The VAR Guy

The VAR Guy has applied some polish to the SaaS 20 Stock Index, which tracks trends across SaaS and cloud computing stocks. From January 2010 through the end of July 2010, the SaaS 20 Stock Index has risen nearly 8 percent, despite a 1 percent drop for the week ending July 30, 2010. Plus, some new companies are in the index. Here’s a look at the latest SaaS 20 Stock Index winners, losers and cloud computing updates.

The VAR Guy spent most of this week at the Avnet Technology Solutions Partner Summit, where some alarming conversations took place. Now that our resident blogger is back home on Long Island’s Gold Coast, here are six channel partner blog entries The VAR Guy didn’t have time to write for the week ending July 30, 2010.

How can virtualization VARs and their end-customers manage open source hypervisors like KVM and Xen? Convirture, promoter of ConVirt technology, may have the answer. Here’s why.

Here’s a new spin on the iPhone 4 antenna and signal reception issue: Norway’s largest newspaper (think, The Wall Street Journal for Norway) suggests the iPhone 4 reception issues are related to AT&T’s U.S. network rather than the iPhone 4 antenna. Here’s a closer look at the claims.

We hear a lot of virtualization noise in the market. But VM6 has caught our attention. The reason: They’ve just launched a global channel partner program and VM6 claims to help end-customers leverage existing IT infrastructure. Here are some perspectives.

Jim Sherriff’s new role as head of Cisco Systems’ U.S. and Canada channel strategy raised key question — mainly, how does his enterprise experience qualify him to lead Cisco’s North American channel partners? I had the chance to take that question straight to Sherriff. Here’s what he had to say.

Hosted business solution provider Verio has inked a North American distribution deal with Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions (Arrow ECS), connecting VARs with services like managed private servers, domain name registration, and Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint delivered as SaaS. Here’s a look at the deal.

Distributors and software companies continue to evangelize health care IT opportunities. But how quickly can new VARs generate profits after entering the health care vertical? Here are some stats, along with a look at some of the latest health care-related moves across the IT channel.

Cisco and NetApp have unleashed their new end-to-end Fibre-Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) solution with VMware. It’s designed for a so-called Dynamic Data Center. Perhaps not by coincidence, the trio are making their move the same week that Hewlett-Packard announced its Flexible Data Center strategy. The big question: Which data center strategy will channel partners embrace?

Hosting provider Rackspace Cloud has announced an update to their still-in-beta Cloud Servers for Windows offering, bringing snapshots and backups as well as enhanced scalability to the Microsoft-enabled cloud instance platform. Here’s the skinny.

Google Apps competitor Zoho has launched an affiliate partner program. Can passive partners — everyone from bloggers to SMB web site owners — potentially profit from Zoho’s new SaaS partner program? Here’s some analysis.

Cisco Systems, as The VAR Guy suspected, appears set to announce Jim Sherriff (pictured) as its new U.S. and Canada channel lead sometime today. Translation: Sherriff essentially becomes Cisco’s North American Channel Chief, succeeding Wendy Bahr, who has shifted into a newly designed role. So who is Sherriff? Here are some perspectives — plus an ironic twist involving Hewlett-Packard.

Oracle continues to evangelize software solutions to Sun legacy partners. But do Sun partners need to specialize in Oracle databases, applications and middleware? The VAR Guy gathered some thoughts from Oracle VPs Tom Wagner and Jim Standard, plus Avnet VP Mike Hurst. Here are their perspectives.

It seems like once a year an article or blog gets posted re-igniting the debate on the future of computing devices.  Because I often speak about the future of technology, the topic is of great interest to me — especially when it comes to the future of PCs.

VMware is launching a new Volume Purchasing Program, designed to make it simple for partners and virtualization customers to acquire discounted software licenses in bulk. It’s not entirely straight forward, but VMware says they’ve made the licensing process easy. Decide for yourself. Here’s the deal…

The VAR Guy knows Avnet Technology Solutions works closely with a range of IT vendors. But which solutions providers work most closely with Avnet? And which of those channel partners are generating the most success? Here’s a quick look at Avnet’s partners of the year…

Call it the latest example of coopetition. On some fronts, Cisco Systems and Oracle cooperate. But on other fronts, Cisco and Oracle increasingly compete. That reality is taking center stage this week during the Avnet Technology Solutions Partner Summit near Denver, Colo. Here’s a recap through the eyes of The VAR Guy.

Apptix, which provides hosted Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint messaging and collaboration to the enterprise, has announced a revamped partner program designed to help VARs meet the needs of businesses of all shapes and sizes. The company says the new effort includes increased margins for its partners. Here’s the scoop.

It’s Christmas in July, that is, if you’re an Apple fan and you happen to celebrate Christmas. As we suspected yesterday, Apple has unleashed a new bunch of toys. iMacs and Mac Pros have new CPUs, the 24 inch LED Cinema Display now has a 27 inch brother, and Apple has gone from one mouse button, to ditching the mouse all together with the new Magic Trackpad. Here’s the scoop…

The VAR Guy spent most of today listening to Oracle’s latest pitch to partners. The chatter occurred at Avnet Technology Solutions Partner Summit near Denver. Among the highlights: Some new competitive claims involving Sun’s CMT (Chip Multi-threading) servers allegedly outperforming Intel on some fronts. Here are the details, plus six other Oracle partner trends from the Avnet partner conference.

Memo to Cisco Systems Global Channel Chief Keith Goodwin (pictured): The VAR Guy hears Cisco is set to announce a new U.S. and Canada channel lead. So, is it safe to say there’s a new Sherriff in town? Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge. Hmmm… The VAR Guy looks forward to the official announcement sometime around July 28. HR leaks are welcome in the meantime. Also, The VAR Guy hears you (Mr. Goodwin) just celebrated another birthday. Hope it was a specialized, er, special one. And don’t worry, you don’t look a day older than The VAR Guy, our anonymous but well-preserved blogger.

Novell sometime today is expected to launch an app store of sorts called SUSE Gallery, The VAR Guy hears. With SUSE Gallery, partners and end users can browse and download SUSE Linux software appliances that fulfill specific business needs. Here’s the scoop, plus an interesting Novell twist involving VMware, and ongoing competition with Red Hat.

Oracle is using simple math to explain complex customer opportunities awaiting Sun partners. According to Oracle’s Tom Wagner, there are 130,000 North American Oracle customers that don’t run Sun hardware. Wagner concedes that Oracle is hiring direct sales resources, but he says partners should ignore industry FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) and focus on those 130,000 North American customer opportunities.