The VAR Guy

Red Hat is hitting the road and shaking hands with channel partners. In fact, the Linux and open source middleware provider is launching a training road show for Red Hat Advanced Business Partners. But that’s not all. The VAR Guy thinks Red Hat’s annual channel revenues will potentially top $600 million within five years, up from about $326 million today. Here’s the math.

Talk about a strange move by Microsoft. The Windows 7 Release Candidate is now available for download to selected audiences, with broader availability expected May 5. Kudos, Microsoft. Solid progress. But why is Microsoft depending on endorsements from Corel Corp. to help evangelize Windows 7? Is the Windows ISV program stuck in 1995?

It’s not quite Roger Waters or David Gilmour, but if you’re interested in Pink Floyd and need to briefly escape from the high-tech market, take a journey to The Dark Side of the Moon with The VAR Guy. Here’s how.

Conventional wisdom says open source software providers are benefiting from the recession as businesses seek lower-cost IT solutions. But if open source is so darn hot, why are two major open source companies — GroundWork Open Source and SugarCRM — cutting prices and/or introducing lower-cost options?

When you hear a name like SAS Institute, casual listeners may assume you compete in the SaaS (software as a service) market. In reality, the folks at SAS run one of the world’s largest business intelligence software providers. Looking ahead, SAS Institute is preparing some SaaS surprises — and channel partners will be welcome to join the party. Here’s the scoop.

When Oracle announced plans to acquire Sun Microsystems (and by association, MySQL), some folks reacted with concern. Others reacted with delight. But one start-up company — named Continuent — certainly deserved to celebrate. Here’s why.

Zimbra, the open source email provider owned by Yahoo, plans to launch a formalized partner program in the next few weeks or so. More than 700 partners already sell or host Zimbra’s software, which is marching toward 50 million paid customers, The VAR Guy hears. But that’s not all. Here’s where Zimbra is heading next in the channel.

It sounds like a simple strategy: Host a contest to give one small business customer a free extreme technology makeover. And use all the publicity around the event to fuel your lead generation efforts. But here’s what can go right — and wrong — with the extreme technology makeover contests that VARs and managed service providers are hosting.

The Asterisk industry seems to be answering a loud, global call for open source IP PBX training. While Digium has started planning for the annual AstriCon conference, solutions providers and training centers are striving to educate the masses about the open source IP PBX. Here are some perspectives.

Some vendors pride themselves on the number of partners they recruit. Congratulations, are partners supposed to be excited about that? Welcome to our partner program! You now have more competition for your business then you did before you joined. I’m not saying vendors should have fewer partners, but let’s be reasonable: Don’t be so out of touch with your partners that you promote your partner list as a benefit to them. Instead, focus on these four secrets to success.

In the managed services market, a growing number of MSPs are partnering up and coordinating their business engagements. This so-called MSP-to-MSP Collaboration is the central topic for MSPmentor’s May 13 webcast. Here are some more details.

After a two-month hot streak, software as a service stocks cooled off for the week ending April 24. Our SaaS 20 Stock Index slipped 2.19 percent for the one-week period. Amazon.com and Salary.com were the index’s biggest weekly winners; Omniture and RightNow Technologies were the biggest weekly losers. Here’s what went wrong — and right — for SaaS during the week.

For more than two months now, the Symantec Protection Network (SPN) blog has been silent. The SPN blog tracks Symantec’s own SaaS (software as a service) strategy and larger industry trends. So, what’s behind the silence? And where is Symantec heading next with SaaS? The VAR Guy has found some clues.

Professional services automation software — which helps VARs and managed service providers to run their businesses more effectively — appears to have reached mass adoption among leading MSPs. A key example: During the HTG 2009 Summit and Q2 peer group meeting in Dallas, virtually all of the 300-plus attending solutions providers indicated that they’re using PSA software.

The VAR Guy double-checked this rumor and got confirmation: Diskeeper may leap beyond Windows to offer disk defragmentation software on Linux and Mac OS X. What’s motivating the potential Diskeeper moves? Here’s the scoop.

After Canonical launches Ubuntu 9.04 on April 23, the company will play an encore by launching a series of training courses — for Ubuntu Server Edition and even cloud computing. Here’s the scoop, only from The VAR Guy.

So, The VAR Guy is seated with Karl Palachuk at the HTG Peer Group conference in Dallas. The conference, designed for VARs to share peer info with one another, has great content and great energy. But the real secret to success is Snackage.

More than 250 solutions providers have gathered in Dallas this week for the 2009 HTG Summit and Q2 Peer Group Meetings. And during tonight’s sessions, one thing became clear: Despite the rise of open source, Microsoft’s partner program is showing no signs of a slowdown.

The trend is undeniable. Technology companies — from OnForce to Red Hat — are launching so-called indexes to track IT trends. Those indexes, in turn, generate considerable media buzz, cross links, mind share and search engine optimization (SEO) for the vendors involved. Here’s the scoop from The VAR Guy.

Synergy. Total IT solutions. Some folks in the channel media are falling all over themselves calling the Oracle-Sun deal a “slam dunk” for solutions providers. Um, The VAR Guy begs to differ. Here’s his second-day look — and skepticism — about the deal.

Just a quick-hit item from Avnet Technology Solutions (ATS). The distributor has launched SecurePath, which helps resellers and channel partners to target the IT security market. Here are some quick details.

I must admit: I can’t keep pace with the number of software companies pushing their applications into Amazon’s cloud. The latest example comes from Vembu Technologies, which has launched their StoreGrid Online Backup virtual appliance for Amazon Web Services. Here is some info from Vembu plus the bigger picture for VARs and managed service providers.

Seeking to drive Lenovo’s channel revenues north, Jay McBain (pictured) packed his bags and headed south. Indeed, McBain moved from Canada to Lenovo’s headquarters in North Carolina, in order to serve as the company’s new director for North American channel sales. The VAR Guy caught up with McBain last week to get a feel for his current priorities.