IP phone training. And users like The VAR Guy are too lazy to seek out phone instructions on their own.

The VAR Guy is often skeptical of software partnerships, especially when the relationships are little more than glossy press releases and empty marketing promises.

The VAR Guy doesn’t blog too often about executive changes. But Patrick Fetterman is one of his old sources from the early 1990s networking industry. Fetterman is also one of the few executives who has mastered managed services.

The VAR Guy stumbled onto a mystery today. During a chat with a 3Com manager, he asked if the company had any plans to support Asterisk—the open source IP telephony server.

As part of an open letter to Michael Dell earlier this month, The VAR Guy strongly recommended that Dell focus on the open source community to jump-start sales. Plenty of people are now echoing that advice.

Microsoft is making numerous moves at this weeks HIMSS conference in New Orleans. The VAR Guy thinks the most interesting initiatives involve SharePoint.

The VAR Guy couldn’t make it to New Orleans this week for the big Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Conference. But vendors are launching a healthy number of channel solutions at the event.

The VAR Guy has had to remain mum about this next piece of news for more than a week. It wasn’t easy. He has a big mouth, a broadband connection and a blog. That’s a dangerous mix.

If you’re about to sell your company or acquire another solutions provider, congratulations. But The VAR Guy also offers this timely warning: Never forget the implosion of marchFIRST, a failed solutions provider formed by the merger of Whittman-Hart and USWeb/CKS.