The VAR Guy

The VAR Guy did’t attend CA World in Las Vegas last week. But he digested information from a bevy of sources. He hears CEO John Swainson set the tone for an upbeat but relatively low-key event. For CA, that’s a welcome change from the repeated scandals, executive changes and customer showdowns the company used to face. Here are five reasons to believe CA really is a transformed company–and three reasons to remain concerned about the CA’s future.

The VAR Guy didn’t serve brunch today. Instead, he was busy landscaping his sprawling Long Island Gold Coast estate–all 0.18 acres of it. He finally checked his email in this evening. It was filled with buzz about Microsoft and open source CRM. Hmmm. What is Steve Ballmer up to now?

The VAR Guy has written extensively about Microsoft’s problems. But today, he got a stunning reminder about the company’s power. It takes Microsoft only 10 hours of business to exceed Red Hat’s entire quarterly profit. Skeptical? Check out the math, and nine other facts about Microsoft’s profits.

The VAR Guy didn’t intend to pick on Novell when he woke up this morning. But he has to admit: His eyes rolled back in disbelief when he read TheStreet.com’s story headlined “Novell Turns It Around.” Is this the Novell you all know — or is it merely a financial writer trying to pump up a company that remains in transition?

The VAR Guy was half-right. He figured MySQL would launch a partner program during this week’s big customer and developer conference in Santa Clara. He also expected the open source database provider to announce plans for an IPO later this year. Alas, Wall Street may have to wait a little longer.

The VAR Guy is choosing his words carefully for this blog entry. He doesn’t know for certain if Dell plans to pre-load Red Hat Linux on desktop PCs. But circumstantial evidence pointing to that possibility is mounting. Here are the facts.

Symantec is set to announce quarterly results on May 2, but The VAR Guy is focused on the company’s longer-term business. And he’s here to tell you: Something big is coming, folks. And it involves an online showdown with up-and-comer Trend Micro.

Cisco Systems is showing no mercy in the unified communications market. CEO John Chambers wants to bury Microsoft and Nortel. Now, he’s calling on a massive software partner to help knock out the competition.

If you’re a solutions provider seeking to develop hosted applications, it might be time to give Salesforce.com a call. Here’s why.

Welcome to Sunday Brunch for April 22, 2007. Here’s a look at items The VAR Guy is watching this week.

While working from home today, The VAR Guy noticed a package at his front door. It was a generic brown shipping box, about the size of a brick. Hmmm. Had The VAR Guy’s new iPhone arrived a little early? Sort of.

Apparently, many PC buyers prefer Microsoft’s older, poorly secured operating system rather than the shiny new Windows Vista. In fact, Dell has decided to re-introduce Windows XP on some of its consumer PCs, effective immediately. Next up: There’s a high possibility that Dell will introduce PCs with Ubuntu Linux, The VAR Guy hears.

The VAR Guy has a message for Redmond and the PC industry. It’s time to put an end to craplets, those “useless, annoying trial versions of programs” that are packed onto new Windows PCs, as the Wall Street Journal put it today.

You’ve heard the hype about managed services. The VAR Guy wanted a reality check. So he dialed Corporate Network Services Inc., a solutions provider that recently embraced managed services as part of an ambitious business transformation that most VARs have yet to begin. What was the outcome? Far better than The VAR Guy anticipated.

Hold the iPhone. Cisco Systems and Apple may wind up fighting for the remote control in your living room. Here’s why.

The VAR Guy rarely writes about industry research reports. You can never tell who’s really funding them. But in this case — involving a showdown between open source vs. traditional IT management software — he’ll make an exception.

It happens every time a software company pushes into managed services. The media immediately begins to speculate: Will the managed service empower VARs or compete with them? In the case of Symantec’s new managed services platform, VARs are participating in the development and roll-out process. So far, so good, The VAR Guy hears.

One of The VAR Guy’s neighbors just received a Dell notebook at work, which he called a “laptitude or something like that.” Like millions of other consumers, this neighbor had never heard of Dell’s Latitude brand. Apparently, Dell is finally read to change that.

Current CA Inc. management has worked overtime to clean up the accounting mess left behind by former CEO Sanjay Kumar. Now, CA alleges former Chairman and Co-founder Charles Wang also was involved in the fraud. (He denies the allegation.) How did CA and Wang reach this showdown? Here are 15 defining moments that changed CA forever and ultimately turned the company against its co-founder.

The bruising battle between AMD and Intel this week shifts to Wall Street, where both companies are scheduled to announce quarterly results. Sure, we’ll learn just how badly Intel has hammered AMD — and whether AMD thinks it can recover quickly. But we also may receive valuable clues — some spoken, some silent–about Windows Vista’s ability to drive PC upgrades this summer.

The VAR Guy hears it over and over again: One of the next killer applications for IT consultants is video surveillance deployed within a city wireless mesh solution. That was a big theme at the Cisco Partner Summit in early April. And it’s a growing theme among IT consultants, including those that partner with Firetide Inc., a wireless mesh vendor.

Imagine if Microsoft turned against Bill Gates or Oracle turned against Larry Ellison. That’s the scenario unfolding on Long Island this weekend, as CA Inc. (formerly Computer Associates) alleges its founder and former chairman Charles Wang took part in accounting fraud at the company.

Until now, Wang’s former right-hand man–former CA CEO Sanjay Kumar–had taken most of the heat for the accounting scandal from earlier this decade. But CA finally appears ready to play hardball with Wang, who is no longer associated with the company.

Talk about strange timing. The VAR Guy was on the phone with CA representatives on April 13, discussing a completely different subject. During the quick chat, The VAR Guy noted that CA had been unusually quiet in recent months. No big executive departures (unlike the revolving door of 2006). No shareholder battles. Just lots of planning for the April 22 CA World conference in Las Vegas. Finally, CA was focused on customers instead of controversy.

And then all this news breaks later in the day. First, Kumar agreed to pay nearly $800 million over his lifetime to victims of the accounting fraud. Then a special committee on CA’s board also pointed a finger of blame at Wang. Fortunately, neither event should imact CA’s customer focus since CA itself isn’t on the hot seat.

Long Island’s daily newspaper, Newsday, has followed Kumar’s legal troubles closely. But the newspaper rarely, if ever, speculated about Wang’s possible involvement in accounting problems that plagued CA. Wang left the company in 2002, and Kumar was later found to have cooked CA’s books.

But were there two cooks in the kitchen? Wang says no way.

Ironically, all this controversy could be exactly what CA needs as it prepares for CA World. Fortune Magazine in 2006 called CA the most dysfunctional company in America. Current CA management has a chance to prove that change truly is under way.

Sometimes bad news is good news. Apple has finally confirmed rumors that it will delay its next-generation Leopard operating system in order to focus more assets on shipping the iPhone in June. No problem, says The VAR Guy. Here’s why.