The VAR Guy

More than 2,600 partners will converge at this week’s VMware Partner Exchange conference in Las Vegas. Big channel names such as Arrow ECS and Ingram Micro will lend their names to the event. Multiple cloud and virtualization storylines will emerge. But The VAR Guy is zeroing in on one thread: VMware’s strategy for Zimbra, the recently acquired open source email platform.

The VAR Guy doesn’t want to throw any of his sources under the bus. But this much is clear: Zimbra employees will be attending the VMware Partner Exchange. And VMware is working rapidly to coordinate its channel partner program with Zimbra’s partner program.

Look Back to See Ahead

When VMware announced plans to acquire Zimbra in January 2010, VMware CTO Steve Herrod offered up the following views, stating that the VMware vCloud initiative had…

• Surpassed 1,000 members, including telecom, hosting and service providers
• vSphere for infrastructure as a service (IaaS)
• SpringSource for platform as a service (PaaS)
• And now Zimbra for software as a service (SaaS)

And therein is the opportunity for the VMware-Zimbra combo:

• First, get vCloud partners to promote and support Zimbra to end-customers
• Second, cross-train Zimbra’s existing 450 hosting partners to offer VMware’s vSphere IaaS and SpringSource PaaS services

The VAR Guy doesn’t expect “big” Zimbra news at VMware Partner Exchange. But stay tuned, folks. Our resident blogger expects the VMware-Zimbra combo to move forward quickly.

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