The VAR Guy

When The VAR Guy heads to CompTIA Breakaway, he’ll be sure to poke around to see what Dell’s up to at the show. In the meantime, here’s some color commentary regarding Dell and its managed service strategy from our sister site, MSPmentor.

The VAR Guy hears OnForce will give away Nintendo Wiis at CompTIA Breakaway next week. Our mystery blogger by day (and video game addict by night) will stop by the OnForce booth — with open arms and empty hands — to say hi. (Are wii clear?) Kidding aside, here are five things The VAR Guy wants to hear from OnForce at Breakaway.

As we approach next week’s LinuxWorld Expo, The VAR Guy was reminded of an age-old problem. During a meeting earlier this week in New Orleans, a solution provider told The VAR Guy he just didn’t understand how to profit from open source. Didn’t we put this issue to rest a long time ago? Perhaps not. Here are eight ways VARs can profit from Linux and Open Source.

Every networking company would love to build an online community of loyal customers and partners. But F5 Networks has actually done it. And that could lead to a competitve advantage in the market.

The VAR Guy has been on the road non-stop in recent weeks. He’s blogging live from F5 Networks’ partner summit this week, before heading to CompTIA Breakaway (Aug. 5-7, Orlando) and LinuxWorld (Aug. 4-7, San Francisco). What does The VAR Guy expect to see? And does our resident blogger ever stop working long enough to go home? Here are some answers.

It’s difficult to remain upbeat and optimistic amid all the negative talk down on Wall Street. But when things seem bleak and the press writes about declining stock prices, remember this: Everybody isn’t selling. Each time someone puts in a sell order, it has to be matched with a buy order. And high trading volumes mean there are thousands of buyers scooping up stocks at bargain levels (or so the buyers hope). Keep the faith.

David just threw a rock at Goliath. During a 20 minute keynote at F5 Networks’ Partner Conference in New Orleans, CEO John McAdam delivered an upbeat view of his company’s business outlook. And he casually mentioned why he believes F5 is beating Cisco Systems in the data center.

When LinuxWorld Expo kicks off August 4 in San Francisco, The VAR Guy will be watching the event closely. In fact, he expects four key trends — related to Canonical and Ubuntu Linux — to emerge at the conference. Here’s the scoop.

Back in January, The VAR Guy openly wondered if F5 Networks could become the networking industry’s next $1 billion company. Our resident blogger will have a chance to ask VARs and solutions providers that very question during the F5 Partner Summit in New Orleans this week. And he’ll also listen to F5 CEO John McAdam’s keynote. Here’s a preview.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of travelers were left stranded this week because of bad weather on the East Coast of the United States. Hey, sh** happens. Not a big deal. But JetBlue’s phone system adds insult to injury buy repeating the lame phrase “Happy Jetting” multiple times to frustrated callers. Happy jetting? Not in this lifetime.

The VAR Guy got stranded in Las Vegas this week because of bad weather (impacting flights). So, what does our resident blogger do to pass the time in Sin City?

The VAR Guy was making one last trip around the exhibitor booths at OSCON (Open Source Convention), when he ran into a rather interesting rumor: Canonical is working with hardware partners and application developers to launch Ubuntu Linux server appliances at LinuxWorld Expo in August.

I recently got together with a group of executives from a company based here on Long Island to discuss entrepreneurship. A number of them already have side businesses going on and therefore I won’t name the company. These are people really itching to bust out and succeed on their own. I took some notes from our flip-chart sheets that I thought would be interesting for any entrepreneurs in the making. Here they are:

For roughly two years, The VAR Guy has warned Cisco Systems about the emerging open source threat to traditional IP networks. Now comes word that Voiceroute of Norwalk, Conn., is gaining momentum with a unified communications system based on open source.

Meow. The VAR Guy loves a good cat fight, especially when he has front-row seats to the feud. The latest scratch-fest involves Astaro clawing Symantec and trying to run away with Syamantec partners.

Don’t let slowing growth at VMware fool ya. The virtualization market remains a fast-growth opportunity — though competition between vendors (Microsoft, Citrix and VMware) is intensifying. In order to help VARs navigate virtualization opportunities, Avnet Technology Solutions has launched VirtualPath University.

Canonical recently completed a survey analyzing how customers are using Ubuntu Server. To The VAR Guy’s surprise, quite a few customers are running key business applications (including Enterprise Resource Planning) on Ubuntu Server. Here’s a quick look at the survey results.

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical and Ubuntu, delivered the keynote address at OSCON this evening. Here’s a recap of his presentation, which explored how free software can drive innovation — and how the Linux desktop has to become a piece of art that leapfrogs Apple within two years.

Essentially, all major computer retail stores will carry computers with Ubuntu pre-installed by the end of 2008 or early 2009, predicted a Canonical manager who met with The VAR Guy at OSCON. But this isn’t another Linux desktop PC story. In this case, the computers are Netbooks (also known as sub-notebooks). Here’s the scoop.

Canonical is preparing an Ubuntu Server blitz at LinuxWorld Expo in August. Alfresco, IBM, Openbravo, Zimbra and others are expected to rally around Ubuntu Server at the conference, The VAR Guy learned during meetings at OSCON. Here’s the scoop, and the implications for Ubuntu partners.

How’s this for ironic: Microsoft is actually spending some sponsorship dollars here at OSCON (Open Source Conference) 2008, but Apple is stealing the show — without spending a dime. Here’s how.

The VAR Guy arrived in Portland, Oregon, last night to attend OSCON (Open Source Conference) 2008. He’s heading to the show now and will be providing updates (with an emphasis on Canonical and Ubuntu) throughout the day.

The VAR Guy smiled a bit when he read Matt Asay’s blog entry about media folks who pretend they’re unbiased. Asay says he prefers media and blogs that disclose their biases about tech products, companies, investments, etc. The VAR Guy certainly agrees. So here are some of his biases.