The VAR Guy

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

Sunday, April 22:

• CA World: Has CEO John Swainson finally exorcised the demons from CA’s culture? We’ll all get some clues during CA’s big partner and customer event in Las Vegas. We’ve heard CA promise to fix itself before. But now that new management is firmly in place, it just might be true.

Monday, April 23

• Juniper delivers quarterly earnings, but The VAR Guy is looking ahead: The company will host a big partner conference May 20 in Las Vegas.

Tuesday, April 24

• Arrow Electronics and CDW check in with earnings; we’ll see whether recent acquisitions have helped both companies. The VAR Guy will also be watching WebSense, a channel-friendly security company that hit a few bumps recently.

Wednesday, April 25

• Apple delivers quarterly results. One of these days, growth will slow. But consider these two anecdotes. The VAR Guy spoke with a prominent entrepreneur last week who said she is buying the iPhone “without even trying it” because “Steve only ships products that are ready.” Another source, a CTO at a small technology company in New York, just ordered Apple TV for his kids. “They didn’t ask for it and I don’t even know what it does,” he told The VAR Guy. “But if it’s Apple it’s got to be good.” Hmmm. The iPod Halo Effect strikes again.
• Others reporting results include Avaya and Citrix Systems.

Thursday, April 26:

• Lots of earnings today (Avnet, Ciber, Extreme Networks, McAfee, NetGear, etc.). But the two companies The VAR Guy will watch most closely are EarthLink and Microsoft. EarthLink’s results will indicate how the muniwireless/public broadband market is progressing. And Microsoft will provide a reality check on Windows Vista adoption rates. Just last week, Dell said it would re-introduce Windows XP on selected consumer PCs–the latest indication that Vista isn’t setting the world on fire.

Friday, April 27

• The VAR Guy will be working from home. If it’s a sunny day, he my find some time to shoot some pool in his back yard in between client calls and editorial deadlines. Spring, it seems, has finally arrived in New York.

That’s all for this week’s Sunday Brunch. The VAR Guy returns Monday.