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.