The VAR Guy

During a phone chat today, a Web developer asked The VAR Guy if the US financial crisis would send more corporate customers running out to buy low-cost open source solutions. The VAR Guy’s surprising answer: No. Here’s why.

Stocks are tanking. Banks are closing. The polar ice cap is melting. The world is ending. In this time of crisis, Apple finally has a message for corporate CIOs: Buy some Macs. In fact, Apple is hosting online seminars to promote the Mac as the most secure desktop for today’s enterprises.

General crankiness with technology appears to be on the rise. Is it because of the stress in the US financial marketplace, are people in general just overworked? Are they getting what they were promised?  Were they promised something and didn’t get what was asked for? Here are five ways to prevent customer crankiness from spoiling your revenue stream.

The VAR Guy is an Apple fanboy. But that doesn’t mean he owns AAPL stock. Consider this: Apple stock has fallen from $179.32 on Aug. 14 to $128.24 today. Hmmm. That’s nearly a 30% drop in a scant six weeks. Financial analysts say there’s nothing wrong with Apple — other than major doubts that the company can maintain its torrid growth rate.

Julie Parrish does, indeed, plan to attend Symantec Partner Engage in Washington, D.C., this October, according to a company spokeswoman. Our resident blogger was curious yesterday when he noticed that Parrish wasn’t on the event agenda. But the spokeswoman assured The VAR Guy that Parrish, VP of Symantec’s Global Channel Office, will be in the house, and meeting with press during the event.

The VAR Guy intends to keep a close eye on Symantec Partner Engage — a channel event scheduled for Oct. 15 to 17 in Washington, D.C. The conference is an ideal setting for Symantec to break bread with any partners that are worried about the company’s channel commitment. However, here’s something curious: Julie Parrish, VP of Symantec’s Global Channel Office, is not listed as a guest speaker on the agenda.

Microsoft expects to share Windows 7 alpha code during its Professional Developers Conference in October. That got The VAR Guy thinking: Does the old closed-source model of bug chasing and alpha, beta and gold product development releases still work?

A new research report sponsored by, ahem, Microsoft says Windows and Linux offer the same total cost of ownership in emerging markets. The VAR Guy wonders: Are emerging markets somehow getting a break from Microsoft pricing and security software costs that the rest of us don’t receive?

Kudos, Red Hat: You beat financial estimates for your current quarter. Wall Street was impressed. And customers are falling all over each other to sign long-term business deals with you. Still, The VAR Guy was disappointed will one key data point you shared this week.

A year ago, 15 percent of Alfresco’s sales involved channel partners. This year, the open source content management company will drive 60 percent of its sales through channel partners, The VAR Guy has learned. So, what can other open source companies learn from Alfresco’s channel strategy? Take a look.

Millions of iPhone users download applications from Apple’s App Store. Now, Cisco Systems is considering a similar online App Store approach in the corporate market. Eventually, the networking giant may launch an online service or central repository to help you find Unified Communications applications and Widgets, The VAR Guy has learned. Here’s the scoop.

It’s time for The VAR Guy to eat a little crow. A few weeks ago, our resident blogger predicted that Google Android — the new mobile operating environment — would arrive late to market with reduced features. He was wrong on both accounts. The first Android device, called G1, ships soon. And early reviews are positive.

The VAR guy enjoyed reading a recent blog entry from Sean Phelan, a former Dell Direct evangelist who is now helping the PC giant to build its partner network. Here are some quick thoughts from Phelan.

New Channel Chief Javier Colado has his eyes on multiple opportunities to bolster Novell’s partner program. In this quick email interview with The VAR Guy, Colado describes some of his executive experience, and some of his initial goals.

When it comes to coping with the US economic storm, VARs can run and hide — or they can strive to line up new IT projects even faster. If you’re the type who keeps pressing forward, spend a few minutes checking out the newly revamped OnForce marketplace, which allows VARs to outsource projects to each other across the US and Canada.

Fonality, which specializes in open source phone systems, is answering the U.S. Gulf Coast’s call for help following Hurricane Ike. Fonality CEO Chris Lyman (pictured) had a rather intriguing disaster recovery idea following a chat with The VAR Guy. Here’s the scoop.

Back in August, The VAR Guy reported that Lenovo was preparing to launch its first servers. Our resident blogger expected the operating system options to include Windows Server, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Novell SUSE Linux. Turns out, Red Hat wasn’t invited to the Lenovo server party — at least not initially.

The VAR Guy is blushing. Earlier this evening he was researching companies that run Ubuntu Linux on servers and desktops. Soon, he stumbled across an intriguing Ubuntu case study involving a company called T & A Lingerie. That’s when the fun started…

The VAR Guy has reached his breaking point. Each week he receives dozens of online meeting invites from vendors. The online presentations often contain lame product pitches, complex diagrams or terrible PowerPoints. Even worse, the online conference software often doesn’t work with The VAR Guy’s Apple MacBook Pro. It’s time to put an end to this nonsense, and reinvent these briefings.

Sometimes, bad or stressful news for one company spells opportunity for another. Consider the situation at GroundWork Open Source, a systems management company that competes with Hewlett-Packard OpenView. Apparently, GroundWork Open Source is looking to capitalize on the layoff news out of HP. Here’s a look.

It’s official. Even CNBC says the Wall Street meltdown has spilled over into Main Street USA. Credit is getting tighter. It’s going to be difficult for entrepreneurs to make deeper investments in their own business. But don’t panic, folks. Here are five steps every VAR and managed service provider should take — right now — to generate more recurring revenue during the economic turmoil.

Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd is taking out the hatchet again, this time cutting 7 percent of HP’s workforce — or 24,600 jobs — over the next three years, according to Reuters. The move will reduce costs as HP digests the recent acquisition of Electronic Data Systems (EDS).

The VAR Guy was saddened to hear Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright died today from cancer. Totally depressing, but thank you for the memories, Mr. Wright.
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