The VAR Guy

Miami Beach, New York, Las Vegas, San Francisco and San Jose. How many places can The VAR Guy really be at once? You’ll find out over the next few days. In the meantime, here are six channel partner blog entries The VAR Guy didn’t have time to write for the week ending Feb. 26, 2010.

Parallels, the company you may know for their virtualization muscle, is bolstering their server virtualization by supporting Apple environments.That’s right, they’re introducing a ‘world first’ — the bare metal hypervisor for Apple Xserve. Any takers…?

Initially, The VAR Guy wasn’t all that impressed with Novell’s latest financial results, announced Feb. 25. But our resident blogger overlooked one important fact: Novell’s SUSE Linux business is now break-even. That’s an important milestone — but what does it say about the broader open source industry’s march to profitability? Here are some clues.

Tech Data puts another notch in their belt as the first distributor in the Americas to ship the Cisco Service Provider Video Technology Group portfolio of solutions. They call it the SPVTG for short, and we think VARs in any sort of video-related niche (or even digital signage) might want to take a look…

Public institutions are looking into the cloud as a money-saving maneuver, and rightly so. Now Microsoft is breaking into that market with the unveiling of BPOS Federal, a version of its hosted online collaboration and productivity suite with enhanced security aimed at filling the needs of the federal government. Here’s what VARs should know.

As I sit in my home office in the cold Canadian north (well not that far north, just about 60 kilometres west of Toronto), I’m preparing for my upcoming business trip to Latin America (and looking forward to leaving the cold behind). Starting March 1, I’ll be spending 10 days meeting with Value Added Distributors (VADs) in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. Many of the topics we’ll be discussing will revolve around ‘The Acquisition’ (no relation to ‘The Situation’), increasing operational and sales efficiencies, and finally how they and their customers can continue growing their businesses.

You already know IBM is pursuing Sun Microsystems’ customer base. But here’s a twist: Red Hat and its channel partners seem to be helping IBM pursue Sun’s customers. It’s all part of a fierce, sometimes emotional battle between Red Hat and the Oracle-Sun camp. Here’s the scoop, from The VAR Guy.

Novell’s latest quarterly financial results, revealed today, were a mixed bag for the SUSE Linux provider. Novell made progress in some areas. But didn’t really thrive in others. Where does the company go from here. The answers will likely surface at the Novell BrainShare 2010 conference (March 21-25, Utah), where Novell will strive to energize channel partners and customers? In the meantime, here’s a look at Novell’s current business condition … through the eyes of The VAR Guy.

Admittedly, most VARs have yet to jump into Amazon’s cloud. But that may soon change. Here are three prime examples highlighting how Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) are catching on with solutions providers. In some cases, the solutions providers may not even realize they’re working in Amazon’s cloud. Take a look.

Services are where the money’s at right? One hundred percent margin! What about when you sell a hosted solution, can you still wrap the same services around it? Maybe not, but maybe you can sell more profitable services.  The way I see it there are 3 basic service groups that most solutions providers and MSPs offer. Here are the implications for partners.

At first glance, rivals Ingram Micro and Tech Data are launching regional SaaS and cloud experiments involving channel partners. But take a closer look at North America, Europe and Australia, and you’ll see the start of a global SaaS battle between Ingram Micro and Tech Data. Here are the details, and the implications for solutions providers.

Cisco TelePresence: It’s nifty technology, but not everyone can afford it. But that’s where  Starwood Hotels and Resorts steps in. They’ve unveiled their first in-hotel Cisco TelePresence meeting suites. That means they’re ‘public’ to the extent that you’d like to rent one. The flagship hotels?  The W Chicago City Center in Illinois and the Sheraton on the Park in Sydney, Australia. But more are coming, and soon. Here’s the scoop about the new plan and partnerships…

Wyse Technology, one of the leaders in thin and zero client computing, has joined forces with Microsoft. The result? A sub-$100 zero client that works with Microsoft MultiPoint Server 2010. Aimed at the  education market and keeping costs low, education resellers and VARs may want to listen up.

The Rackspace Cloud posted a net revenue of $56.4 million in 2009 — an increase of almost 125% from 2008. Impressive. But the company will need partners to help maintain that type of growth. With that goal in mind, the cloud hosting provider has launched a partner program to keep that ball rolling. Read on for details.

FalconStor, which has been working more closely with MSPs like nScaled Inc. (formerly LegalCloud) in recent months, is now getting cozy with Tech Data, the big distributor. Specifically, Tech Data is now distributing FalconStor Software data protection storage solutions. Here are some particulars for channel partners.

CA Inc. is continuing its push into cloud services with the acquisition of infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) solution provider 3Tera and their flagship product AppLogic. Here’s the deal.

Just one day into the Digital Signage Expo (DSE) and the news about Ingram’s foray into digital signage, we already have people jumping on board. Hiperwall Inc. has announced a US distribution agreement with Ingram. Details follow…

AMD, the chip and card maker recently had a webcast emphasizing the importance of not neglecting that very unique specialized piece of hardware: your graphics card. Touting the performance and versatility of their ATI brand, they shared some knowledge on an otherwise unknown channel strategy.

As they partner up in the hosted Unified Communication market, Unison Technologies and Intermedia issued a warning for VARs and managed service providers: Don’t surrender to Microsoft Online and Google Apps. The warning, issued at the Parallels Summit in Miami, comes at a key time for VARs that specialize in traditional Exchange Server options. Here are the details.

Tech Data has enhanced their Advanced Infrastructure Solutions (AIS) Division, beefing up their data center solutions for VARs with four new solutions groups. Here are some quick specifics.

The prevalence of wide-area networks has made network optimization by way of MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) a $16 billion industry. Talari Networks has been taking a bite out of that market since late 2009 with their Adaptive Private Network (APN) solution, which provides MPLS-like functionality over the public Internet. And with the launch of Talari’s partner program last week, resellers potentially can too. Here’s how.

Citrix Online has launched GoToManage, a remote monitoring and management (RMM) tool for VARs and managed service providers. To launch the tool, Citrix quietly acquired Paglo Labs, a SaaS (software as a service) specialist in the MSP market. How will GoToManage potentially benefit channel partners? Citrix Online VP Elizabeth Cholawsky and Paglo CEO Brian de Haaff provide details in these two FastChat videos.

It’s right around midnight. The VAR Guy should be sleeping. But our resident blogger just heard another wake-up call for entrenched security software providers. The details: Lenovo and Sophos are set to announce an expanded security partnership aimed directly at the channel. The deal, set to debut Feb. 23, calls for Lenovo to offer Sophos security and “data protection technology bundles” with Lenovo Think-branded PCs for corporate customers. Where do VARs fit in? Here are some clues.