Thanks for reading,
-TVG

‘fall back into a slumber’

to:

‘fall back into a deep slumber’

(It is the first time, that I triple-posted before a response, but when Billy Jack said: ‘My right foot will hit the right side of your face and there ain’t going to be a damn thing you are goin’ to do about it’ he went ahead and thwarted the threat to his livelyhood, but mostly to the kids. This is a natural reaction, when threatened, once again, sorry for the over-reaction.)

Sorry, kinda need to tone down the message, as I just got through the bullet points and read your summary.

I think now that I over-reacted to the statement in your article:

‘“How do you get partners excited about your solution if there is little to no opportunity to make money on licenses?”

The obvious answer is services.’

But after reading your conclusion, it seemed your article was well-balanced like Newt and Barack are well balanced. But I am like Sgt. Schulz awakened by the Hogan’s Heroes gang, tip-toeing in front of me. Immediately I may raise my gun and cry out, but I will eventually revert to the usual: ‘I see nothing, I know nothing… and then fall back into a slumber’

The obvious answer is services.’

I did read the article in January, and it is obvious that you are well learn’d in the technology and the channel. I disagree with the obvious answer. The correct answer is:

If you can’t make money on the licenses, sell something else that you do make money on, as the recommending vendor – who supplies the equipment and the O/S and software will get the integration business, too – THANK GOODNESS WE DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THE SCENARIO WHERE WE RECOMMEND AN O/S, AND DON’T MAKE 30% on the O/S sale, because we sure as hell ain’t going to cede this business to an online software retailer. So double bonus margin is out there instead of single bonus margin. And check out manufacturer’s spiffs on the hardware and software. Pretty soon you will be making a great margin selling the sofware at the current street price. In other words, any integrator or var should be able to go to computershopper.com and type in the software SKU and make 30% margin selling the O/S and ancillary software at the lowest listed price and make a good 30% margin, selling it at the lowest street price among the legitimate online resellers, like CDW.com, bestbuy.com, staples.com, etc, etc. Otherwise sell something else (I am looking straight in your eyes snd telling you this like Clint Eastwood looked into that one dude’s eyes and said ‘go ahead, make my day!’). And if you can’t find a decent O/S to sell at street price and make a 30% margin, then find something else to do like opening a pizza parlor. Most people may say that Neil Sedaka is stale, even though I like his hit: ‘Breaking up is hard to do’. But like Neil said: ‘When the Beatles hit the scene, it was all over for me.’ And that is where Linux is. You are the Brady Bunch when you need to be Beverly Hills 90210.

I love thevarguy.com, keep up the good work, as I read you regularly…