The VAR Guy

The VAR Guy clearly has his finger on the pulse of the channel community. And the community is eager to find profit maximizing strategies to take advantage of SaaS and Cloud Computing. But all of the advice out there could leave your head spinning. So I’ll give you two helpful filters to help you get started.

Having a few moments to reflect on a flight to Miami for the Autotask Community Live event, it struck me how important communities have become in the IT business. April is the busiest time of the year for events in the industry, followed by October. Lenovo will be participating in nine events in the next three weeks covering that many cities. How are events related to channel communities? And is it time for channel vendors and organizations to have chief community officers? Let’s take a look.

Earlier this week I spoke with Byron Attridge of ClubDrive. The backbone of their business involves Citrix. I’ll share more details on April 26. In the meantime, ClubDrive was kind enough to give me a virtualized demo account to play around with, and I’m running the using the Citrix client on Apple’s iPad. Here’s a few details on what I’ve seen, and some implications…

April 20th marked one of the most unhappy days in McAfee history, because  virus definition update — version 5958 — gave a “false positive” identification of the infamous critical Windows process “svchost.exe”. Short version? McAfee thought it was a virus, and Windows ends up not  booting up. Here’s the remedy, the aftermath, and the official word from McAfee.

Ingram Micro CEO Gregory Spierkel believes the economic recovery is real, and is positioning the distributor for multiple emerging opportunities — perhaps even with SaaS and cloud partners. Spierkel shared his business views with The VAR Guy during a FastChat video earlier today. Here are the details.

Why buy one iPad when you can purchase two — or more? That’s the mindset for a growing number of iPad users. Just ask Blaine J. Raddon (pictured), VP of sales channels and general business at Juniper Networks. Here’s are the details.

Red Hat’s latest beta of RedHat Enterprise Linux version 6 has popped up, and there’s a plethora of new features. But there’s also one feature missing, and it’s not a mistake. Xen hypervisor is conspicuously absent, and there’s good reason why. Read on…

Storage solution provider Dot Hill Systems Corp. says Winchester Systems will be leveraging their R/Evolution architecture to deliver a new line of ruggedized storage arrays to US military and commercial surveillance customers. Here are the details.

Generally speaking, most traditional VARs still seem focused on Microsoft environments. But Travis Austin (pictured), founder of ReziTech, sees the world from a slightly different view. He’s building a managed services business that leverages Ubuntu Linux and Asterisk, the open source IP PBX. Here’s why.

Stealing a page from The Godfather, Lenovo thinks it has developed a wireless Thinkpad offer that VARs won’t be able to refuse. The PC and notebook giant has a new partner program model that allows VARs to earn up to a 20 percent margin plus a $100 per-device bonus each time a notebook customer activates mobile broadband service. Here are the details.

Like a lot of solutions providers, Rorke Data realizes that a lot of customers want to extend their investment in end-of-life (EOL) or end-of-service (EOS) equipment. So how did Rorke Data answer that call for EOL and EOS help? And how did the solutions provider generate recurring revenues from the efforts? The secret to success involved an ISMO (Independent Service Maintenance Organization) strategy. Here are the details.

A final reminder: Join MSPmentor (The VAR Guy’s sister site) today (Wednesday, April 21, 2:00 p.m. eastern) for our MSPmentor Live webcast, which will cover  Remote Hardware Management Strategies. The webcast will feature cases studies from two growing MSPs: Tom Beckman from IT Authorities and Jay Muraglia at Base2. Tom and Jay will each describe how they remotely manage customer hardware  — even after hours — without requiring any end-customer assistance. Also, we’ll review some real world ROI information for customer engagements, which involve Intel’s vPro technology. Intel will be on hand to answer additional questions. And yes, we’ll take your question throughout the webcast. Register now and I look forward to your questions today.

The HP Slate — Hewlett-Packard’s answer to Apple’s iPad tablet — has made it into the wild. There isn’t too much back story, but basically, a Mexican website named Conecti.ca got hold of an HP Slate before the rest of us and gave it a look over. Here’s the full story…

Netgear says its entire fleet of ReadyNAS family has earned the “VMware Ready” stamp of approval. VARs working with Netgear and looking at virtualization might want to read on…

Intronis, the online backup provider, continues to generate record monthly performance and will continue to grow its partner program. That’s the message from founder and CEO Sam Gutmann (pictured), amid a search for a new channel chief to replace outgoing VP Eric Webster.

LTech has launched a CloudManage service, which they describe as “a blended offering of technology and services designed to improve the health performance, and reliability of enterprise cloud computing programs.” In plain terms, LTech is offering to manage customers’ cloud infrastructure. Here’s how.

Managed communication service provider MegaPath has tapped industry veteran Darren Chamberlain to head up their channel efforts. As MegaPath’s Director of Channel Sales, Chamberlain will be tasked with improving relationships with the provider’s resellers while also trying to boost sales. Here’s the scoop.

While the channel-news-world slept over the weekend, this blogger was up and catching the latest on a weekend development regarding an unusual new iPhone. At first, it was dismissed as a fake, then a Japanese counterfeit, but now it looks like it’s actually legitimate. Is this Apple’s biggest leak yet?

Cisco Systems has completed its buyout of Tandberg for $3.4 billion in a effort to expand and improve their telepresence business. But the news arrives as upstarts like Zenith Infotech and Vu Telepresence also enter the market. Here’s the deal.

The Planet, the managed hosting provider that works closely with the channel, yesterday announced at the New York City Cloud Computing Expo that they’re building a cloud offering around the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) in partnership with the Linux Foundation. I stopped by the show floor to get the scoop from Carl Meadows, The Planet’s senior manager, product management. Read on for more.

Changes are afoot at Intronis, the online backup company. Sources say VP of sales and marketing Eric Webster — essentially, the company’s channel chief — is leaving to join another high-tech company. Here are the preliminary details as only The VAR Guy can deliver them.

According to AppleInsider, Apple may be courting AMD in a possible CPU switch-a-roo. Nothing is official yet, but AppleInsider is reporting that “people familiar with the matter” have noticed AMD execs on Apple’s campus and commuter coach buses. Is Apple really looking to switch processors — or at least offer AMD options to gain price leverage over Intel? Well, actually…

In January of 2010, we covered CES pretty closely and one of the highlights was the newly designed of the Lenovo Skylight. Designed to be a ‘smart book’ by running a custom Linux OS, the Skylight still hasn’t seen the ‘light’ of day in the market, and it may not for some time longer. Speculation abounds that the Skylight might be late because it’s getting tweaked to position itself against the iPad. But Lenovo offers a different explanation for the delay. Here’s the deal…