The VAR Guy

Rising energy prices. Sub-prime lending woes. Slowing consumer spending. Amid all these economic fears, IBM disclosed stronger-than-expected quarterly (though preliminary) financial results today. The VAR Guy is a little bit relieved. But let’s not celebrate too much. It’s great to hear good news from Big Blue–but plenty of question marks continue to surround the IT market in 2008.

Cisco Systems is practicing what it preaches. For the past year, the networking giant has helped partners to recruit, retain and empower employees. Find your best talent, the networking giant said, and promote it. Cisco followed that very advice when the company named its new North American channel chief, Wendy Bahr (pictured).

Brace yourself for a rare event: The VAR Guy is about to eat crow. Last fall, he dumped Microsoft Office for an open source suite. Now, he’s making the leap back into Microsoft’s arms. What went wrong with our resident blogger’s open source experiment? Here’s the scoop.

The VAR Guy pays his American Express bill in full every month. Apparently, more small businesses and consumers are struggling to make those full payments, though, according to a warning issued today by American Express. For small business solutions providers, this is yet another signal to proceed with caution into 2008. Here’s what the news means to channel players.

Ingram Micro’s Infrastructure Technology Solutions (ITS) Division is now selling and supporting the complete line of IBM System Storage N series hardware, software and solutions for small-to-midsize enterprises (SMEs).

The VAR Guy is a fly on the wall this morning at Nine Lives Media Inc., the startup company that operates this site. As he bangs away this blog entry, he’s please to hear the first executive decision from the Nine Lives team: “We’re standardizing on Macs.”

The VAR Guy hates the “R” word. Everybody seems to be talking about an imminent “recession.” A Harvard economist insists there’s more than 50 percent chance of the US heading into a recession. Hmmm. Will IT sales hold up in the small business space? Here are two quick perspectives from thought leaders at Cisco Systems and Autotask (a leading managed service platform provider).

Cisco expects to announce a new North American Channel Chief by February. Will the position go to a Cisco insider — or is it time to raid Microsoft’s channel team to fill the post? Here’s some speculation from The VAR Guy and reaction from Cisco Senior VP Chuck Robbins — who was promoted from the channel chief post to focus on commercial business.

Apple server fans and open source fanatics are about to engage in a group hug, The VAR Guy has learned. It will soon be easier to run Mac OS X and Linux side-by-side on Apple servers. How will this magic occur? The answer will surface at Macworld Expo January 14 in San Francisco. Here’s what to expect.

OK, folks. The VAR Guy needs to add some video to his site. So where should he start? He has hundreds of channel-related videos from which to choose. But let’s kick things off with an old clip of Steve Jobs sharing his thoughts on Microsoft.

Why rent when you can buy? That’s the question The VAR Guy kept asking himself over the holidays. After blogging for multiple third-party sites in 2006 and 2007, The VAR Guy decided it was time to build a home of his own. The result is this Web site.

The VAR Guy respects distributors. Apparently, so does Goldman Sachs. The big financial house has upgraded Ingram Micro’s stock. Hmmm. What’s behind the move?