The VAR Guy

During an executive breakfast at Novell BrainShare this morning, Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian and other members of the executive team answered key questions from partners specializing in Software as a Service, SUSE Linux, Identity and Security Management, and Novell’s other product specialties. Novell also named its partners of the year. Here’s a look at the conversation.

Dell is finally launching their Android-based smart-phone on the AT&T network. Most are calling it a re-branding of their Dell 3i smartphone (Dell says ‘sibling’) that launched in China. Here’s a quick and dirty rundown on what that means, and a sprinkling of speculation…

When you think SAN you might think expensive hardware solutions to expensive storage problems. But CORAID has a few technological tricks up their sleeve. They claim to leverage existing technology, and turn it into a storage solutions for pennies on the dollar. And they’re doing it all through the channel. Storage VARs might want to perk up…

Ming Yong, CEO of Socialwok, the social layer for Google Apps, dropped us a line to announce that his product was getting Buzz — Google Buzz, that is, along with Twitter, Facebook, and RSS feed support. Here’s the scoop on the new feature.

After rejecting an unsolicited takeover bid on March 20, Novell had to communicate some quantifiable business progress during the Novell BrainShare conference this week in Salt Lake City, Utah. With that reality in mind, CEO Ron Hovsepian (pictured) and Chief Marketing Officer/Channel Chief John Dragoon offered The VAR Guy a financial and channel partner progress report on March 22. Here’s a recap.

At the BrainShare conference today, Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian addressed the elephant in the room — Elliott Associates’ unsolicited $2 billion takeover bid for Novell. Then, Hovsepian and Chief Marketing Officer/Channel Chief John Dragoon put the spotlight on Novell’s broader strategy — Intelligent Workload Management (IWM) to enable cloud and virtualized applications — and a new partnership with VerizonBusiness. Here are the top 12 highlights from the keynote.

Canada’s security conference, CanSecWest, starts this week. Word on ‘net from security expert Charlie Miller is that he’ll be exposing serious Apple Mac OS X security flaws at the conference . Should Mac fans be nervous? Well, maybe. Here’s the scoop…

It’s been a few days since Palm announced disappointing financial performance. The Palm Pre, which has been the last bastion of hope for Palm to gain any momentum in the increasingly competitive mobile industry, hasn’t delivered, and Palm is suffering. There’s a lot of rumors as to what will happen to the company and its future as a key mobile player…

The dedicated cloud-watchers here at The VAR Guy have heard some rumblings. Rumor has it Microsoft’s BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite) will soon gain a SaaS application store. Our sources include developers and partners that work closely with Microsoft in the SaaS market. If the rumor pans out, here’s what it could mean for software vendors and the channel.

As The VAR Guy suspected: Nearly a dozen software partners are set to rally around Novell’s SUSE Linux Appliance strategy at BrainShare, a customer and partner conference held this week in Utah. Here’s a look at the SUSE Linux partners — from Black Diamond to Zmanda — and the implications for Novell’s channel partners. Plus, a look at potential software appliance partners Novell still needs to recruit.

The VAR Guy is set to see Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian (pictured) and Chief Marketing Officer/Channel Chief John Dragoon at the Novell BrainShare conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. Here are five key channel partner questions for Hovsepian and Dragoon.

Novell’s board has considered and rejected an unsolicited $2 billion takeover bid from Elliott Associates, a hedge fund that wants to swallow SUSE Linux and Novell’s other core products. Novell’s rejection of the bid, announced March 20, answers some questions but raises others on the eve of BrainShare, the company’s big customer and partner event in Salt Lake City, Utah. Now the twist: Novell’s board essentially wrote an open letter to other potential suitors. Here’s the analysis from The VAR Guy.

The VAR Guy had a bit of an attitude this week. Spam. Meetings. Bad fast food. Hmmm… the distractions, the phone calls and the heart burn never seemed to stop. Alas, here are six channel party blog entries that The VAR Guy was too busy — or too lazy — to write for the week ending March 19, 2010.

A friendly (and timely) reminder. The VAR Guy’s sister site, MSPmentor, this Wednesday (March 24) will host a live webcast focused on Hardware as a Service (HaaS) and Technology as a Service (TaaS). Two fast-growing solutions providers — Everon Technology Services and Black’s Support Services — will describe how they promote, sell and profit from HaaS. Executives from both companies and CharTec (a HaaS specialist and the event’s sponsor) will answer questions throughout the webcast. We look forward to your participation and questions.

The Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) battle is getting aggressive. The latest move involves Microsoft and Citrix ganging up against VMware, hoping to switch VMware customers over to VDI solutions that leverage Microsoft and Citrix virtualization technologies. Microsoft is also changing its Windows licensing model to potentially speed VDI deployments. Here’s the scoop.

Cloud integrators. Those two words describe an emerging group of VARs, solutions providers and MSPs that piece together and manage multiple cloud solutions for customers. But is the cloud integrator term pure hype — or here to stay? Hmmm… Before you answer that question, consider an important lesson involving so-called Web integrators from the dot-com error, um, era.

Amid all the hustle and bustle of the iPad, Apple’s homepage today is plain with one news story. There are no ads or links to fancy pre-orders or special deals. Apple’s front page today serves as a memorial to Jerome B. York, one of Apple’s (and many other companies) most influential directors. He passed away on March 18th 2010 at 71 years old…

ZyXEL, the networking solutions company we’ve been tracking for some time now, has announced they’ve done a little spring cleaning with their ZyWALL series. A little polishing, a little upgrading, and some new features. Read on to find out…

VMWare is launching ThinApp 4.5 for your customers’ Windows 7 migration virtualization needs. Here are the potential implications for VARs or MSPs who are dealing with migration issues or legacy application.

It’s not the final nail in the coffin, but it’s yet another sign of Windows XP’s decline. Microsoft is officially dumping Windows XP support in the next iteration of Internet Explorer. Here’s the why and how and what’s next from Microsoft…

Paragon Software, whose expertise is in data management and security, is launching  Virtualization Manager 2010 Corporate Edition. The software could help VARs and solutions providers with Windows environment software migrations. Here’s a quick look at the potential benefits.

If Gnome developers are to be believed, the desktop of the future arrived last week when the release candidate for Gnome 2.30–which could become Gnome 3.0–was made available.  My CPU needed a workout, so I recently compiled the new desktop and gave it a run.  Here’s a look at the desktop environment that–like it or not–may soon be coming to a computer near you.

This year (2010) marks the 10th anniversary of a lot of things: Tuvalu’s entry into the United Nations, Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, and the debut of Windows ME, for example. But much more importantly, 2010 marks OpenOffice.org’s tenth year of existence. To celebrate, here’s a look–literally, because there are a lot of screenshots–at how OOo has evolved throughout the decade.